IPZYF (IPZYF) Q2 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the IP Group plc half-year results investor presentation. Questions are encouraged. They can be submitted at any time via the Q&A tab that is just situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Please just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and will publish our responses where it is appropriate to do so. Before we begin, as usual, we would just like to submit the following poll, and if you would give that your kind attention, I am sure the company would be most grateful. I would now like to hand you over to CEO Greg Smith. Greg, good morning, sir. Good morning, Jake. Thank you very much, and welcome everyone to IP Group's 2026 half-year results presentation. Thanks very much to all the Investor Meet Company team and Mark for hosting today's session. Much appreciated as always. For those who do not know me, I am Greg Smith. I am the Chief Executive of IP Group. With me today is David Baynes, our Chief Financial and Operating Officer. We deliberately tried to keep today's presentation a bit shorter and more focused. It is the half-year after all. I will cover the half-year highlights and progress across the portfolio and our strategic priorities. I will get DB to take you through the financials before I return to summarize, and then, of course, there will be time for questions. I would say the headline for today's results is that we have carried the momentum that we had from 2025 into 2026 with further NAV per share growth, strong cash realizations, and as I hope we will demonstrate, broad-based portfolio progress. As usual, the disclaimer is here. Please note these sort of important disclaimers, particularly the bit about forward-looking statements. This presentation will be up on the investor relations section of our website for review post the call. In terms of what we will cover today, four short sections. The half-year overview, portfolio progress, I think particularly the future value opportunity within that, then financial results, and then a brief summary. Please post questions through the platform as we go, as Jake said. We will then group them by theme, and answer as many as we can, and we will do that clearly and directly. Turning first to what we delivered for shareholders in the first half. Before we do that, I just wanted to note that this year marks IP Group's 25th anniversary. Over that period, we have invested over GBP 1.5 billion. We have helped to form and support more than 600 companies, and those companies have created more than 15,000 jobs. That track record matters because science investing, in our view, rewards experience, specialist judgment, and also long-term relationships. From a shareholder point of view, it also gives us a large and increasingly mature portfolio from which future value and cash realizations can emerge. Today is principally about the delivery in the first half and the little period afterwards. Let us move straight into the first half results. The group made disciplined and tangible progress in the first half. NAV per share increased by about 3% to GBP 1.14, taking net asset value above GBP 1 billion. Since the period end, NAV per share has actually increased further to approximately GBP 1.17 a share as at 11th of September, last Friday. We generated GBP 69 million of cash proceeds in the six months, which was slightly more actually than the whole of full year 2025. A further GBP 17 million since June takes our year-to-date proceeds to the mid-GBP 80 millions. Portfolio companies raised over half a billion of third-party capital, and we contributed about 5% of this. This is strong external evidence that other investors are prepared to commit substantial capital to companies as they progress. The largest fair value driver in the period was the further de-risking of Pfizer's obesity programs. That increased the value of our royalty interest by GBP 27 million to just over GBP 150 million, and we ended the period with a healthy cash balance of GBP 239 million gross. The message is not that one asset performed well. NAV growth, cash realizations, external funding, and operational milestones all generally moved forward together. Before going into the detail behind that in the portfolio, I just want to briefly acknowledge the possible offer process during the summer. I would say, as we put in our RNS release, the board sought to engage constructively with Railpen and its partners, and we remain very grateful for their effort and the constructive engagement of all of the shareholders who we spoke to during that period. As you will have seen, the process did not result in an acceptable proposal, and so our focus as a management team and a board is firmly on delivering the substantial value that we see in the group. On that note, let's turn to Pfizer. At the full year, I spent a bit of time explaining why that Pfizer obesity royalty interest had become such a significant asset for IP Group and our shareholders. The first half has added further evidence to that and also reduced development risk. During the period, Pfizer released positive clinical data for the lead program, berobenatide, showing competitive weight loss efficacy alongside favorable tolerability and supporting the potential for a monthly maintenance regimen. The berobenatide and amylin combination also advanced into phase IIb, and that was the primary driver of the GBP 27 million uplift that I mentioned. This is an increasingly competitive market, so differentiation matters. I think the potential combination of competitive efficacy, favorable tolerability, and this sort of monthly maintenance profile remains one of the main reasons that Pfizer believes this program can be highly differentiated in that increasingly competitive market. Also to reiterate, Pfizer's committed substantial resource to this. It is progressing 10 phase III studies this year, and launch is targeted in 2028. As we have said in previous notes, there remains clinical, regulatory, and commercial risk. As a result, our valuation is based around a probability-weighted method and is discounted. But the progress in the half strengthens both the quality and the breadth of our exposure to a market that is externally forecast at around sort of GBP 100 billion-GBP 150 billion, or thereabouts, annually by 2030. To hopefully give you a little bit more color, this slide shows the route to market across the programs where we have economic exposure. As I mentioned, the most advanced of the assets at the top there is berobenatide. Two phase III studies are expected to reach primary completion in October 2027, and that supports a potential first approval in 2028. There is also a monthly dosing study and seven further phase III studies that could provide potential to broaden the label and therefore the commercial opportunity. Worth noting that just yesterday at a conference, Pfizer also indicated that recruitment across essentially all of the berobenatide phase III studies is now close to completion. From our point of view, from your point of view as shareholders, that is very encouraging because patient recruitment is often the biggest factor in determining when studies read out and complete, so it supports good confidence in the current program timetable. As I mentioned, the berobenatide and amylin combination is now in phase IIb, so you can see that there. That has got primary completion currently expected in April 2027. We also have exposure to an amylin monotherapy and some earlier oral and next gen programs. There are a couple, as David Baynes will come on to explain, a couple of phase I assets that are not currently attributed value in our model. I think the important takeaway from this for shareholders is that this is not exposure to a single binary program. It extends across the lead program, which is an injectable, some combination therapies, the potential for less frequent dosing, and a number of these earlier stage programs. That gives us several possible routes to value as Pfizer develops the franchise. I think this point on the carrying value, I think the GBP 150 million we have it in at, this definitely does not reflect Pfizer's commercial ambition, and it is based on these risk-adjusted probabilities. DB will take you through those assumptions in a little bit more detail later today. In terms of our investment thesis, our default is to hold the asset and receive the royalties, and they are anticipated to begin in 2028 if the development and launch proceed to the plan that is set out here. This is highly consistent with the venture model. A small number of exceptional outcomes can drive a very disproportionate share of returns. This asset, we believe, gives shareholders direct exposure to that potential. That being said, having a default path definitely does not mean that we stop exploring ways to accelerate value creation for shareholders. As