ICG Enterprise Trust Q4 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
May 7, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Strong long-term performance: Five-year NAV per share total return was c.10% annualized (share price +13% annualized) and the dedicated team delivered c.11.8% annualized portfolio returns on a local currency basis over five years.
  • Positive Sentiment: High and profitable realizations: FY26 realizations were £382m with 49 full exits at an average ~3x cost and an 11% uplift to prior carrying value, producing a ~25% realization rate versus a ~14% market backdrop.
  • Positive Sentiment: Committed capital returns to shareholders: Ordinary dividend rose to £0.39 (13th consecutive increase, +8% YoY) and the board returned £51m (≈4% of opening NAV) including buybacks that cut share count ~3% in the year.
  • Positive Sentiment: Conservative balance sheet and high liquidity: Available liquidity of £227m, net debt ~£33m (≈2.5% of portfolio value) and a low overcommitment ratio (32%) give flexibility to invest, maintain vintage diversification and continue buybacks/dividends.
  • Negative Sentiment: Significant FX headwind this year: A sharp sterling strengthening created an estimated ~3.6% foreign-exchange drag, leaving a one-year NAV per share total return of only 0.5% despite a 4.8% local-currency portfolio return.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
ICG Enterprise Trust Q4 2026
00:00 / 00:00

There are 3 speakers on the call.

Speaker 1

Good morning, and welcome to ICG Enterprise Trust's full year results for the 12 months to 31st of January, 2026. Before we begin, let me briefly set the scene for today. ICG Enterprise Trust invests in mature, profitable private companies across North America and Europe, with a strong focus on managing risk as well as returns. Over the past year, our portfolio companies have continued to perform well. We realized assets above carrying value, and we've returned capital to shareholders through both dividends and buybacks. The portfolio is diversified and supported by a strong balance sheet. Today, Oliver and Colin will walk you through how ICGT has performed, how the portfolio's positioned, and how we're thinking about the year ahead. The slides and the results announcement are available on our website. We will leave time as well for Q&A at the end.

Speaker 1

You can submit questions at any point using the Q&A box you see on your screens. With that, I'll hand over to Oliver.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Martin. Let me take the next few minutes to outline our investment strategy, particularly for newer shareholders. We aim to capture private equity returns while managing risk through a focused investment strategy. Our aim is to reduce risk without compromising returns. We reduce risk in the following way. We focus only on mature buyouts, profitable cash-generative companies. We do not invest in venture capital or growth, since VC adds significant risk and volatility to the portfolio. We invest primarily in developed markets, North America and Europe, where the depth and the quality of private equity managers is the strongest. We focus on mid-market deals, companies with an enterprise value of typically GBP 250 million-GBP 2 billion in enterprise value.

Speaker 2

Small by public market standards, we think it's a sweet spot of good companies which can be transformed through operational improvements and strategic repositioning into market-leading great companies. Now, we aim to also generate obviously high returns. We do this by partnering with top-tier private equity managers with proven track records through the cycles. Put together, that gives us a diversified portfolio of resilient companies with a more consistent return profile where performance is less cyclical or seasonal. Let me unpack this, what we mean by resilient companies. In practice, we look for companies with the following characteristics. They have an established market position. They are a provider of mission-critical products or services. We also like investing in businesses which have pricing power and a high-margin business model.

Speaker 2

We're, as we all know, are currently living in a volatile macroeconomic climate, but we believe that these characteristics give our portfolio resilience and flexibility in the face of market turbulence. That's why we believe ICG Enterprise Trust can play a valuable role in many shareholders' portfolios. We believe our high realization rate of roughly 20%-25% of NAV is good evidence that we can select and get exposure to companies with resilient growth. Market-leading companies find buyers even in difficult market environment. In recent months, there have been various announcements in the investment trust space. However, ICG Enterprise Trust's board, and us as a manager, have already for a number of years been making refinements and enhancements to the shareholder proposition of ICG Enterprise Trust. This slide summarizes a number of initiatives that we have implemented over the years.

