Burford Capital Ltd (BUR) 2025 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Ms. Tina and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Burford Capital first quarter 2025 financial results conference call audio webcast. (Operator Instructions) I would now like to turn the call over to Josh Wood, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

今天，蒂娜女士和我將擔任您的會議主持人。現在，我歡迎大家參加 Burford Capital 2025 年第一季財務業績電話會議音訊網路直播。（操作員指示）現在我想將電話轉給投資者關係主管喬許·伍德 (Josh Wood)。請繼續。

Thank you and good morning everyone. It's great to have many of you join us both in person and via webcast for 2025 Investor Day last month. We certainly appreciate you spending time with us today to discuss our first quarter 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. Earlier this morning, we posted a detailed earnings presentation, which we'll refer to during the call, and also filed our Form 10-Q, both of which you can find on our investor relations website.

謝謝大家，早安。很高興上個月有這麼多人親臨現場或透過網路直播參加我們的 2025 年投資者日活動。我們非常感謝您今天抽出時間與我們討論我們的第一季業績。像往常一樣，我們的執行長 Chris Bogart 參加電話會議；我們的首席投資長 Jon Molot；以及我們的財務長 Jordan Licht。今天早些時候，我們發布了一份詳細的收益報告，我們將在電話會議中參考該報告，同時也提交了我們的 10-Q 表，您可以在我們的投資者關係網站上找到這兩份報告。

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 more 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.

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，其中涉及某些風險、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更多信息，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。

We'll 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.

我們也會在電話會議中提及某些非公認會計準則財務指標。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。

With that, I'll turn the call over to Chris.

說完這些，我會把電話轉給克里斯。

Thanks very much, Josh, and welcome, everybody. We're very happy to be here able to talk to you about a strong first quarter. I'll make three points about the quarter. We had a robust new business in the quarter. Sometimes for us, the first quarter can be seasonally slow. We often have a very busy December as we did last year. It can take a little while for the law world to get back into gear. But this year, we saw really a robust volume of new business, tripling definitive commitments, doubling deployments and part of this is because, as we talked about at Investor Day, some of what we do is sort of bread-and-butter litigation and some of what we do relies on something big and chunky occurring, and those don't come along predictably or reliably every quarter. But this quarter, we did see the launch of a new US claim family. So we're excited about that, and that certainly drove some but not all of the activity during the quarter.

非常感謝，喬希，歡迎大家。我們很高興能夠在這裡與大家談論強勁的第一季業績。我將就本季提出三點看法。本季我們的新業務表現強勁。對我們來說，第一季有時可能會出現季節性的淡季。我們常常會像去年一樣度過非常忙碌的十二月。法律界可能需要一段時間才能恢復正常運作。但今年，我們看到新業務量確實強勁增長，最終承諾增加了兩倍，部署增加了一倍，部分原因是，正如我們在投資者日談到的，我們所做的一些工作是基本的訴訟，而我們所做的一些工作依賴於一些重大事件的發生，而這些事件並不是每個季度都能預測或可靠地發生。但本季度，我們確實看到了新的美國索賠家族的成立。因此我們對此感到興奮，這無疑推動了本季的部分活動，但不是全部。

We also saw very strong realization and cash generation activity. Realizations were up significantly compared to either of the first quarters in the last two years, $163 million. That means over the last four quarters, we have brought in really a very significant amount of cash. And as Jordan will talk later, we're sitting on a meaningful amount of liquidity, which positions the business very well indeed for new business and new flows out of the business as the year continues to build.

我們也看到了非常強勁的實現和現金產生活動。與過去兩年中任何一個第一季相比，實現金額均大幅上升，達到 1.63 億美元。這意味著在過去四個季度中，我們確實獲得了非常可觀的現金。正如喬丹稍後會談到的，我們擁有大量的流動資金，這確實為公司在年內不斷發展的新業務和新業務流出做好了良好的準備。

And then in accounting terms, even though we watch the cash more than the accounting numbers, we saw revenue up significantly year-over-year. Significantly in this context for capital provision income meant a 5x increase compared to the first quarter last year and also an increased contribution from Asset Management income. So all in all, we're really very pleased about that.

從會計角度來看，儘管我們關注現金多於會計數字，但我們發現收入比去年同期大幅增長。在此背景下，資本準備金收入顯著增加，與去年第一季相比成長了 5 倍，資產管理收入的貢獻也有所增加。總而言之，我們對此感到非常高興。

And it's in strong quarters like this, especially that we get to really remind everybody that we don't look at this business on a quarterly basis. So while we're happy to be here talking about this quarter, the simple reality is that the cycle of this business is longer than three months. So we focus, first of all, on cash, but we also focus on longer-term arcs of business performance than on quarter-by-quarter numbers. And so I would be saying the same thing to you if this had been a down quarter or a bad quarter, which it clearly was not, we're thrilled with how this quarter went for -- especially for our first quarter.

尤其是在像這樣的強勁季度中，我們才需要提醒大家，我們不會按季度來審視這項業務。因此，雖然我們很高興在這裡談論本季度，但簡單的現實是，這個業務的周期超過三個月。因此，我們首先關注現金，但我們也關注長期業務表現，而不是逐季度的數字。因此，如果這是一個下滑的季度或糟糕的季度，我也會對您說同樣的話，但顯然事實並非如此，我們對本季度的進展感到非常興奮 - 特別是對於我們的第一季而言。

But that doesn't mean that I would be any less happy about the business and where the portfolio stands, and Jon is going to talk more about that if the quarter had been lackluster. And you obviously saw in this quarter somewhat fewer unrealized gains, for example. And again, we don't read anything whatsoever into that.