the program matures and de-risks over this period, we would expect the range of strategic options available to us to broaden out, and we will continue to assess these carefully through the lens of long-term shareholder value. Of course, we remain open to exceptional opportunities should they arise. On Oxford Nanopore, they made, I would say, encouraging progress in the half and has performed strongly since the period end from a share price point of view. As you can see from the slide, and many of you will have tracked this directly, revenue was at GBP 117 million, which is about a 12% growth at constant currency. A big thing for us was the fact that gross margin increased by 400 basis points to 62%. I think even more important, and I think this was the bit that came out particularly in the half-year results more than the trading statement, was the adjusted EBITDA loss more than halving to just over GBP 22 million. I think one of the key developments has been the strengthening of the leadership team. Francis joined as CEO in March, and the company has also added a number of senior hires in areas of key capabilities as it prepares for its next phase of commercial growth. Under that leadership team, it feels to us that there is a more focused customer-led growth strategy. The company has spoken about narrowing down the 47 areas in which its technology could compete to the 18 that it considers most attractive. Interestingly, management's own analysis indicates that around 40%-45% of revenue generated over the last three years already comes from those priority markets. The existing revenues therefore provide something of a strong foundation for that strategy and give the company a credible base from which to expand. The opportunity available, which is clearly set out within their materials, gives very substantial room for expansion. I think we see this as very much a refinement of focus rather than a wholesale change of direction, and that gives us confidence in the team's ability to execute. That point on profitability or the progress towards profitability, that has been absolutely central to our investment thesis, and I think the results were ahead of where the market appeared to be. The company remains on track for that EBIT break-even in full-year 2027 and positive free cash flow in 2028. The other point of note is the cross-licensing agreement with a global diagnostics company that brings $35 million of committed revenue over the next couple of years, but importantly, ongoing royalties, which we believe could be substantial. They are not currently included in the medium-term guidance, so any early adoption, which we might see as soon as this year actually, could increase recognition of that strategic value to the platform. There's been a bit of an increase in the value of our holdings since the half year of about GBP 26 million, but we remain very focused on that sort of operating thesis and the route to sustainable profitability. Delivery against that should also create more attractive monetization options for us over time without prejudging the timing of those. On the wider portfolio, don't worry, I'm not going to go into all of these in detail, but I think the central message from this slide is breadth and the fact that the progress was not confined to Pfizer or Oxford Nanopore. Quantum Motion, Quantum Circuits, Oxa completed major funding rounds. First Light Fusion and Mantle8 raised capital. Hysata secured its first commercial electrolyzer order. Centessa was acquired by Eli Lilly. So there's been good progress across the portfolio. I would just say Oxa is worth a brief comment in there. Following its strategic rate reset last year and this sharper focus on what we term industrial mobile autonomy, it has formed a new joint venture with the Dubai Future Foundation called Shift, and the venture is designed to put autonomous vehicles to work in ports and airports in an integrated product that combines Oxa's self-driving software, its fleet management platform, and its autonomy hardware. This is really targeting practical gains in things like productivity, efficiency, safety, and operational resilience within these environments. The first scalable commercial deployment is planned before the end of 2027. From Dubai's point of view, of course, it is trying to support the stated ambition to double its foreign trade by 2033. Of course, given the current regional uncertainty, the near-term emphasis from the company is correctly on disciplined execution and securing those early deployments. Management definitely deserves the principal credit for delivering that partnership, but it is worth saying IP Group supported the company in bringing it about. This is hopefully a useful example of how our network and our international network can help portfolio companies across these strategic international partners to accelerate into large markets. Still delivery ahead, but pretty encouraging process from one of the companies that was affected by a significant valuation reduction last year. Overall, the breadth of the financing, the clinical progress, and the commercial partnerships provides evidence of greater maturity across the portfolio with a couple of negative movements as a reminder that execution risk always remains in the portfolio. Cash generation was one of the clearest positives from our first half. We realized GBP 69 million, which compared with about GBP 30 million in the first half of last year. As I mentioned, it is actually now more than the whole of 2025. The principal contributors are set out on the slide, Monolith, Centessa, and Hinge Health. I think they both provide sort of some good illustrations of our model. Hinge Health, following their 2025 IPO, we have now generated a total of GBP 46 million of total proceeds. That was a 50x multiple of invested capital and almost a 50% IRR. Monolith is a bit different. That provides an example of where we have had a strategic acquisition of an important deep tech capability, and that was an acquisition by CoreWeave. Since then, we have generated around GBP 23 million of proceeds this year with, again, greater than 50% overall IRR. I think they show that we can create and realize value from different parts of the portfolio, whether that is a public market success or a strategic acquisition. It is exactly the sort of profile that we would expect from a diversified science and technology portfolio. Including post-period end receipts, we have now delivered GBP 154 million, just over GBP 150 million since the beginning of 2025. We are well over halfway towards our GBP 250 million target by the end of 2027. Looking forward, we continue to see a healthy pipeline of maturing assets and potential realization opportunities over the next 12-18 months. Fair to say that timing is never entirely within our control, but the breadth of the portfolio gives us a number of different paths to achieving that target. As a reminder of the way the components of IP Group work together, Parkwalk provides differentiated access at pre-seed, seed, and into Series A through our dedicated EIS funds and relationships with leading universities. The permanent balance sheet, which shareholders are exposed to, supports selective companies as they mature, while our private funds can add science and technology scale-up capital alongside the balance sheet. That additional capital matters in three ways. It can accelerate our strongest businesses across a broader opportunity set. It can generate management fees to help reduce our net overheads over time, and strong investment performance in those funds can generate performance fees for shareholders. The model gives us proprietary sourcing, long-term ownership, and the potential to increase the capital available to portfolio companies without relying solely on our balance sheet. On the subject of third-party capital, we made progress in expanding that platform during the period. Although I'd say the focus is now firmly on delivery of the two new mandates that we announced during the first half. Our strategic relationship with Aberdeen is moving quickly towards its first investment, and we expect the initial portfolio to be up and running by the end of the year. This is definitely an early example of a dedicated defined contribution mandate, providing access to scaling science and technology businesses. We believe there is good potential for it to provide a route for further long-term capital savings coming into this sector. In Australia, just after our full year results, we also launched the GBP 50 million IP Group Climate Catalyst Fund. That was with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation in Australia, which is the sort of equivalent of the Australian Green Bank. Similarly for that fund, the next milestone is to begin investing that capital by the end of the year into Australian companies that are addressing hard-to-abate