Alessandro Monteiro Morgado Horta
Analyst · JPMorgan
Thank you, Anna. Good evening and thank you all for joining our call. We appreciate you joining us. We are pleased to report another strong quarter for Vinci Compass marked by solid financial results, continued fundraising momentum and the acceleration of key strategic initiatives across our platform. I'll let Bruno and Sergio dive into more details in our results for the quarter, but I wanted to take the time to summarize what I believe are the three key highlights for us and what they mean for our platform. When we take our distributable earnings, we can compose it by looking into three different components of value: FRE, PRE and investment income. The second quarter posted healthy numbers for our FRE as we continue to bring in additional AUM from a diverse set of different strategies, infrastructure, credit and global IP&S being the highlights this time. Vinci Compass continues to grow by raising capital from an extremely diverse set of products, geographies and investor channels. Shifting to PRE and investment income of our results, I'm very pleased to give attention to this because this is paramount to the value of the investments on our balance sheet and the future earnings power this brings to Vinci Compass. This quarter, in addition to the performance recognized across liquid funds in equities and credit, we had the realization of performance fees coming from one of our infra funds. FIP Infra Transmissao is a fund that was formed back in 2017 before our IPO, in which we made a small commitment from the company's balance sheet at the time and has been collecting its realized returns since 2022. This is the same capital deployment that we have been conducting at a larger scale since our IPO through commitments to proprietary funds using our balance sheet capital. First, we commit this capital to one of our funds, let's say, in private equity, infra credit, real estate strategies. We have a short-term impact on our FRE numbers with the fundraising leverage by this anchor commitment to the fund, which helped the product gain traction in the fundraising process and earn management fees for the company. Then we have a medium-term negative impact on our cash earnings as this cash, which was deployed into the fund, is not earning short-term financial income anymore because it has been deployed into this private market fund. Initially, the appreciation of the closed-end fund commitment is only seen in our net income results, not our distributable earnings. Finally, after the fund matures and returns capital to its LPs, we reap these benefits with capital return and capital gains and obviously, the performance fee recognized by the fund impacting our PRE. The consolidated impact of such events in FIP Infra this quarter to our cash earnings was BRL 50 million pretax. This quarter showed what this effect potentially means for our future as we realized gains from a small commitment made in the past that was not that significant when we compare it to our cash allocation after the IPO. We believe this is a crucial part of the value of the business, and we hope this quarter helps enlightening on this aspect in potential future results. This quarter brought significant accomplishments, and we are excited to share that we successfully executed a series of strategic exits across multiple verticals clear evidence of our ability to capture value and deliver results in diverse market conditions. A key highlight was the aforementioned full divestment of the remaining asset in FIP Transmissao within our real asset segment, which was concluded in May. These milestones marked the end of a cycle that began in 2017 with the inception of this fund and set the stage for its liquidation, expected to occur 24 months after the closing date pending release of escrow reserves. Still in real assets, we completed the full sale of another asset held by one of our infrastructure funds, the perpetual vehicle VIGT. The transaction was concluded at a value above the appraisal report and contributed directly to the deleveraging of the holding structure. In the private equity segment, we also announced the full exit of Camarada Camarao, a casual dining business held within our Nordeste III fund. This marks the fourth exit out of six investments in this vehicle, further reinforcing our strong track record of realizations within our private equity franchise. On the deployment front, we remain highly active. In July, we closed the third investment of VCP IV AGV, a company in the Temperature Control Logistics segment, bringing the fund's capital deployment to approximately 40% of total commitments. The team continues to be highly active in origination with numerous opportunities currently under evaluation. Our focus remains on sectors such as financial services, business services, technology, media and communications, agribusiness, education, and healthcare. In parallel, we are closely monitoring opportunities in financially distressed companies, multinational carve-outs, and private equity portfolio businesses, areas where we see meaningful potential for attractive entry