但這並不意味著我對業務和投資組合的現狀不會感到滿意，如果本季表現平平，喬恩將會更多地談論這一點。例如，你顯然會看到本季未實現收益有所減少。再說一次，我們對此沒有任何解讀。

Just a couple of other points before I turn you over to Jon, one of which is you'll notice (technical difficulty) with Jon and with me just giving you some highlights, letting Jordan really walk through the numbers for you and then take your questions. We're also conscious that we have started doing this just before the US market opens and we've changed the timing of our release to try to maximize both markets trading, especially given how much liquidity has moved to the US market. We're sitting now at something on the order of 85% of our trading volume happening in New York instead of in London. So we're really trying a variety of experiments to see what works best for people in both markets.

在將你們交給喬恩之前，我還有幾點要說，其中一點是，你們會注意到喬恩遇到了一些技術難題，我只是給你們講解一些重點，讓喬丹真正地向你們講解一下這些數字，然後回答你們的問題。我們也意識到，我們已經在美國市場開盤前開始這樣做了，並且我們已經改變了發布的時間，以盡量促進兩個市場的交易，特別是考慮到有多少流動性轉移到了美國市場。目前，我們的交易量大約有 85% 發生在紐約，而不是倫敦。因此，我們確實在嘗試各種實驗，以了解哪種方法最適合兩個市場的人。

And before I turn you over to Jon, just one other point that I'd like to make, given that this is AGM season. You will have noticed perhaps that we put out an additional proxy release a few days ago, maybe a week or 10 days ago. And that was on the back of ISS coming along and recommending that shareholders vote against the reelection of two of our directors, representing two-thirds of the Audit Committee.

在將您交給喬恩之前，考慮到現在是年度股東大會季，我只想提出另外一點。您可能已經注意到，我們幾天前、一周前或十天前發布了額外的代理版本。而這一切都是在 ISS 出現並建議股東投票反對我們兩名董事（佔審計委員會三分之二的席位）的連任之後發生的。

As we laid out in those materials, ISS is just wrong in our view, both factually wrong and wrong in the application of even their own standards. And we'd ask shareholders who are capable of making their own decisions as opposed to simply taking the ISS recommendations to look seriously at that material. I can't imagine that anyone thinks it's in shareholders' interest or the company's interest to eviscerate the Audit Committee here. And while you're doing that, we also would appreciate your support in terms of the discretionary compensation recommendation.

正如我們在這些材料中所述，我們認為 ISS 是錯誤的，不僅在事實上是錯誤的，而且在應用他們自己的標準時也是錯誤的。我們要求那些有能力自己做決定而不是僅僅聽取 ISS 建議的股東認真考慮該材料。我無法想像有人會認為廢除審計委員會符合股東或公司的利益。在您這樣做的同時，我們也非常感謝您對自由裁量薪酬建議的支持。

ISS doesn't like carried interest, which we believe actually is very aligning with shareholders because we don't get paid until the company does. We get paid only when the cash comes into the business, which we think is actually an excellent way of aligning employees and shareholders. But for their own reasons, ISS doesn't agree with that. So we've got a couple of recommendations there that we'd appreciate shareholders taking a look at and reading that proxy material.

ISS 不喜歡附帶權益，我們認為這實際上與股東非常一致，因為在公司支付之前我們不會獲得報酬。只有當現金投入企業時我們才會獲得報酬，我們認為這實際上是協調員工和股東的絕佳方式。但 ISS 出於自身的原因並不同意這一點。因此，我們提出了幾項建議，希望股東能夠查看並閱讀該代理資料。

And with that, Jon Molot.

還有喬恩莫洛特。

Thanks, Chris. Thanks to you all for joining. As Chris said, it was a very strong first quarter. Typically, there's much more that happens at the end of the year than the beginning, but we see this quarter outperform the last couple of years' first quarters. And I think that is emblematic of a trend that I've talked about on these calls successively that after a period post-COVID where I was happy with what was in the portfolio, but you didn't see things moving through and producing cash results. We now have seen in successive quarters, the portfolio performing. You're able to see about its quality, what I've been saying for a long time. And now we've had a stretch where the portfolio really is performing, and I'm very pleased about it.

謝謝，克里斯。感謝大家的加入。正如克里斯所說，第一季表現非常強勁。通常，年底發生的事情比年初要多得多，但我們看到本季的表現優於過去幾年的第一季。我認為這象徵著我在這些電話會議中連續談到的一個趨勢，即在疫情過後的一段時間裡，我對投資組合的情況感到滿意，但並沒有看到事情進展並產生現金結果。我們已經連續幾個季度看到了投資組合的表現。您可以看到它的質量，這是我很久以來一直在說的。現在我們的投資組合確實表現良好，我對此感到非常高興。

In particular, it's maybe worth mentioning something I talked about on Investor Day that the diversification of the portfolio is not just across the risk metrics that we've talked about in the past, diversity of jurisdiction, subject matter, type of counterparty, all those various things that make a balanced portfolio, but also in terms of duration, risk profile and size.

特別值得一提的是，我在投資者日談到的一點是，投資組合的多樣化不僅涵蓋我們過去討論過的風險指標、司法管轄權的多樣性、主題、交易對手的類型以及構成平衡投資組合的所有各種因素，還涵蓋期限、風險狀況和規模。

And we often will invest in more moderate-sized high octane matters early in litigation or at the start of litigation where there's the potential for truly outsized returns, but those also take some time as they go through the litigation process. But those are counterbalanced by we also will do deals with corporates where we might put out a lot more money on a shorter duration, lower risk basis. And one example, which we talked about on Investor Day is we had concluded in the first quarter, a $100 million investment that we put on less than a year ago that ended up generating $125 million and that ROIC is lower than our average, but it's about a 40% IRR. We're very pleased with that because you can then recycle that capital into new deals.