industries. Together with Parkwalk and Hostplus and those funds, we manage around GBP 550 million of third-party capital. We have further opportunities in the pipeline where we aim to demonstrate material progress over the next 6-12 months. This remains, at the moment, a smaller part of today's shareholder value story, but over time, it should help us support more companies, reduce our overheads, and create this performance fee potential if we can deliver strong returns. I'll now turn to the first half outcomes in the portfolio, but also the future value opportunities that we see within them. At 30th of June, the total portfolio was valued at about GBP 900 million, and that's equivalent to about GBP 1.00 per share, GBP 1.03 per share. The top five assets account for about GBP 0.50 per share. You can see them set out on the slide. Probably just worth recognizing, each of these has different value drivers. So royalty income and clinical de-risking for our license, listed market performance and path to profitability at Oxford Nanopore, clinical milestones at Istesso and Mission, and industrial scale-up at Hysata. As I mentioned, Hysata secured its first binding megawatt scale order during the first half, and delivery is expected in the first half of 2027. I should also note that Mission Therapeutics, their acute kidney injury program, was acquired by Dimerix for potential consideration of up to nearly $300 million. That upfront extends the, obviously not all that was upfront, but the upfront they received will extend Mission's runway for its core Parkinson's program. I think the broader point here to make is the top five assets do provide distinct routes to value, but the other GBP 0.53 per share gives us and shareholders exposure to a much wider group of businesses and a good level of optionality within those. I am just going to highlight a few of those over the course of the next few slides. Before I do that, it would be worth just pointing out our successful exit in Centessa. This is another example of realized value, not paper value. Our involvement in this company began through a University of Cambridge spin-out that we backed back in 2017. ApcinteX became part of a roll-up, Centessa, which then listed on NASDAQ in 2021. Then earlier this year, it was acquired by Eli Lilly for about $6 billion upfront, with a further $1.5 billion in potential milestones. For us, we sold during the course of the development of that company during its NASDAQ life, and the remaining balance we sold at the point of completion this year. That has given us a realized IRR of about 24%, and there is a bit of potential CVR payments that could be another GBP 3 million, GBP 4 million potentially. I think really this is just to illustrate the validation of the model. So breakthrough university science, supported through several stages, and has exited to a global pharmaceutical buyer. We believe that there are a number of assets that look today like ApcinteX did back then at the early part of its journey. In terms of the rest of the therapeutics portfolio, I think there are just a few things to highlight, three milestones, particularly from the half standout. Two of these were catalysts that we flagged at the full year that have now delivered. So Enterprise Therapeutics met its primary endpoint in a phase II cystic fibrosis trial, and that showed improved lung function over 28 days compared with placebo. Microbiotica delivered a second positive phase I-B this time data set, and that was in melanoma. I think that is building evidence that its precision microbiome platform, its gut microbiome platform, can increase or improve responses in these quite difficult-to-treat indications. Istesso began dosing the new phase II study of leramistat in June. As everyone will know, the previous rheumatoid arthritis study did not meet its primary endpoint, but it showed significant improvements in things like disability, fatigue, and reduction in markers of muscle loss. This trial therefore follows those signals into secondary sarcopenia caused by RA, and we are testing muscle quality, repair, and function in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study that will read out in the second half of 2027. This is worth noting that this sarcopenia market is very significant. It affects around 110 million people globally, and there are no treatments currently approved to treat it. So a safe oral treatment that improves function would be a very significant unmet need. Istesso remains a significant holding from the group from a valuation point of view, and we will of course review its valuation through the normal year-end processes in light of the evolving clinical evidence and the commercial opportunity. I think for today, the important point is that the company has followed the biology into a more focused trial with a clear unmet need and a very differentiated oral regenerative approach. The common thread across these is large indications, high unmet need, and programs moving into study that provide clearer evidence, and if they are successful, support partnering and value realization. Two of our companies in the quantum space raised significant capital this period. The common thread amongst these is that IP Group and Parkwalk Advisors were early investors, and our balance sheet exposure to quantum companies is probably worth about GBP 0.02 per share at the half year. These rounds bring substantial third-party capital into that sector and validate the sort of strategic importance of that. Quantum remains genuinely exciting. It is a longer duration opportunity, but I think alongside it, we also have significant ownership in businesses tackling quite immediate constraints in AI computing, and I will just turn to some of those now to round up this section. I think one of the themes for us, and I am sure you are all seeing it across your lives, is that AI is rapidly moving from experimentation into large-scale industrial deployment. As models become more embedded in products and services, the constraints are increasingly physical in nature. Things like electricity available to data centers, the heat being produced by conventional processes, and also the energy and time required to move data between the memory bit and the compute bit. GPUs remain absolutely central to the system, but they definitely cannot solve every part of that equation on their own. We have three complementary physics-led approaches: light, memory, and probability. On the first, Lumai, which is valued at about GBP 9 million, about GBP 0.01 per share, where we have a 26% holding, uses three-dimensional optical computing for the matrix multiplication that goes on at the heart of AI inference. During the period, it announced that its first Iris system is now running billion-parameter language models in real-time. That hopefully means something to some of you. I guess in commercial terms, this is designed for high throughput workloads in data centers, and the plan here is to develop that system, and it will work alongside conventional GPUs rather than trying to replace the whole computing stack. If you look at their website, you can see those sort of initial products. Intrinsic on the memory side, again, valued at about a penny a share. We own about 28% of this. This is generating and developing what we call next generation ReRAM. That is memory. It is important because getting faster and non-volatile, i.e., it remembers, and low-power memory can sit much closer to the processor and reduce the energy and a little bit of time moving data between memory and the processing. Relevant applications here can include things like Edge AI, autonomous vehicles, wearables, remote sensing, that sort of thing. The company is well capitalized and is seeing strong commercial interest from important industry participants. Then finally, at about GBP 0.002 or GBP 0.003 of a share is our holding in Quantum Dice, and this is photonics, and it is for probabilistic computing. The aim here is to try and accelerate problems that required repeated sampling under uncertain conditions. There are things like logistics and asset management and asset optimization and financial modeling, particularly relevant here. things that are used in robotics and machine vision. So three very complementary areas of the value chain. So although these three represent about GBP 20 million each of carrying value, we have 17%-28%, as you can see, ownership, so a meaningful proportion of any future upside belongs to the group and our shareholders. Each has milestones ahead that could become the next value events. We expect and hope to be able to report further technical and funding, and hopefully some commercial milestones from these businesses over the next six months or so. With that summary of the main drivers and some of the future value drivers, I will hand over to DB to take you through the financial results. Thanks, DB.