Speaker 2

First, on our investment strategy, we've continued to refine their approach. In 2023, we announced a 50/50 target split between North America and Europe. Last year, we increased our focus on secondary and direct investments. Lastly, we have invested in a dedicated investment team focused on the ICG Enterprise Trust portfolio, which has delivered an 11.8% annualized portfolio return on a local currency basis over the last 5 years. Moving to capital allocation, we have a progressive dividend policy with the ordinary dividend per share increasing for 13 consecutive years. The board was also an early mover on buybacks, launching a long-term program in 2022 and an opportunistic program in 2024. Combined, 4%-5% of NAV has been returned to shareholders in each of those last 2 financial years.

Speaker 2

In regards to communication and engagement, we have enhanced our look-through disclosure on the portfolio. We met a record number of investors last year. We broadened our outreach across channels, including an increased LinkedIn presence, platform engagement, and shorter-form video contents. Collectively, these actions have supported a 17.3 share price total return in the 12 months to 31st January 2026. We should turn to our performance for this financial year. On a local currency basis, the portfolio returned 4.8%. As many of you will be aware, unfortunately, sterling strengthened sharply against the US dollar in one of the biggest 12-month moves in the decade, which created a 3.6% foreign currency headwind. Therefore, the one-year NAV per share total return was 0.5%. Over five years and 10 years, we've produced double-digit returns.

Speaker 2

In the last five years, NAV per share total return has been 10% annualized, and the share price total return was 13% annualized. We also returned GBP 51 million through capital allocation during the year and GBP 28 million of that via share buybacks. Lastly, we've been actively managing our balance sheet, and we're particularly proud that we can continue to be supported by a very robust balance sheet, high liquidity and low net debt of 2.5% of portfolio value, which gives us flexibility to keep deploying into our high-quality opportunities and maintain vintage diversification, which is so important in private equity to support our long-term growth objectives. Before we go into the detail of our fiscal year 26 investment activity, I want to frame the discussion with four key points. Firstly, the underlying private company fundamentals remain very robust.

Speaker 2

Secondly, the Enterprise Trust is actively managed. Thirdly, I want to specifically touch on certain elements of recent market volatility. Finally, I want to expand on the long-term growth trends that our portfolio taps into. Let's start with the first point. Underlying private company fundamentals remain robust. Over the last 12 months, the Enterprise Trust portfolio delivered 13% earnings growth. This chart shows here the annual EBITDA growth for ICG Enterprise Trust portfolio, a basket of around 1,500 European and U.S. private companies from a proprietary ICG database and the FTSE All-Share. I think the message is quite simple. Private companies have outperformed public markets. Furthermore, our portfolio has outperformed even that private benchmark. Our portfolio EBITDA growth has averaged 15% per year, compared with 6% for the FTSE All-Share. That consistency is what underpins our long-term compounding returns.

Speaker 2

Moving on to the second point is that Enterprise Trust has a dedicated investment team. Therefore, we have the ability to actively manage the ICG Enterprise Trust portfolio, both in how we build the portfolio, but also how we allocate capital. On the left-hand side of the slide is portfolio activity. Colin will cover some of the specifics shortly, but I wanted to get across here is that fundamentally, we are very selective. We're highly selective in re-ups to managers, focusing on those who continue to generate strong performance and attractive co-investment deal flow. We're not just doing the re-ups. We're also highly selective on co-investments, executing 6 deals and reviewing further 25. This is consistent with our approach of typically turning down over 80% of our co-investments we offer. On the right-hand side is capital allocation.

Speaker 2

We bought back 3% of our share count during the year and over 9% since launching the long-term buyback program in 2022. Buybacks sit alongside our progressive dividend policy. Total dividends for fiscal year 2026 are GBP 0.39 per share. It's the 13th, and I mentioned this before, but I think it's worthwhile mentioning again. It's the 13th consecutive year of ordinary dividend per share increase, and an 8% increase on last year. In total, we have returned GBP 51 million this financial year, representing approximately 4% of our opening NAV. My third point is recent market volatility, particularly in public software companies, and what that could mean for private markets and marks over the coming quarters.