我們通常會在訴訟初期或訴訟開始時投資於規模適中的高辛烷值項目，因為這些項目有可能獲得真正超額的回報，但這些項目也需要一些時間，因為它們要經過訴訟程序。但這些都被我們與企業達成的交易所抵消，在這些交易中，我們可能會在較短的期限、較低的風險的基礎上投入更多的資金。我們在投資者日談到的一個例子是，我們在第一季完成了一項不到一年前進行的 1 億美元投資，最終產生了 1.25 億美元的收益，其 ROIC 低於我們的平均水平，但 IRR 約為 40%。我們對此感到非常高興，因為您可以將這些資本再利用到新的交易中。

So we're happy to have both, and the market very much appreciates that we can do both. We can really offer capital to meet companies' needs and it benefits shareholders because we have both the high octane higher risk matters and the lower risk shorter duration matters that can really churn and compound the portfolio.

因此，我們很高興能夠同時實現這兩項目標，市場也非常讚賞我們能夠同時實現這兩項目標。我們確實可以提供資金來滿足公司的需求，並且使股東受益，因為我們既擁有高辛烷值、高風險的資產，也擁有低風險、短期的資產，這些資產可以真正攪動和複合投資組合。

I guess I would say on the YPF-related litigation that we're still awaiting oral argument on the appeal that's fully briefed. There are pending recognition enforcement actions in various jurisdictions around the globe. You're going to continue to hear noise out of Argentina, if you pay attention. There are people within Argentina who will say we should postpone payment and look for mechanisms to do that despite President Milei's clear indication that Argentina is trying to turn over a new leaf and be a responsible actor in the global economy and making significant progress on that front.

我想說的是，關於 YPF 相關的訴訟，我們仍在等待對上訴進行全面簡要的口頭辯論。全球各司法轄區都有尚未實施的承認執行行動。如果你留心觀察，你將會繼續聽到來自阿根廷的喧囂。儘管米萊總統明確表示阿根廷正努力改過自新，成為全球經濟中負責任的參與者，並在這方面取得了重大進展，但阿根廷國內仍有一些人表示，我們應該推遲付款，並尋找實現這一目標的機制。

Since we last spoke, the most noble development on the economic front is that the IMF package that we expected would be approved and concluded was indeed concluded with lots of fanfare and other deals and announcements surrounding and that was positive. I thought it was notable that the Argentine press actually picked up on the description and discussion of our litigation in the IMF package. There was referenced in discussion of both our matter and another matter that's about 10% the size of ours that the UK Supreme Court had affirmed a judgment in favor of creditors against Argentina.

自從我們上次談話以來，經濟方面最令人矚目的進展是，我們預期將獲得批准和達成的國際貨幣基金組織一攬子計劃確實在眾多歡呼聲和其他協議和公告的推動下得以完成，這是積極的。我認為值得注意的是，阿根廷媒體實際上關注了我們在國際貨幣基金組織一攬子計劃中的訴訟的描述和討論。在討論我們的問題以及另一項規模約為我們的 10% 的問題時提到，英國最高法院已確認了對阿根廷債權人有利的判決。

And the IMF package reflects an agreement between Argentina and the IMF that, that debt -- that these debts, these litigation debts will be treated as an obligation of Argentina and has to be addressed. The one that's already been affirmed by the UK Supreme Court, that's final and has to be addressed now. And ours when and if the appeal is concluded, it says it has to be addressed. And that was on one of the Argentine papers above the fold on the front page, second only to news about the pope who was, of course, Argentine.

國際貨幣基金組織的一攬子計畫反映了阿根廷和國際貨幣基金組織之間的一項協議，即這些債務——這些債務，這些訴訟債務將被視為阿根廷的義務，必須得到解決。該裁決已得到英國最高法院的確認，是最終裁決，必須立即解決。如果上訴結束，我們就必須解決這個問題。這是一份阿根廷報紙的頭版頭條，僅次於有關教皇的新聞，而教皇當然是阿根廷人。

So summing up, the quarter was a very strong one, as Chris said, we saw both money going out the door and money coming back in. We've seen progress, and we're very pleased to have a first quarter, which can traditionally be slower than others performing well.

總而言之，本季表現非常強勁，正如克里斯所說，我們看到資金流出和流入。我們已經看到了進展，我們很高興看到第一季的進展，儘管通常來說第一季的進展會比其他季度慢。

Now to unpack the numbers behind that sort of sentiment and broad discussion, I'm going to turn it over to our CFO, Jordan Licht. Thanks.

現在，為了解讀這種情緒和廣泛討論背後的數字，我將把問題交給我們的財務長喬丹·利希特 (Jordan Licht)。謝謝。

Thanks, Jon. Good morning, everyone. So I'm going to start on page 9. This is our total segments. When you look at total segments, this is a combination of the Principal Finance segment, which invests on behalf of our balance sheet and the Asset Management segment, which invests on behalf of third parties. We'll go through each of these segments in greater detail. I'm going to cover four primary things today.

謝謝，喬恩。大家早安。所以我將從第 9 頁開始。這是我們的總片段。當您查看總體分部時，這是代表我們的資產負債表進行投資的本金融資分部和代表第三方進行投資的資產管理分部的組合。我們將更詳細地介紹每個部分。今天我將講四個主要內容。

First, it's going to be on how the existing business has progressed and the new business that we put on. We'll talk about income from Asset Management. We'll cover our expenses and then finish up with a discussion of liquidity and capital.

首先，我們將專注於現有業務的進展以及我們開展的新業務。我們將討論資產管理的收入。我們將討論我們的開支，然後討論流動性和資本。

Overall, $0.14 per share, which compares favorably to a negative $0.14 in the same period last year. Main driver of that difference is realized gains as well as unrealized gains, and I'm going to dissect that further when we talk about the portfolio.