Thank you, Greg. Yes, I will just take you for a quick canter through the financial results, it being only the half year. Most of this you have heard already, but it is always good to reiterate the message. So NAV about GBP 1.14, was at GBP 1.14 at the end of the period. It is actually slightly up, you will see in the release as of the slide, I think it is about GBP 1.17 following improvement in Oxford Nanopore's price. At the end of June, that was a 3.2% increase in the period, which is following the 13% increase in the period before, so a couple of good periods. Overheads, similar, slightly up. I would expect, I think total overheads last year were just under GBP 16 million, I think for the full year, that is. I would expect to be something slightly higher than that this year, just through the nature of inflation. So probably we will have a similar amount in the second half, maybe slightly more, maybe making it about GBP 17 million. But overhead is still in control and only really growing by inflation. Gross cash, very strong, as you have already heard. Gross cash actually up over the period, and I will talk about that briefly in a minute. Balance sheet, very simple, not much change, actually. Your actual NAV, the portfolio value, is pretty much exactly flat at about GBP 907 million, GBP 908 million. You can see the effect of that is we have invested GBP 30 million in the period, fully itemized in the report. But we have had quite a lot of exits, as you heard. Very strong exits of GBP 69 million and more since the period end, another GBP 17 million. So exits have been strong. With the fair value gain then taking us back to where we started, effectively, that is what the movements have been. So the value of what we have invested and what we have gained counters about exactly the money that has been realized, which of course has moved into cash, as we will see in a minute. Five, the royalty asset, Greg has explained this, but always good to actually see what it means in terms of numbers. So we are actually up from about GBP 127 million to GBP 153 million. The main growth, this is the chart I showed you at the time of the full year, and it has got the main programs. If you look at this, there are actually six programs here. The main one there on the left there, or the lead one at the moment, is the berobenatide, the monotherapy, which is the one that is in these phase III clinical trials. No significant change in the value because the probabilities have not changed. It is still in that phase III trial. The next key milestone for that will be if it gets successful completion in that trial, then those percentages will obviously go up, percentage probability, and therefore the value will go up at that time. There has been an increase in the second bar there. So that is the combination therapy with the GLP and the amylin. That moved into a phase IIb trial. So that was 25% probability when we last reported. It is now 39%. If it is successful in that trial, it will ultimately move into a 53% when it moves into the next phase, following the same logic. But that has resulted in most of the increase of about GBP 27 million in the period is actually in that bar there. That is the one that has gone up. The third bar, following the oral bar, we have not changed the value on. Actually, nothing really to report. Greg has already explained. I did talk about the fact that they have actually terminated one of their oral assets, but that was not our one. They had one asset they had sourced from somewhere else. So at the moment, we have not really got anything to report on that oral. So at the moment, we are carrying it still at a very low probability of success. Talking about low probability of successes, we do of course still have three whole programs we are not really valuing at all. Greg mentioned them, but there is what is called a GIPR. So it is an alternative to the amylin. That program is now in a phase I clinical trial, as is the prodrug. That prodrug you can see in the far right there, is actually a quarterly dosage rather than monthly in a phase I trial. The thing is at the moment, we still consider it too early to actually put values on those. Not least of all, because it is very difficult to identify market size to do the calculation. But if they progress, certainly if they progress into phase II trial, we will then have to start recognizing those values, and that will have a relatively significant impact on that value at that time, I would guess. So that is why we still carry about GBP 152 million. Going quickly on the funding profile, very slightly different, but pretty much similar as we see. I tend to talk about a third funded, a third in a year, and a third in two years. It has changed very slightly. Actually, we have only got about 60% to fund for the rest of this year and 19% for the six months after that. So actually, 12 months now, it is only about 25%. Quite a lot of the funding is actually moved out into the year after that, so after the next half year to the half year after. If anything, actually, the funding profile has slightly improved over other periods. But the truth is, the message always is the rate at which our companies need to fund is relatively constant, and it gives you a chance to do fund things as they come along. You do not get a kind of wall of funding requirements. As always, I say, follow the cash on these things. The cash is really repeating what we've seen before, but the cash has actually improved, and that with investments at about GBP 30 million have been outweighed considerably by the exits and the relatively small amount of costs to reduce that. Really, what's happened is effectively the profit we've seen, that GBP 31 million profit, has effectively gone into cash. That's where it is. As we've mentioned already, we haven't been doing buyback. There's quite a lot of questions about that. We haven't been doing buyback in the period, so that money is sitting in cash at the moment, and that explains that increase. I'll hand back to Greg.