Speaker 2

Our view is that software businesses can be very attractive investments due to high margins, recurring revenue, low CapEx, and growth from ongoing digitalization. These are very strong business models. However, that attractiveness has often translated into very high valuations. The emergence of AI is now challenging software company valuations, particularly those which do not have deep domain expertise. Our approach in ICG Enterprise Trust has been very disciplined. Over recent years, we have declined a number of excellent software companies because we did not think valuations were sustainable. As a result, software is only 12% of the portfolio, which we believe that is meaningfully below the private market average. Where we do invest tends to be in mission-critical software: accounting, payroll, compliance, security, which we view as resilient.

Speaker 2

In every case, we invested only after stress testing the impact of lower exit and contraction of exit multiples. At year-end, the average multiple of our software holdings was 21.6x versus 27x for the S&P 500 software industry index. I think the message here is quite simple. As public market movements feed through the private valuations, we believe our limited exposure, the quality of the assets, and our valuation discipline should help support resilience. This is clearly an area we will be particularly focused on in coming quarters. Let's also touch briefly on foreign currency. Fluctuations in GBP and USD over the last year won't be news to anyone. It has negatively impacted our performance on a GBP basis. However, over the last 5 and 10 years, the impact of foreign currency moves has been broadly neutral.

Speaker 2

Private equity is, at the end of the day, a long-term natural hedge. Moving on to our fourth and final point is the breadth of long-term growth trends across the portfolio. As I mentioned before, we have a dedicated investment team, so we were able to actively build a portfolio to benefit from multiple structural tailwinds. You can see that reflected in some of the logos on the slide. I'd like to pick out Brooks Automation, which is a provider of semiconductor manufacturing solutions and benefits from the rapid digital advancements in technology and productivity. It directly benefits from what's happening in the AI sector. Curium is a leading provider of nuclear imaging solutions, benefiting from the trend of increasing healthcare expenditure and an aging population. We've had a nice exit, proving that this was a great investment.

Speaker 2

European Camping Group is the European leader, owning and operating camping sites across Europe, benefiting from consumer spending patterns to more experience-led and convenience-driven purchases. Stout is a specialist professional services firm providing valuation services to address regulatory compliance and benefits from the growth of increasing regulation and financial infrastructure across economies. Anyone who is in the financial services industry and operating knows that regulatory compliance is not decreasing. If anything, it's consistently increasing. We're benefiting from that trend. These are the kinds of tailwinds that can support growth for different economic environments and are central to our objective of delivering attractive compounding returns. With that context, I'll hand over to Colm to take you through the fiscal year 2026 activity in more detail.

Operator

Fantastic. Thanks, Oliver, and good morning, everyone. Over the next few slides, I'll take you through what we saw across the portfolio over the last 12 months. As a reminder, we think about the investment cycle in four phases. First, we commit to new funds with our U.S. and European managers. Secondly, that capital is drawn and invested in portfolio companies, or we invest in those companies directly. Third, managers create value in those businesses, and we like to partner with managers who have a strong focus on operational expertise to optimize that growth. Finally, the investments are exited and proceeds realized. The cycle then repeats as proceeds are recycled into new commitments and into new investments. Moving on to the next slide and starting with commitments. We made GBP 201 million worth of new fund commitments during the year.

Operator

Most of that went to established managers with whom we have longstanding relationships, such as New Mountain, THL, and Advent. During the year, we focused mainly on existing managers, though some, such as Integram, are relatively new additions to our portfolio. Like most of our managers, people like Integram offer a strong relationship with the broader ICG group, a long track record and low loss ratios, and the potential to generate meaningful co-investment deal flow. Moving to new investments. We invested GBP 194 million during the period. That was slightly above last year. As Oliver noted, we remain selective, and activity is below our 5-year average. On the right are the largest investments. You can see they span themes ranging from food distribution, professional services, even to pest control. That's quite the range. It emphasizes the diversity in the portfolio.

Operator

Let me bring this to life with one example, which is Global Market Foods. Moving on to the next slide. Global Market Foods is a Chicago-based importer and distributor of international foods for the U.S. market. It has a strong financial profile. It's grown through multiple downturns, and it still has several different avenues or levers for expansion and growth. These include M&A. It's a very fragmented market. There's also the scope for geographical and product expansion. We co-invested $15 million alongside Audax. It's a manager we first backed in 2023. Audax has a combination of sector expertise, but they also have a specific expertise in executing buy and build strategies, and that's really central to the value creation plan for this investment.