總體而言，每股 0.14 美元，與去年同期的負 0.14 美元相比有所改善。造成這種差異的主要因素是已實現收益和未實現收益，當我們討論投資組合時，我將進一步剖析這一點。

Jumping to page 12, Jon referenced the diversity. And I think those pie charts on the right of the page actually highlight that, whether it's diverse in terms of our exposure by geography or diverse with respect to asset type. The piece on this page with all the different numbers that I focus on as well is the $511 million. That's the middle red bar right in -- on the bottom of the left-hand side.

跳到第 12 頁，喬恩提到了多樣性。我認為頁面右側的餅圖實際上突出了這一點，無論是按地理劃分的多樣化，還是按資產類型劃分的多樣化。本頁中列出的所有不同數字也是我關注的重點，其中 5.11 億美元。那是中間的紅色條狀——位於左手邊的底部。

What that represents ex YPF is the fair value associated -- the fair value uptick associated with our portfolio ex YPF, and that covered around a third of deployed cost. What that means is that should we continue to progress given our historical returns, there's significant more revenue and opportunity associated with the book. But let's unpack that $3.6 billion a little bit more, jumping to page 13.

這代表著 YPF 以外的公允價值——與我們的投資組合（除 YPF 之外）相關的公允價值上漲，這涵蓋了部署成本的約三分之一。這意味著，如果我們繼續按照歷史回報率取得進展，那麼這本書將帶來更多的收入和機會。但是，讓我們進一步分析這 36 億美元，跳到第 13 頁。

Top of the page starts with revenue, and you'll see we had a nice first quarter, topping last year's first quarter with $35 million of net realized gains. Favorable interest rate movements in this quarter. There was approximately 20 basis points of improvement in the discount rate that we use to present value the portfolio, and that compares to a 19 basis point increase last year. The current average discount rate is approximately 6.7%. That's the rate that we use to discount the cash flows associated with the assets.

頁面頂部以收入開始，您會看到我們第一季的業績不錯，超過了去年第一季的 3500 萬美元淨實現收益。本季利率走勢有利。我們用於對投資組合進行現值的折現率提高了約 20 個基點，而去年則提高了 19 個基點。目前平均折現率約為6.7%。這是我們用來折現與資產相關的現金流的利率。

The bottom of the page is the bridge. It takes you from the end of the period, so 12/31/2024 through to the end of the first quarter. Deployments healthy at $126 million. Those are the existing cases. We've got $61 million associated with the passage of time. I spoke about the change in discount rate. Milestones and other impacts, that's both the changes of assumptions inside the models, milestones as well as the unwind of unrealized gains that move into realized gains. And then realizations, $163 million, which Chris and Jon alluded to, a great start to the first quarter.

頁面底部是橋樑。它將帶您從該期間的結束（即 2024 年 12 月 31 日）開始一直到第一季的結束。部署健康，金額達 1.26 億美元。這些都是現有的案例。隨著時間的推移，我們已經獲得了 6,100 萬美元。我談到了折扣率的變化。里程碑和其他影響，包括模型內部假設的變化、里程碑以及未實現收益轉化為已實現收益的變化。然後是實現金額 1.63 億美元，這是克里斯和喬恩提到的，這是第一季的一個好開始。

So with that, let's go and actually talk about the -- putting the money out the door. The page 14 highlights the definitive new commitments. And as Chris mentioned, we had a great first quarter. This quarter had $158 million of new definitive commitments, and that compares quite favorably to $55 million that was in both the first quarter of '23 and the first quarter of '24. You'll see the different colors. There's no specific target that we're looking for in a particular quarter, but you can see a healthy range of activity and new cases that we put on in this period.

那麼，讓我們開始真正地討論一下——把錢花出去。第 14 頁重點介紹了明確的新承諾。正如克里斯所說，我們第一季表現非常出色。本季有 1.58 億美元的新最終承諾，與 23 年第一季和 24 年第一季的 5,500 萬美元相比，表現相當不錯。您會看到不同的顏色。我們沒有為某個特定季度設定特定的目標，但您可以看到我們在此期間開展了一系列健康的活動並處理了一系列新案例。

The $158 million sources from two places. It's exciting to see $103 million of newly originated matters and then $55 million, that's also new matters. They happen to come from discretionary portfolios that we've established where we had to find and source a new case to add to the portfolio. And so that totals the $158 million. And then if you look at our total of where we sit today with undrawn commitments, we've got $800 million -- just shy of $800 million of definitive commitments outstanding on the existing book.

這1.58億美元的資金來自兩個地方。令人興奮的是，新發起的案件有 1.03 億美元，而新發起的案件也有 5,500 萬美元。它們恰好來自我們建立的自由裁量投資組合，我們必須在其中尋找和尋找新的案例來添加到投資組合中。所以總計為 1.58 億美元。如果你看一下我們今天未兌現承諾的總額，我們有 8 億美元 - 略低於現有賬簿上未兌現的 8 億美元最終承諾。

Overall, on the right-hand side, you then also see we've got plenty of capital and liquidity to continue putting money out the door, and we put out $130 million in the first quarter. But enough about talking about putting money out, let's talk about bringing money in. And on page 15, you see the highlight of the $163 million in realizations.

總體而言，在右側，您還可以看到我們擁有充足的資本和流動性來繼續投入資金，我們在第一季投入了 1.3 億美元。關於資金流出我們已經討論得夠多了，我們來談談資金流入。在第 15 頁，您可以看到 1.63 億美元的實現亮點。

Firstly, and Jon mentioned it, and we actually mentioned and discussed it with you, I think, briefly at Investor Day, which is the conclusion of an asset that had a quick turnaround. It was an asset that was originated in last year, a large size $125 million group-wide. And for the balance sheet, that represented a $19 million gain. And that's exciting to see a quick IRR of 40%. Obviously, when you have quick turnaround, high IRR, you are going to see a slightly lower ROIC, but we would expect that. And as you can see, the implied ROIC fluctuates from period to period. But overall, $163 million of realizations for the period, and that's not just made up of one asset. Overall, seven assets generating $5 million or more and three of those generating $10 million or more.