Thank you very much, Dave.

You're welcome.

Let's just quickly finish with a recap of the key messages and a little look forward. As I mentioned at the start, the first half of 2026 has been a period of disciplined execution and hopefully growing momentum that you're seeing. NAV per share increased to GBP 1.14 and has increased further to approximately GBP 1.17 since the period end. We delivered GBP 69 million of proceeds in the half and actually mid-80s, GBP 86 million, I think, for the year to date. That takes total proceeds since the start of 2025 to GBP 154 million, and we remain on track for the GBP 250 million by the end of 2027. From a portfolio point of view, the Pfizer programs continue to de-risk. Oxford Nanopore made good financial and commercial progress, and the broader portfolio attracted over half a billion of third-party capital while delivering milestones that ranged across therapeutics, quantum, autonomy, climate tech, and AI-enabling compute. As Dave said, we ended June with GBP 240 million of gross cash and deposits. I think importantly, from our point of view, the progress is becoming increasingly visible in outcomes. Per share value growth, cash realizations, external validation through funding rounds, and hopefully you are seeing clearer routes to potential future value. This is the same set of priorities that I outlined we would be targeting this year at the full year. I have not changed the slide. I guess the first point to make is the sort of accountability. This is what I said we would do and reporting back on the progress that we have made to date. We have made continued positive NAV per share performance. We have generated about GBP 154 million of exits, as I mentioned, including those post-period receipts since the beginning of 2025. We have moved the Aberdeen relationship towards its first investment. We announced that further fund, the Climate Catalyst Fund, and we have maintained a disciplined approach to deployment. For the remainder of the year, those objectives largely still stand. The continued positive NAV per share performance, making the first investments in both of those private capital arrangements, and keeping executing towards that GBP 250 million exit target. That is the sort of accountability piece. I would say that the second point, though, is more around pace and ambition. You will have seen that Michael Queen joined us as Chair during the half, and he brings a substantial level of experience from his role at 3i, where he was Chief Executive, and many private markets companies, most recently Coller Capital, where he was Chair. We also heard a range of views from our shareholders during the summer, and we will continue that engagement now as part of this half-year results roadshow. I would say Michael, the board, and management are using all those inputs to determine and implement the most effective ways for us to be able to accelerate realizations, sharpen our capital allocation, and convert more of the portfolio's underlying value into per share returns, while also retaining the valuation discipline that protects you as shareholders. Third-party interest and that shareholder engagement that we saw during the summer underlined for us the attractiveness of the underlying assets and also the strategy that we are following. Of course, the task for us as a management team now is to convert more of that value into outcomes that you as investors can see in cash and per share returns. As Dave mentioned, we have approximately GBP 50 million of proceeds from realizations that is now available for future shareholder returns under the capital allocation policy that was approved by the board. Now, of course, following the AGM vote, as you would expect as a public company, we are engaging constructively with shareholders on the appropriate form and timing and how we can consider. We can deliver against our capital allocation policy. From our perspective, the principle is clear. We should allocate capital where it creates the best risk-adjusted per-share outcomes. I want to be clear. This is not simply business as usual. We have got a strong portfolio, we have got a clear strategy for growth, and we have got substantial opportunity ahead. Our priority is execution and converting that opportunity into outcomes that shareholders can see and measure. I thank you all very much for your continued support. DB and I will be very happy now to take your questions. I am going to try and group them.