points and valuations. Valuations across public and private markets remain compelling, and market multiples have remained suppressed, especially in Brazil, with the Ibovespa currently trading at just 8x forward earnings, well below historical averages. This valuation backdrop becomes even more interesting when considered alongside recent macro developments such as the improving outlook in Brazil. The country is currently at the peak of its real interest rate cycle with clear signs of an inflection. One-year real interest rates reached historically high levels of 11%, but have already begun to decline, driven by easing inflation and gradual improvements in fiscal fundamentals. While cuts to the SELIC rate are expected toward the end of 2025, the yield curve has already begun to price lower rates. For instance, 10-year rates have fallen from above 15% to the low 14% range. The local equity market remains under-allocated, with equities representing just 8% of domestic portfolios, well below historical averages, suggesting ample room for reallocation as rate cuts take hold. We are also seeing a similar setup layout more broadly across Latin America. The recent weakening of the U.S. dollar has contributed to a more dovish tone from central banks in several countries in our region. In Chile and Colombia, policymakers are actively discussing or initiating interest rate cuts. In Mexico, the Central Bank has continued to lower rates with no indication of a pause at this point. The combination of improving inflation expectations and easing policy is helping to strengthen the macro landscape across Latin America, creating a favorable backdrop for alternative investments. A strong reflection of this environment is the performance of one of our LatAm equity funds, which delivered consistent results in the first half of the year, ranking in the top quartile. This is particularly meaningful as the fund represents a core fundraising priority for the Equities team over the coming years, given both the size of the opportunity and our current market share, which remains below what we consider our fair share. This is especially true among Chilean pension funds, which have historically been key investors in this strategy. Adding to this momentum, there is growing optimism around pro-market candidates gaining traction ahead of upcoming elections across South America, further reinforcing the outlook for equity markets in the region. We believe our Credit segment is also well- positioned to keep benefiting from this environment across both local and regional strategies. This quarter alone, we posted over BRL 2 billion in new capital formation and AUM appreciation within this segment. By capital formation, we are referring to a combination of net inflows and capital subscriptions, with contributions coming from a range of sub- strategies and geographies, reinforcing the strength and scalability of the platform we are building. Still on the fundraising front, we are delighted to announce the final closing of our Infrastructure Climate Change fund, the ICC, raising close to BRL 2 billion. The fund was launched after winning a public call for proposals by the Brazilian Development Bank, BNDES, with the remaining capital being raised primarily from reputable international institutions such as development banks and sovereign wealth funds from both Europe and Asia. Our deployment plan is to expand investments in the segment to reach 100 megawatts of distributed solar generation. We also intend to invest in larger-scale renewable energy projects and are currently in discussion about a potential utility-scale solar initiative. Other sectors currently on the fund's radar include energy storage, energy transmission, energy efficiency, 5G tower infrastructure, and data centers powered by renewable energy sources. On the corporate side, we recently inaugurated our new office in Sao Paulo, allowing Vinci Compass 133 team members based in the city to effectively be part of a virtual second headquarters office for the firm. This move follows the acquisitions of SPS, MAV, Lacan, and the combination with Compass Brazilian office, all based in Sao Paulo over the past few years. By fully integrating our teams and aligning daily operations, we can maximize collaboration and deliver the value these combinations were designed to create for our clients and stakeholders. We invite our clients to visit the new space when convenient. Before closing, I'd like to extend a warm invitation to our Investor Day, which we will host on October 7, at the NASDAQ headquarters in New York. This will be a great opportunity for us, including the heads of our strategies, to share a deeper look at our business units, long-term positioning, and key performance expectations for Vinci Compass going forward. We look forward to seeing you there. To wrap up, we believe we are exceptionally well-positioned to navigate today's dynamic environment on behalf of our investors. Our portfolios remain in excellent shape, and we continue to execute with discipline and focus across all fronts. Thank you again for joining our call. With that, I'll turn it over to Bruno.