首先，喬恩提到了這一點，而且我們實際上在投資者日也曾簡要地提到並討論過這一點，這是資產快速轉身的結論。這是去年發起的資產，規模龐大，整個集團達 1.25 億美元。從資產負債表來看，這代表著 1,900 萬美元的收益。看到 IRR 快速達到 40% 真是令人興奮。顯然，當你有快速的周轉和較高的 IRR 時，你會看到 ROIC 略低，但這是我們預料到的。如您所見，隱含的 ROIC 在不同時期有所波動。但總體而言，該期間的變現金額為 1.63 億美元，而且這不僅僅是由一項資產構成的。總體而言，七項資產產生了 500 萬美元或以上的收入，其中三項資產產生了 1,000 萬美元或以上的收入。

I'm going to skip forward now and talk briefly about managing the money on our balance sheet to managing the funds. If you look on slide 21, Asset Management income was $14 million versus $7 million quarter-over-quarter. So a nice improvement there. Cash was $7 million versus $4.5 million. And I think the big takeaway here is that during this first quarter, the first time we actually started to crystallize performance fees from the Advantage Fund. That was a fund that stopped investing a little over a year ago. And then now as those assets are starting to mature, we can start to recognize some of the performance fee associated with that fund.

我現在將跳過前面的內容，簡單談談如何管理資產負債表上的資金以及如何管理資金。如果您看第 21 張投影片，資產管理收入為 1,400 萬美元，而上一季為 700 萬美元。這是一個很好的進步。現金為 700 萬美元，而同期為 450 萬美元。我認為這裡最大的收穫是，在第一季度，我們第一次真正開始從優勢基金中體現績效費用。該基金一年多前就停止投資了。現在，隨著這些資產開始成熟，我們可以開始確認與該基金相關的一些績效費用。

Looking to capital, liquidity and expenses. page 23 is the bridge that walks you through where our cash sat at the end of the year to the $548 million that we currently have at the end of the quarter. You see also in one of the bullets, we have $103 million due from settlement. So we are sitting in a very healthy liquidity position. As a reminder, though, we do have $123 million of debt maturing in August, and we have ample cash available to pay that down.

關注資本、流動性和費用。第 23 頁將帶您了解我們年底的現金狀況以及本季末的 5.48 億美元。您也可以在其中一個項目符號中看到，我們有 1.03 億美元的和解金。因此，我們的流動性狀況非常健康。不過，需要提醒的是，我們確實有 1.23 億美元的債務將於 8 月到期，而且我們有足夠的現金來償還這筆債務。

The bottom of the page, it's nice to see steady cash flow quarter after quarter coming from our assets and in particular, seeing the $258 million to kick off of first quarter. Obviously, that compares very favorable, not quite as large as the third quarter, but still a great quarter overall.

在頁面底部，很高興看到我們資產每季都有穩定的現金流，特別是第一季開始時的 2.58 億美元。顯然，相較之下，這是一個非常有利的局面，雖然不如第三季那麼大，但總體而言仍然是一個偉大的季度。

On page 24, I walk through our expenses. Expenses were higher first quarter compared to first quarter of last year at $40 million. A couple of reasons for that. First is the carry, the long-term incentive compensation. The accrual of that is going to align neatly with the movements in fair value. And in a period in which we have much higher revenue, you're going to see that number higher. And so on a comparative basis, it's not surprising to see that as a larger number compared to the first quarter of the previous period.

在第 24 頁，我列出了我們的開支。第一季的支出與去年第一季相比有所增加，為 4,000 萬美元。有幾個原因。首先是長期激勵薪酬。其應計將與公允價值的變動完全一致。在我們的收入大幅增加的時期，你會看到這個數字更高。因此，從比較的角度來看，與上一季相比，這一數字有所增加，這並不奇怪。

We also have a slight uptick in G&A. I don't want people to walk away with an expectation that, that increase is going to continue. There are some items that are not expected to reoccur in subsequent quarters. And then finally, we did have a bit more in case-related expenditures, which we're not able to actually capitalize into the asset value of our portfolio. And that's going to be episodic by nature.

我們的一般及行政開支也略有上升。我不希望人們抱持這種成長將會持續下去的期望。有些項目預計不會在隨後的季度中再次出現。最後，我們確實在案件相關支出方面有所增加，但我們無法將其真正轉化為我們投資組合的資產價值。這本質上將是偶發性的。

Page 25 rounds it out with the maturity schedule, ample room within our covenants. We also have ample cash to address the 2025 maturity. And so we're sitting here in a great position to continue growth, continue the momentum that was built this quarter in terms of new business. And I appreciate your attention.

第 25 頁列出了到期時間表，我們的契約中有足夠的空間。我們也擁有充足的現金來應付2025年的到期債務。因此，我們處於有利地位，可以繼續成長，延續本季在新業務方面所建立的勢頭。感謝您的關注。

With that, I hand it over to Chris for some closing remarks.

最後，我把發言權交給克里斯，請他做最後的總結發言。

Thanks very much, Jordan. And I'll pick it up on slide 26, where we summarize a number of things about the business that I won't necessarily take you through point by point, especially since we spent quite a lot of time with you on these points on Investor Day. But since we have had Liberation Day that occurred the afternoon before our Investor Day, and we've seen lots of market turmoil since then, I would just underline a couple of points about Burford's interesting business.