I am going to try and.

Looking at them as they are coming through. Some of them I think we have now answered in the presentation.

Yeah

On areas like capital allocation, and we mentioned the bid process during the summer, and probably cannot say an awful lot more-

No, I agree

-on that. That's-

I agree entirely. In fact, exactly what I was going to say. We'll have a go. Please don't be offended this year if I don't include your question. I've traditionally included every question. I'll do some grouping, and as Greg correctly said, I think we've certainly covered off the capital allocation. I feel we've given a fairly good description around also the bids. I probably won't do any more on those. Kane Anderson, Deutsche, lovely to have you with us, Kane. As always, lots of long questions, or a long question with lots of complexity in it. Would you consider partially monetizing the Pfizer royalty interest at an attractive opportunity arose? Or is the intention to remain fully exposed given the potential upside of the program's progress?

I hope I answered that one in full.

Oh, I'm sorry.

We have a default position that we would hold it, but as the asset de-risks over the course of the next 12-18 months, then we think there could be opportunities that could be attractive and absolutely, I always say, as do all the investment team here, everything is for sale in the portfolio at the right price. If there was an attractive offer, of course, we would look at it.

Sorry, I'm sometimes reading the questions.

Yeah. No, it's-

and miss your comment. I am sorry. With respect to the portfolio companies still, Kane Anderson, raises of which there has been a lot, do you think this reflects a genuine improvement in the funding environment, or are investors simply becoming more selective and concentrating capital into a smaller number of higher quality assets?

Both and. We are certainly seeing that in, if you look at the broad statistics across the industry, there are some mega rounds that are attracting huge amounts of capital. Maybe a good example is fusion. If you look at the analysis of the fusion funding environment, quite a lot of capital has gone into that space. I have not got the stats to hand, but it is in the billions. There are three, four, five companies that have identified or have received a substantial amount of that capital with a much of a thinner tail. Interestingly, a stat that we were looking at the other day in our analysis of this sector, and of course we have our exposure through First Light Fusion, and this is an area of particular interest to them. It is something when they analyze the companies in the fusion space about the level of capital that they believe they still needed to access in order to deliver the commercial milestones, it was something like 4x or 5x the amount of capital that has been raised even in this increased period. So I would say it is selective. The environment for certain of the sectors is strong. We see it as a good validation of the portfolio, and it is a metric that we track and report on for that reason.

The last piece from Kane Anderson, I can probably deal with this. This is related to the 43% price funding rounds that were down. People were noticing the report. We tracked for how many funding rounds were up from the last one, how many are flat, how many are down. There is slightly more in this period. The question was, should we think of this as a lagging effect from impairments that we recognized in prior periods, or do you see pockets of valuation pressure across the portfolio? Funnily enough, I do not want to read too much into it, but by number it is slightly up into, well, the number that are down have slightly increased, I should say. Actually by value, they have not. Also, it is important to note, I think that this is true almost every year I have ever done this. These adjustments are from the last funding round. Actually, we had already recognized all those in the last set of accounts. We are tending to run ahead of that. Where we think something might be down, we have already factored it into our numbers. These are not things that normally catch us out. Moving on a little bit. We have covered pretty well on the net zero stuff, but a particular question, just to clarify. The question was the GBP 27 million uplift a milestone? I guess I explained nearly all of it. Actually, it was a valuation adjustment. There was a small milestone during the period. It was only about GBP 3 million. The next one, back to you, Greg, I think from Paul B. "Bulk of transaction activity both in exits and investments looks to be concentrated in health tech and AI. Can you comment on strength or weakness of activity outside of these areas, and in which sectors do you see the bulk of activity in the near term?"

Yeah, that is an interesting one. I would say I have hopefully tried to set out there was quite a breadth both in terms of the larger portfolio companies, and the other milestones and progress underneath that, across each of the three main areas in which we invest. I did not dwell too much on Hysata, for example, which is very much in the clean tech space delivering hopefully its first commercial order for a megawatt scale plant in South America in early 2027, in the first half of 2027. We do see opportunity across all of them. I mean, interestingly, your question actually is a great observation on what we are seeing in our opportunity set is actually quite a convergence of deep tech, clean tech, and health tech. Many of our opportunities touch those areas in different ways. Oxa would be a good example. That is a company that has both a software model and a hardware model. It is clearly deploying machine learning and AI and software into physical environments. In some cases, that is being used to increase efficiency. In some cases, it is being used for security and defense, for improving resilience. That is one that probably does not touch health tech, for example. If you look, that is a trend that we think is interesting and something that our multidisciplinary science-based approach hopefully gives us a competitive advantage in.

Thank you. Again, just to clarify for John B., is the amylin, does the amylin belong to the group? Yes, it does. Like I explained in the [inaudible], in that sort of IP Group owns a lot of the Pfizer's weight loss franchise. It's quite a few parts, not just the lead programs, but the combination therapies and the prodrug and the GIPR. So it's quite a wide estate of about six different patent areas, which we originate through the IP Group. Going back, the next one I would say from Lucas, I think one of our most loyal shareholders, definitely deserves to have your question read out in full, Lucas. "Congratulations on the strong results. Given the very positive presentation and very strong underlying performance, we still find it difficult to understand why the stock continues to trade at 40% discount level." This is a question we've talked about many times. "What do you believe are the key reasons for this discount?