Operator

That further underlines the theme of backing experienced high-quality managers who have, as the Americans say, a right to win in these kinds of investments. Moving now to portfolio company performance. This slide summarizes the key performance and valuation metrics across the portfolio. As you can see, portfolio companies performed well, delivering 10% annual revenue growth and 13% annual EBITDA growth. Valuation multiples rose modestly to 15.7 times LTM EBITDA. We're comfortable with that given the quality of the portfolio, its diverse sectoral exposure, and its defensive qualities. Finally, turning to exits. Realizations totaled GBP 382 million in the period, and overall it was a strong year for realizations. Whilst the 2025 global buyout realization rate remained subdued at around 14%, that's broadly in line with 2022-2024, our realization rate was 25%.

Operator

We generated liquidity from nine of our top 20 companies during the year. Just as important was the breadth of exits from Minimax, Fire Protection Services, Froneri, Icecream, Datasite, PSB Academy, reflecting again the range of themes and growth drivers in the portfolio. The common thread is our focus on high-quality businesses and high-quality managers who are able to execute exits even in a comparatively tough market. It also shows the benefits of exit optionality that comes with our mid-market focus. We are not especially reliant on IPOs with multiple exit routes, including sales to financial buyers, strategics, and to continuation funds. Moving on to the next slide, staying with exits, one of the clearest proof points for NAV is where businesses are sold.

Operator

Over the last 12 months, ICG Enterprise Trust saw 49 full exits at a multiple of cost of 3 times, and that was with an 11% uplift to the previous carrying value. That extends a long-term pattern. Exits have generated about 2.5 times cost and have typically come at a significant premium to carrying value. We see that as a strong validation of both the portfolio quality and the veracity of the NAV. That realization activity, as you can see from this slide, also leaves us well-positioned from a balance sheet perspective. At the 31st of January 2026, we had GBP 227 million of available liquidity. We had GBP 33 million worth of net debt, and that's against a GBP 1.4 billion portfolio. That converts to an overcommitment ratio of 32%.

Operator

We believe that leaves us with one of the lowest gearing ratios in the peer group. Balance sheet discipline remains particularly important in this environment, and it remains a core strength of ICG Enterprise Trust. Specifically, it allows us to keep investing in high-quality opportunities through the cycle. It allows us to maintain vintage diversification, and it enables us to enhance shareholder returns through the use of buybacks and dividends. Finally, looking ahead, our priorities are clear. First, we will keep a high bar for new investments. We will continue, as Oliver outlined, to manage the portfolio actively. Secondly, after a strong realization year, several larger positions have been exited. Over time, we aim to rebuild that concentration when we can see the potential to generate outsized returns.

Operator

Third, we will continue to balance long-term value creation with near-term shareholder returns through investing, through buybacks, through dividends. There are, of course, still uncertainties, not least of which is how far will volatility in software valuations feed through to private markets over the coming quarters? To what extent will the conflict in the Middle East affect inflation, interest rates? What will be the other second-order and third-order effects? How will transaction activity adjust to that external environment? Despite all of this, we believe we are well-positioned with a balance sheet that gives us flexibility to keep investing, to maintain vintage diversification. With a resilient mid-market portfolio, diversified by sector and diversified, crucially, by investment thesis, and with strong partnerships with managers that have navigated through multiple cycles and multiple different types of market environments.

Operator

We believe collectively that supports resilience through volatility and enables compounding returns over time. With that, I'm going to hand back to Martin for the Q&A.

Speaker 1

Great. Thanks, Colin. Thanks, Oliver. We now have about 10, 15 minutes or so for Q&A. As a reminder, please feel free to submit questions via the Q&A box you see on the webinar platform. A few have come in already, grouping them into themes as best I can and taking them in turn. The first theme really is on realizations. Grouping three questions in one, it's really why were our FY 2026 questions so strong and what is the outlook for activity in FY 2027 given the higher macro and geopolitical risks?

Speaker 2

We are I mean, I'll take the first one. I think it's a great reflection of the quality of companies we own and we like to buy into as well as the fund managers. Even in if you have, particularly the middle market side, if you have in your portfolio, and we're focusing particularly on companies GBP 250 to GBP 2 billion in enterprise value, where you can they're large enough to be market leaders in their sectors, their niches, their regions, but small enough where they have several options of exit options from what Colin mentioned earlier and are not so dependent on macro environment and IPO appetites.