非常感謝，喬丹。我將從第 26 張投影片開始，我們在這裡總結了一些有關業務的事情，我不一定會逐一向您介紹，特別是因為我們在投資者日花了很多時間與您討論這些要點。但由於我們的投資者日前一天下午剛過了解放日，而且自那時起我們就看到了許多市場動盪，所以我只想強調幾點關於伯福德有趣業務的觀點。

Not only are we not negatively affected by things like tariffs and the other economic dynamics that are going on, these are the kinds of periods where historically Burford has seen some real benefit. The simple reality is that when businesses are under stress and when there is market turbulence and liquidity uncertainty and all of the other things that we see happening today, those are times when a couple of things happen that are good for us.

我們不僅沒有受到關稅和其他正在發生的經濟動態等因素的負面影響，從歷史上看，這些時期伯福德還獲得了一些真正的好處。簡單的現實是，當企業面臨壓力、市場動盪、流動性不確定以及我們今天看到的所有其他事情發生時，就會發生一些對我們有利的事情。

First, businesses are even more unwilling than normal to write big checks to their lawyers. And so the kinds of capital solutions that we offer are especially appealing to businesses in these kinds of time periods. We started Burford in 2009 because law firms were overrun with requests from their corporate clients to do something about their fees in the financial crisis and in that time of compressed liquidity. And we've seen that dynamic repeat itself cyclically a few times since then.

首先，企業比平常更不願意開大支票給律師。因此，我們提供的資本解決方案對於這些時期的企業特別有吸引力。我們於 2009 年創立了 Burford，因為在金融危機和流動性緊張的時期，律師事務所收到了大量來自企業客戶的請求，要求他們針對費用採取一些措施。從那時起，我們已經看到這種動態循環重複了幾次。

The other thing, though, that happens when businesses are under stress is that they feel pressure from you, from their investors to do things like make their numbers and continue to grow and do all of the other things that unlock bonuses and drive corporate behavior. And what that does in inside businesses is it can cause people to cut corners and to make bad decisions when they're under stress. Those bad decisions, in turn, often turn into opportunities for a later litigation and arbitration, and we've seen that throughout our history as well.

然而，當企業面臨壓力時，還會發生另一件事，那就是他們感受到來自你、來自投資者的壓力，要求他們做一些事情，例如實現業績成長、繼續發展，以及做所有其他可以解鎖獎金和推動企業行為的事情。在企業內部，這會導致人們在壓力之下偷工減料並做出錯誤的決定。反過來，這些錯誤的決定往往會成為以後訴訟和仲裁的機會，我們在整個歷史中也看到了這種情況。

And so this is -- we are one of the few companies that actually enjoys the kind of period that we're seeing out there in the markets right now. And I just sort of underline the fact that Burford's business is really built to deal with adversity, deal with it and flourish in it. We're long-term players. We're here to stay, and we're excited to be able to show you quarter on and quarter on our ability to continue to make progress towards the goals that we enunciated just last month at our Investor Day.

因此，我們是少數幾家真正享受到目前市場上這種時期的公司之一。我只是想強調這樣一個事實：伯福德的業務確實是為了應對逆境、處理逆境並在逆境中蓬勃發展而建立的。我們是長期參與者。我們會繼續留在這裡，我們很高興能夠逐季度地向你們展示我們繼續朝著上個月在投資者日上所闡明的目標前進的能力。

And so with that, we'd be happy to take your questions.

因此，我們很樂意回答您的問題。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作員指示）

Mark DeVries, Deutsche Bank.

德意志銀行的馬克‧德弗里斯。

Can you hear me?

你聽得到我嗎？

Yes, we can now.

是的，我們現在可以。

Yes, we can hear you Mark.

是的，我們能聽到你的聲音，馬克。

Okay. Okay. Great. I had a question -- a follow-up question on Jon's comments on YPF. You alluded to the IMF agreement that they had. Is that agreement or the disbursement of funds contingent upon them addressing the YPF settlement? Or is it more just kind of a conceptual idea that they put out as a priority that should be addressed at some point in the future?

好的。好的。偉大的。我有一個問題——關於喬恩對 YPF 的評論的後續問題。您提到了他們與國際貨幣基金組織達成的協議。該協議或資金的支付是否取決於他們解決 YPF 問題？或者這只是他們作為優先事項提出的一種概念性想法，應該在未來的某個時候得到解決？

The general IMF policy is that they don't do a program if there are outstanding debts due that are noted in the agreement and that they are not engaged in reasonable dialogue in order to address and solve. So it doesn't -- it's not a condition -- and this is generally for the IMF. It's not a condition of disbursements that you have already resolved the debts, but you have to be working in good faith to resolve them as a condition.

國際貨幣基金組織的一般政策是，如果協議中指出有未償還的債務，他們就不會實施計劃，而且他們也不會進行合理的對話來處理和解決問題。所以這不是一個條件，這通常適用於國際貨幣基金組織。支付的條件不是你已經解決了債務，而是你必須真誠地努力解決債務。

And what the program says that is true right now for the one that's been affirmed by the U.K. Supreme Court, and that will be true when ours is -- when and if ours is affirmed by the US. Appeals Courts. So I don't know if that answers your question, but it's somewhere between the two things I think you laid out as possibilities.

該計劃表明，目前英國最高法院已經確認了這項裁定，當我們的裁定得到美國最高法院確認時，這項裁定也將成立。上訴法院。所以我不知道這是否回答了你的問題，但我認為它介於你列出的兩種可能性之間。

Okay. Yes, that's helpful. And then just turning to the new commitments in the quarter. There was a pretty significant quarter-on-quarter change in the distribution and risk bands and the new commitments. Can you provide some qualitative insight into the types of business you added in the quarter relative to the last few? Is it related to Chris' comments about the launch of a big US claim family? Or there some other forces there?