Well, we've discussed this a lot, haven't we? That's part of the reason that we have the capital allocation program that we do. I guess there are broad ways we can reduce the discount over time. The first is simply delivery. Ultimately, discounts narrow when investors gain confidence that our NAV growth, our portfolio progress, our cash realizations are repeatable rather than one-offs. So that's why we've been so focused on the NAV per share growth, the exits, and the portfolio execution. The second is conversion. We've talked today about the quality of the portfolio, but investors quite reasonably want to see more of that value translated into cash and then hopefully into shareholder returns and realized outcomes. That's why we set that GBP 250 million cash exit target. We felt that was an ambitious target. That was, I think, at the time, more than half our entire market cap that we said we were going to deliver in cash exits, and it's obviously why capital allocation remains such an important area of focus. Then I suppose the third, we're increasingly focused on the sort of the structure around the portfolio itself. That obviously includes shareholder returns, which we need to engage on further during the rest of this year. The development of our third-party capital platform, and how we can maximize the value. We definitely heard a range of views on that front during the summer, and we are, of course, now actively considering how best to reflect those views while remaining disciplined and focused on long-term value creation. So I think there isn't a single action that closes a discount of this size. I think that sustained delivery, thoughtful shareholder-focused capital allocation, continued realizations, that seems to me the most credible route to narrowing it over time.

Yes. I won't repeat, there's a number of other questions about reducing the discount. A question from John L., "Is Saba a shareholder?" Factual answer, yes, they are. They own about 12%. Next question from Bill H., "Has IP Group's new chairman bought any shares in the group? Are there any signs yet of [inaudible] contribution to the group's effect will be different from the predecessor?" You have talked a little bit about this, but just perhaps on the shares.

Yeah, on the shares. Yeah, Michael was very keen to buy shares and bought them I think within a week of the end of the offer period. I bought a few more shares too. I think that, well, hopefully signifies to shareholders that we believe in the value of the group, believe that there is upside in the share price, and are voting with our capital. I'm very exposed to the IP Group share price, as you would expect as shareholders. So it's my number 1 KPI, obviously.

One from Milošević, also an analyst. Nice to have you with us today. "How much M&A appetite do you see for pre-commercial stage biotech companies from Big Pharma?

I would say there's always active discussion ongoing, and the route to value creation for that bit of our portfolio, we will hopefully demonstrate over the course of the next 12-18 months, I would say. There's a number of the bigger readouts coming, and there remains significant appetite, for sure.

Yep. Four or five more on the buyback. I won't repeat those again. This is from Sam England, who is also another analyst. Nice to have you with us, Sam. Thank you. How much visibility do you have on realizations out to end of 2027 that gives you confidence to deliver on the 250 realization target. Perhaps I'll answer that one. The forecasting of realizations is quite tricky because it's not like the majority of our stocks are public companies, so you can just make a decision you're going to sell something. A lot of them require, obviously, transaction either for the company to maybe float or somebody to buy it. However, we found we can get relatively accurate on this by looking really into the probability basis. Based on that, you can see up to 15, 20 different things that have varying probabilities. Overall, I think we're relatively or very confident that we will achieve that target in the next year. Certainly based upon our accuracy of forecasting. So it comes from a deep knowledge of a large number of companies and understanding relatively realistically what the probabilities of all of them are. Once you wait for that, or allow it waiting, if you see what I mean, you can get relatively accurate forecasts. So our visibility is actually good without being precise, is what I would say. Looking on down. Okay. Sam, again, you're back. Outside of direct AI exposure, what extent do you see AI as a value creator across the portfolio versus something that creates the risk of disruption. Another topical question.

Well, it's being used significantly. We've said that a lot of the value drivers for our businesses are heavily aligned with AI and the use of AI, and this ranges from things like Oxford Nanopore's base calling software and ability to be able to improve the efficiency of that. We're seeing it being used in therapeutic areas to help around the clinical trial design and analysis. We're seeing it in, we're just looking at a new AI-supported materials discovery and development company, for example, that will have to combine a direction of travel that we see, which is sort of combining the digital electrons with the physical atoms and materials in a sort of an iterative loop. So I think that's a trend that will be important actually for the next two, three years. Where are the places where there is a sustainable competitive advantage brought about by a technological advantage that can be paired with or accelerated by the potential for AI. We are using it significantly within IP Group and using it to improve all aspects of our business very significantly. I think it is having a profound effect here just as much as it is in the portfolio, and we will definitely report back more on that over coming months.

There is a couple around governmental support here, which I will combine. Generally, what is your engagement, if any, with the new Burnham government and its focus on backing British business? Can the government help you? Follow on, are there any concrete developments from the U.K. government's perspectives by encouraging pension funds to invest in U.K. tech?

Yeah. I would say the trend that began, of course, it is interesting. Not to ramble here because let us try to keep focused, but look back to where a lot of the current things like Mansion House all started. They were back in 2016 or so. It has been a number of years for that to come to fruition. Definitely one thing we have learned over the years is that government support is not something that we build any investment cases around, but it is becoming an increasingly important tailwind for us. Over the last 12-18 months, we have seen a lot more policy emphasis on innovation, science, and technology as drivers of U.K. growth, support for scaling companies, and that point definitely around greater engagement with institutional capital and this sort of recognition that particularly in the U.K., more U.K. businesses need access to growth funding if they are going to remain and grow here. To specifically answer the question, there was a recent announcement by a big consortium of pension funds headed up by or endorsed by the U.K. government and the UK Scale-up Fund. That is part of wider efforts to bring pension capital into innovation and trying to address that sort of funding gap. I think and would hope that the relationship that we have started with Aberdeen, also is a way that we can significantly address that gap. There is a lot of defined contributions. You have the defined benefit, local government pension schemes, pool of capital, then you have the direct contribution, DC savers pool of capital, and both present opportunities. The Aberdeen one is more on this side of the opportunity. I think there is good strategic alignment between us and Aberdeen and the underlying investors about the opportunity here and getting capital into the space. I think the overall policy is aligned, maybe more aligned, around what we are trying to achieve, and that is building and scaling leading science and technology companies in the U.K.

