Welcome, and thank you for joining. I am Raoul, Bridgepoint's Chief Executive, and I am joined virtually by Ruth, our CFO, who is unfortunately just a little bit under the weather. We do not routinely host an autumn update, as we only report formally twice a year, which given the nature of our business, makes real sense. We have some exceptional performance that I need to inform the market about. Today, we are increasing our 2026 and medium-term guidance, and as a result, we are also introducing a significantly enhanced shareholder distribution policy. I am very pleased to report that we have now delivered our fundraising target of EUR 28 billion and are likely to exceed this by the year-end. As you will have seen, last week shareholders approved the acquisition of Kayne Anderson Real Estate. Completion is scheduled for the 4th of January, and I genuinely cannot wait to have Al, David, and the full Kayne team joining us. Our investment activities continue to perform strongly, and indeed, thanks to further exceptional performance by ECP, I am delighted to announce a material upgrade in our expectations for 2026 EBITDA. That outcome, when combined with strong performance elsewhere, means this is not just a one-off and that we expect it to continue into the medium term, such that we are also able to upgrade our medium-term guidance for EBITDA. For the last five years, we have guided PRE to between 20% and 25% of total income each year, and today we are upgrading that to a newer, higher range of between 25% and 30% into the medium term from 2027. As the strength of that investment performance will convert into significantly greater cash flows over the next fund cycle, we are also announcing an enhanced shareholder distribution policy. While all our funds continue to see strong performance, today's upgraded guidance comes at this particular point, because of the strength of performance in one fund and one asset in particular. ECP V has posted exceptional performance with standout exits over the last 12 months from Symmetry at 6.4x and Cornerstone at 4.4x, such that the fund as a whole multiple is over 3x at the end of June. Just four years into its life, and with the majority of the fund's investments yet to be realized. The ECP V multiple is expected to increase to over 4x at Q3, including a materially increased valuation for ProEnergy, where the team is evaluating potential exit options and if the exit becomes more likely, I would expect the fund valuation to increase further by year-end. Assuming ProEnergy remains at this Q3 valuation, 2026 PRE will increase by something in the order of $185 million compared to the current consensus. PRE as a percentage of total income is expected to increase to between 37% and 39% for the full year. The standout performance of ProEnergy, which potentially has further to go in the short and medium term, when combined with the strength of the wider business, including BE VI hitting 100% DPI early this year, and the firm's increased share of the profit from BE VII, means that we do not see this further strengthened performance as a one-off, and instead see it continuing into the medium term, such that we are also upgrading our medium-term PRE and EBITDA guidance from 2027. With the increased diversification in the business leading to greater consistency as well as quantum in PRE. Turning to cash. Even accounting for the funding of Kayne Bridgepoint, the business is at a point of inflection, with significant cash generation expected over the next five years, particularly post this upgrade. We are therefore able to announce a materially enhanced distribution policy, which, while still leaving significant flexibility to fund further M&A without overuse of leverage, materially enhances our planned shareholder payments now and in the medium term. You will see the dividend per share rebased from around 10 pence per share to a baseline of 15 pence from this year. Beyond 2026, shareholder distributions will be set at between 40% and 60% of cash from profits and will be split between an ordinary dividend and a top-up distribution as appropriate. I will hand over to Ruth to take you through our guidance and new shareholder distribution framework in more detail. Thank you, Raoul. Let us turn now to shareholder distributions and guidance. Over the past five years, PRE has been in or around the previously guided range of 20%-25% of total income. We are able to increase the guided range for PRE to 25%-30% today, thanks to the strength of fund performance, which is delivering more consistent PRE, an increase in the number of funds coming into carry at the same time as the share of carry from each fund which flows to the plc is also increasing, so a double positive. Clearly, the benefits of increasing diversification. While individual funds carry is by its nature lumpy, as the Group becomes more diversified, the fund level peaks and troughs even out to deliver a more consistent stream of performance-related earnings. As Raoul has said, the Q3 valuation of ECP is expected to increase materially, with potential further upside to come. PRE represented 32% of total income in the first half, and in July, we expected first-half PRE to be around 2/3 of the annual total. That is no longer the case, and PRE from ECP V, combined with other carry recognition across the Group, could potentially increase 2026 full-year PRE by a further 7%-9% above the top of the new range of 25%-30%. Since IPO, the cash generated by the business has been invested into our funds, into M&A, or returned to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. We are now at an inflection point where the proceeds of previous co-investments and an increasing share of carry will generate significantly more cash by 2030. The last time we showed you the chart on the left-hand side of the slide, we expected GBP 1 billion from PRE from 2026 to 2030. We now expect GBP 1.3 billion of cash from PRE. As a result, combined with cash from co-invest of GBP 1.1 billion, we expect to receive a total of GBP 2.4 billion of cash in the next five years, compared to around GBP 500 million which were received over the last five years. This allows us to step up future shareholder distributions of capital within our existing capital allocation framework. These updated numbers include ProEnergy at its Q3 valuation, so there is additional upside to these cash forecasts from any further uplifts in the value of that asset. As our confidence in the future performance of the business continues to build, we are announcing a change to our shareholder