好的。是的，這很有幫助。然後談談本季的新承諾。分佈、風險區間和新承諾的季度環比變化相當顯著。您能否提供一些定性的見解，說明與前幾季相比，本季增加的業務類型有哪些？這與克里斯關於啟動美國大索賠家族的評論有關嗎？還是那裡還有其他力量？

I think that's certainly part of it, Mark. And I would say without looking at the data that I don't have in front of me, I think that's no doubt a significant part. But again, we're providing these as sort of an effort to give people a little bit more insight because as we said at Investor Day, we don't think that you can treat all commitment and deployment dollars equally any longer. And so we're trying this out with you, and we'd welcome feedback on it, by the way. We're trying this out with you as a way of maybe trying to give a little bit more nuance. But as with all of these things, there's sort of a limit to the -- how useful it is in this aggregate way because you do see differential performance within those bands.

我認為這當然是其中的一部分，馬克。我想說，即使不看我面前沒有的數據，我也認為這無疑是個重要部分。但再次強調，我們提供這些資訊是為了讓人們有更多的了解，因為正如我們在投資者日所說的那樣，我們認為你不能再平等地對待所有承諾和部署資金。因此，我們正在與您一起嘗試這一點，順便說一句，我們歡迎您對此提出回饋。我們正在與您一起嘗試這一點，也許是為了嘗試提供更多細微差別。但就像所有這些事情一樣，它在總體上的用處是有一定限度的，因為你確實看到了這些頻段內的差異表現。

As Jon pointed out, we had a large matter resolved very rapidly. That probably performed differently than -- well certainly performed differently than the way that we would have originally modeled it to have performed because we would have expected it to have been outstanding for longer, and it would have had both a different risk and return characteristic.

正如喬恩所指出的那樣，我們非常迅速地解決了一個大問題。它的表現可能與我們最初模擬的表現不同——當然，它的表現也與我們最初的模擬表現不同，因為我們預計它會持續更長時間，而且它會有不同的風險和回報特徵。

But what you're seeing there with quite a lot of comparatively low-modeled risk activity, some of that is certainly due to the fact that the new claims family comes with sort of a cross collateralized portfolio style approach.

但是，您在那裡看到的相當多的相對低模型風險活動，其中一些肯定是由於新的索賠系列採用了一種交叉抵押投資組合風格的方法。

Alex Bowers, Berenberg.

亞歷克斯鮑爾斯，貝倫貝格。

Just one for me. The uptick in the unrealized gains from YPF-related assets during the quarter, I guess, aside from sort of technical factors like the discount rates or the passage of time, were there any other kind of contributing factors to the kind of uplift in the valuation for those cases?

對我來說只有一個。我猜想，本季 YPF 相關資產未實現收益的上升，除了折扣率或時間推移等技術因素外，還有其他因素導致這些案例的估值上升嗎？

Well, the only other factor was the dynamic that I think we actually mentioned at Investor Day as well, where when you look at the Eton Park side of the YPF transaction, Eton Park obviously was the former New York hedge fund that is now in liquidation. And as that liquidation has progressed over time, you have seen our interest in the sort of the Eton Park Corpus continue to grow. And so during the period, that grew from, I believe, 72% or 73% to 82% now. And so because of that growth in our interest in the Eton Park activity, we will have seen an increase in value because of that.

嗯，唯一的其他因素是我們在投資者日也提到的動態，當你看 YPF 交易的 Eton Park 方面時，Eton Park 顯然是前紐約對沖基金，目前正在清算。隨著清算工作的不斷推進，您會看到我們對伊頓公園語料庫的興趣不斷增長。因此，在此期間，我相信這一比例從 72% 或 73% 增長到了現在的 82%。因此，由於我們對伊頓公園活動的興趣不斷增長，我們將看到其價值的增長。

And actually, if you look at the consolidated numbers, you'll see an even more significant dynamic because that reached the point now of us actually having to consolidate it into our consolidated numbers. But of course, that doesn't matter in the Burford-only outcome. But in true economic value, we have, in fact, taken now another in round numbers, 10% of the Eton Park entitlement, and that drives an increase in the balance sheet value of YPF in total.

實際上，如果你看一下合併數字，你會看到更顯著的動態，因為現在已經到了我們必須將其合併到我們的合併數字中的地步。但當然，這對伯福德唯一的結果來說並不重要。但就真正的經濟價值而言，我們實際上現在已經獲得了另一個整數，即伊頓公園權益的 10%，這推動了 YPF 資產負債表總價值的增加。

And just a quick follow-up on that. Did you have to pay for that increase? Or was it just part of the kind of liquidation process?

對此我做一個簡單的跟進。您是否需要為增加的金額付費？或者這只是清算過程的一部分？

No, we pay for it as it happens, but we pay roughly around carrying value.

不，我們會立即付款，但我們支付的金額約為帳面價值。

Randy Binner, B. Riley Securities.

蘭迪·賓納 (Randy Binner)，B. Riley 證券。

I'm going to try to just clarify a couple of the previous questions, if that's okay. So on the new claim family that was part of the commitments, I just -- I didn't track in the answer. Is there a particular like litigation type that, that was related to? Or is that more like a structural family?

如果可以的話，我將嘗試澄清幾個先前的問題。因此，對於作為承諾一部分的新索賠系列，我只是 - 我沒有在答案中跟踪。是否存在與之相關的特定訴訟類型？或者這更像是結構性家庭？

So when we talk about claim families, sort of let's -- again, because we have the handy resource of the Investor Day materials just behind us. You'll recall that we described the world as sort of falling into two buckets. The single case bucket where company A is assuming company B and the issue doesn't really relate to anybody else or instances where there is multiparty litigation.