I am conscious it is 11:00 A.M., and obviously for those that want to go, please do. We have done fairly good job. We will not be half an hour more. There are still seven or eight questions. I will try and answer those or combine where I can. I quite understand if people have to drop off now, just thought I would mention that. There is a very specific question I will just quickly deal with anyway, because it was a clever observation by Andrew M. "Can I clarify that the Hysata evaluation at June did not affect the third-party evaluation that was commissioned?" I was terrified for you. I guess you spotted it had not changed much. We actually did choose not to change it. The valuation actually was slightly higher, but we thought on balance it made sense to probably leave it until the next funding round. We do not always use evaluations as religion. Do not have to adopt them, but they are a useful guide that we are materially in the right area. We are, the difference is totally immaterial.

Our valuation was within the range.

Yeah, it was right at the bottom of the range in the end, so we did not want to change it. Yeah. There is a slightly technical question about the valuation amount is zero. "Do the probability weightings go to 100% once an asset is approved, or are there commercial risks included in that or the peak sales estimates?" In short, yes, once it launched, your probability is now for a year is 100%, but at any time the forecast will change. So there is doubt both about whether you will get there, and when you get there, how big it will be. So that basically sums it up. So at any time you could find the forecast increasing a lot, so a big increase or vice versa. So those are really the two things to bear in mind. But certainly once these things launch, you have eliminated your risk of the trial component. You are now into, I guess, risk of market size. Briefly, perhaps a question about the most exciting new investments, Greg, maybe something you might want to touch on briefly. You could go on for a long time about that, but.

Yeah. Well, I think the ones that I have tried to set out, and I can give you a whole list of some of them. We have got a very interesting health tech Series A business that we just invested into. Again, sort of slightly later stage as an opportunity has come into things slightly later stage now. Looking at analyzing the health of tissues during surgery. Again, it is AI-powered enhanced, but it enables both human surgeons and robot surgeons to be able to analyze the integrity and health of tissue, which is very important during an operation. So that is an interesting one. There is the AI-driven materials opportunity. Yeah, there is a good breadth. All of those sit at the very early stage in that GBP 0.53 of NAV per share. I have tried to highlight the ones that probably provide the nearest opportunity for shorter-term catalysts, the next 6-12 months, in the presentation. I definitely would say we have had an increase in pace of new investments this year. I think we have done six or so year to date on the balance sheet. We have continued to do plenty in our Parkwalk funds. But I think that six to date is, I think, double what we did last year, if I remember correctly, on the balance sheet. I think we did about three last year. So, yeah, no, we are definitely seeing opportunities for investment. And I think with the confidence around realizations, we need to make sure that shareholders' capital is at work.

And a couple more. I am finding quite a lot of them are repeating. So, there is a very specific one about the increase from the GBP 1.13 to GBP 1.17 and asking, what is that attributable in the portfolio? Does it relate to the valuations? Probably worth making the point. It is just generated by the movement in Oxford Nanopore or], which has performed strongly since it reported its full-year results. We have not done a full revaluation of the portfolio at that date, so it has just been adjusted by the movement in the public shares, which is mainly Nanopore. I may well be there. I have covered Saba. No, I would say that would cover them all. I think I am back to repeats now. So we did not overrun by too much.

There is a couple of small ones on the portfolio.

Yeah, we could.

Again, whether people are interested in these, did IP Group ever look at or seek to work with Origo? I would have to double-check.

Yeah.

Could leramistat be granted orphan drug status by the FDA? It has previously been granted orphan drug status in an indication called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, IPF. That is something that our portfolio companies and we work together on in order to build up this sustainable competitive advantage, and hopefully contribute to increased commercial value at the time that we get to partnering and exit. It is certainly something that we would be looking at. Just trying to see if there is anything else. There are lots, look, to be very transparent, there are a number of questions on differing views amongst our shareholder base and things like that. But I think we have commented, I think, to the extent is appropriate. If we have missed any, apologies.

Yeah. If you want to reach out, please do. But yeah.

Perfect. Greg, David, at this point, if I may just jump back in there. Thank you very much indeed for addressing all of those questions that came in from investors this morning. If there are any further questions, we will give them back to you immediately after the presentation for you to review. But Greg, perhaps before, really now just looking to redirect those on the call to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to yourself and the company. If I could please just ask you for a few closing comments just to wrap up with, that would be great.

Thanks, Jake. In summary, there are probably three things to highlight. First, we have continued to deliver against the priorities that I set out at the start of the year, further NAV per share growth, strong cash realizations, and that broad progress across the portfolio. Second, to give comfort to shareholders, we are seeing that increasing external validation of the quality of those portfolio companies, whether that is fundraising, strategic partnerships, or continued progress in the therapeutic areas. Third, we are very focused on turning that progress into tangible shareholder outcomes, and we will work on that capital allocation piece. But the things like active portfolio management and continued cash generation are very high up our priority list.

That is great. Greg, David, thank you once again for updating investors this morning. Could I please ask investors not to close this session, as you will now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback. On behalf of the management team of IP Group plc, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session, so good morning to you all.