distribution policy today. From 2027 onwards, we will pay an ordinary dividend of between 40% and 45% of earnings. We will also pay an additional top-up distribution in the form of ordinary dividends, specials, or buybacks to increase the total to up to 60% of cash profits over the cycle. Cash from profits is defined as cash generated from FRE plus cash from realized PRE, less the cash cost of net interest expense, office leases, and tax. We will report this new alternative performance measure starting with 2026 full-year results. This approach links cash generation and shareholder distributions, including flexibility for increasing the dividend, share buybacks, depending on the share price at the time, or special dividends opportunistically when the cash conversion of profit allows. From 2027 onwards, we will move to paying dividends quarterly. In the short term, by way of transition from paying dividends twice a year to paying quarterly, in addition to the 4.8 pence interim dividend announced in July, we will pay a second interim dividend in respect of Q3 of 5 pence, payable on November 12, and we will propose a final dividend in respect of the 2026 financial year of 5.2 pence, subject to shareholder approval at our AGM. Importantly, we can do all of this while maintaining leverage to fund M&A of no more than 2 x net debt to EBITDA, while continuing to seed growth from new funds. Here is a recap of what this means for guidance ahead of full-year results. BE VIII has raised EUR 7.8 billion to date and is expected to be fully allocated later this year at around EUR 8.65 billion. ECP VI closed at $8.1 billion. PRE is now expected to be 25%-30% of total income in the medium term and above this range in 2026 at between 37% and 39%. Consequently, EBITDA margin guidance increases to around 60% in 2026 and 2027. All other guidance remains unchanged since our interim results in July. With that, I will hand back to Raoul. Thank you, Ruth. Great news indeed. Now for completeness, while we have your attention, I just want to give a quick reminder on the business, which really is firing on all cylinders, or as Al Rabil said to me when I was with him in the U.S. recently, "Crushing it on all fronts." We are a diversified value-add entrepreneurial business, delivering high alpha returns from mid-market investing on behalf of the world's best institutional investors. I would say that this great performance is further evidence of both the true benefits of the middle market, where strong value creation and multiple exit routes remain possible, and our leading global position within it. Something that the Kayne transaction, of course, further cements. Post-Kayne, Bridgepoint will manage around $125 billion of AUM, with the business nicely balanced, with around 50% of it in the U.S., and importantly, around 50% in real assets. As I said earlier, we have already hit the fundraising target we upgraded twice in the last two years and hope that we will have raised over EUR 30 billion by the end of the year. When we last spoke in July, our flagship credit fund, Direct Lending IV, had closed at EUR 5.1 billion, an increase of 76% from the prior fund. Since then, our flagship infrastructure fund, ECP VI, has closed at $8.1 billion, an increase of over 84% from the prior fund, and BE VIII, our flagship private equity fund, is expected to be fully allocated later this year as opposed to spring 2027, and will also likely be oversubscribed and close at its hard cap of EUR 8.65 billion, an increase of nearly 25% from the prior fund. All three flagships have enjoyed considerable success in raising capital from new investors, with over a third of the new capital coming from investors who are new to the firm. This excludes Kayne Bridgepoint, which will bring a whole suite of new relationships, creating further cross-selling opportunities. Looking ahead, with flagship fundraisers for all four main strategies likely completed by year-end, next year, our focus will turn to the ancillary funds, as well as the first fund in our ownership for Newbury Bridgepoint, our secondaries business. In total, we hope to have up to 17 different funds in the market next year, a number which really underlines that Bridgepoint is now a diversified alternatives Group, which is present in all the major asset classes, and that fundraising momentum will be maintained outside flagship fundraising cycles. Deployment has continued on track over the summer. Since activating in May, BE VIII is already 13% deployed, a very encouraging start. Two years into its deployment period, BDC is bang on track at 49% deployed. In credit, deployment in direct lending also continued at pace. Having only started investing earlier this year, ECP VI is already 25% deployed, including the take private of DCC Energy, which was recently approved by shareholders and is expected to complete next year. Kayne Bridgepoint has continued to make good progress, and KAREP VII is now 54% deployed. I am also really pleased that despite the difficult market, the strength of our investment performance continues to be a strong differentiator on an absolute and relative basis, as does our ability to return capital to our fund investors, with DPI continuing to be a particularly critical metric. These factors, combined with strong value creation and consistent capital returns, is the critical underpin of our successful fundraisings. To finish, the business is, well, it's crushing it. Bridgepoint's leading mid-market position and diversified platform continue to differentiate us in the market and with LPs. The Kayne Anderson Real Estate transaction is on track to close on the 4th of January, further diversifying the platform. Our positioning, being the scale player with the real domain authority, is leading to strong, in fact, outsized in some cases, returns across the Group. That performance is enabling us to further upgrade our income and PRE guidance, not just for 2026, but into the medium-term. We're introducing a new capital distribution policy, which significantly increased shareholder distributions while maintaining the necessary firepower to invest in the business on the back of the expected increase in cash from PRE, from GBP 500 million in the last five years to GBP 2.4 billion in the next five. Having spent time with the Kayne Bridgepoint team in Florida recently, I'm even more excited about what they'll bring to the Group and what we can do together. I'm firmly of the view that their very best is yet to come. Thank you so much for watching.
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