因此，當我們談論索賠家庭時，讓我們——再說一次，因為我們身後有投資者日材料的便利資源。你會記得，我們​​曾經把世界描述成分成兩個部分。單一案例是 A 公司接管 B 公司，且該問題實際上與其他任何人或存在多方訴訟的情況無關。

An example of that is the publicly acknowledged cases that we're doing in the food proteins area, where the US government has found a price fixing conspiracy among proteins producers, meaning that many proteins buyers have claims for an overcharge. And we sometimes call those claims families because they are the same kind of claim being brought by a number of different parties, and there is a degree of efficiency for us to put those claims together. We get to go to a number of those proteins buyers to use the proteins example, and say to them, look, we are already in these cases, we know them well. It's easy -- it's easier for us to add on the next marginal buyer, if you will.

其中一個例子就是我們在食品蛋白質領域處理的公開承認的案例，美國政府發現蛋白質生產商之間存在價格操縱合謀，這意味著許多蛋白質買家都要求支付過高的價格。我們有時將這些索賠稱為“家族”，因為它們是由多個不同方提出的同一類型的索賠，並且將這些索賠放在一起可以提高一定的效率。我們去找一些蛋白質買家來使用蛋白質的例子，並告訴他們，看，我們已經遇到這些情況了，我們很了解它們。這很容易——如果你願意的話，我們可以更輕鬆地增加下一個邊際買家。

And so -- but those things, we can't create them, and they don't necessarily happen on a regular or recurring basis. Life being what it is, there is always somebody doing something naughty. And as we showed you in one of the charts for Investor Day, we tend to have between zero and two of these larger, chunkier multi-case things happen in any given year. We didn't have one last year at all.

但這些事情我們無法創造，而且它們也不一定會定期或反覆發生。生活就是這樣，總是有人會做一些壞事。正如我們在投資者日的一張圖表中向您展示的那樣，我們傾向於在任何一年中發生零到兩起這種規模較大、更為嚴重的多案例事件。去年我們根本沒有。

And so what I was highlighting is that in the first quarter, some of the business that we wrote in the first quarter was for a new claims family. And that's an area where we'll now continue to watch that space. And if we continue to gain conviction and like what we see, it's also entirely possible that we'll put more capital to work in the same area as time passes.

因此，我要強調的是，在第一季度，我們所進行的部分業務是針對新的索賠家族。我們現在將繼續關注這一領域。如果我們繼續堅定信念並喜歡我們所看到的，那麼隨著時間的推移，我們也完全有可能在同一領域投入更多的資金。

Okay. That's really helpful. I appreciate that. And so then I guess I think the somewhat related follow-up I have is just looking at the new business slide, the slide 14 of the deck that you've shared is I think -- it was good news that the commitment number was high at $158 million, but you had deployments that effectively offset that. And so the kind of the portfolio didn't grow in the quarter. And so I think the answer to this is somewhat obvious, but I'll ask it anyway. I mean, is that at some point, these commitments just offset deployments, and we actually have a higher base. I mean is that the right way to think of kind of getting to that goal of -- I think it was doubling that portfolio by 2030. Is that the right way to --

好的。這真的很有幫助。我很感激。所以我想我所要做的相關的後續工作就是看一下新業務幻燈片，我認為您分享的第 14 張幻燈片是——承諾金額高達 1.58 億美元是個好消息，但您的部署有效地抵消了這一點。因此本季投資組合併未成長。所以我認為這一問題的答案是顯而易見的，但我還是會問。我的意思是，在某種程度上，這些承諾剛好抵消了部署，而我們實際上擁有更高的基礎。我的意思是，這是實現這一目標的正確方法嗎？我認為到 2030 年，這項投資組合將翻倍。這是正確的方法嗎--

Yes, like it certainly --

是的，確實喜歡--

-- more stuff comes in?

——還有更多東西進來嗎？

Yes, that's -- sure, sure. And that's why if you think about this on a long-term basis, we're always thrilled to have the cases turning and the realizations coming in. But when you have periods with particularly high levels of realization, as this one was, then yes, you may well have a period where the portfolio as a whole doesn't grow very much or imagine a world when -- if YPF comes in one day, that's a period during which one would expect presumably the portfolio actually to shrink. And that would be, from my perspective, an entirely happy outcome, even though we would then have to go back to growth.

是的，那是——當然，當然。這就是為什麼如果你從長遠角度考慮這個問題，我們總是很高興看到案件的進展和實現的實現。但是，當你經歷像這個時期一樣的實現水平特別高的時期時，是的，你很可能會經歷一個整個投資組合不會增長太多的時期，或者想像一個世界——如果有一天 YPF 出現，那麼人們大概會預期在這段時期內投資組合實際上會縮水。從我的角度來看，這將是一個完全令人滿意的結果，儘管我們必須重新回到成長軌道。

And there are no further questions at this time.

目前沒有其他問題。

So I think that given that we took three hours or four hours of your time only a month ago, we are -- we, I think, have exhausted the webcast and telephone questions. So if anyone has further follow-ups, our IR team would be delighted to speak with you. But otherwise, thank you very much for your time and attention, and please give us some feedback on this new more streamlined format and on some of the ways that we're presenting data for you. We're always happy to hear that. But until then, thank you all very much for your time and attention.

因此，我認為，考慮到我們在一個月前佔用了您三到四個小時的時間，我們已經用盡了網路廣播和電話提問的時間。因此，如果有人有進一步的後續問題，我們的 IR 團隊將很高興與您交談。但除此之外，非常感謝您的時間和關注，請就這種新的更簡化的格式以及我們為您呈現數據的一些方式給我們一些反饋。我們總是很高興聽到這個消息。但在此之前，非常感謝大家的時間和關注。

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

女士們、先生們，今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝大家的加入。您現在可以斷開連線。