Speaker 2

That's why we think our portfolio sets itself apart from other portfolios because we have a very strong focus on that sector and that's why we can generate good returns because these are companies which strategic buyers, private equity buyers would like to own and sell even in difficult markets. On the second point, in regards to what is the outlook look like, so far we've had good traction. We had an exceptionally good year last year. So I won't I'm not confident yet that we're gonna reach the same number. We're very confident that we will. We've had already a very good start, and we have good visibility in regards to getting close or at around that number where we were last year.

Speaker 2

Colm, you wanna talk about, a little bit about what we've already seen in the portfolio?

Operator

Yeah. We've had a good start to the year with a number of the top 30 companies at the 31st of January having already been realized. In particular, Curium and Yudo. I'll just add to Oliver's comments that there have been also some promising deals recently announced in the market despite all the volatility. We also saw last year, it's worth remembering that it was also a year where there was considerable external volatility. April last year, we had Liberation Day. At the time, people were concerned that would cause, see a pause in deal activity. I think we remain reasonably optimistic. It's obviously very difficult for us to for anybody to accurately predict what's going to happen in the broader external environment.

Operator

I think part of the question was why was it so good last year. I think some of that is that if you back high-quality managers investing in high-quality companies, they are the kinds of companies that still get realized even in these kind of difficult environments because they're kind of must-own companies. They will always attract buyers, and they will always attract premium pricing.

Speaker 1

Great. Thanks, Oliver. Thanks, Colm. A few questions have come in on software. We announced in the RNS this morning that our TMT exposure, so not just tech, but including media and wider TMT, is 30%. Software, we've said, is 12%. Couple of questions really just expanding on that software, on that 12% software definition. What does it include? Can you give a bit more color on the nature of the companies, in terms of the gap between that 30% TMT and then that 12% software?

Operator

Sure. All of our portfolio companies are categorized using the GICS classification, and the 12% is a reflection of all of the companies that have a software industry designation. That includes companies in our top 30 exposures like Visma, Precisely, DigiCert, Ping, Archer. Now just on that 12%, it's worth noting that not all software is created equally. This is a high-quality portfolio of software companies. The valuations are below the S&P 500 average. Still, even after all of the market turmoil, the S&P 500 average is still at a premium to where we mark these companies.

Operator

Some of these companies, particularly highlighting something like Ping, may well be a software company classified correctly as such, but it operates in cybersecurity, which is actually, if you look at some of its listed comps, is actually a booming sector. Companies like Palo Alto, which are listed, have been performing exceptionally well, have not been impacted by some of these market movements, which has very much hit kind of horizontal software companies. The gap between software and technology, again, may be best illustrated by looking at our top 30. Indeed, our largest company, Circana, is in the technology field. Circana is a provider of data.

Operator

Again, we would argue that, while software is to some degree, you know, you access the data products through software, but software is not the fundamental reason why people engage Circana. It's to access its proprietary data. Again, that's a sector where you have considerable, positive, headwinds. That's a company which saw significant earnings growth over the last 12 months.

Speaker 2

I would like to add also that, of the 12%, roughly 7% are six companies which Colm just highlighted, are the six companies where we did with the largest exposure are obviously the companies where we co-invested alongside software experts such as Thoma Bravo or Hg. We have been always sensitive to the high valuations in the market. When we did actually these co-investments, we always, in our base case assumption, we always assumed a contraction to the underlying EBITDA value and in order to get to our base case returns. We feel very comfortable that there is cushion and downside protection in terms of where we have priced them in our base case.

Operator

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Super. Thanks, Oliver. Thanks, Colm. A few questions on the underlying trading performance of our companies. This question's come in. You've had great EBITDA growth, a small increase in multiples. Do you wanna just explain the mechanics, and we're reporting a portfolio return on a local currency basis of 4.8%. Do you wanna just explain the mechanics between the two?

Operator

Yes. Yeah. This is something we think about all the time. It's somewhat counterintuitive. There are quite a few disconnects between the EBITDA growth and then how it feeds through to the portfolio. What I would say is over time, high EBITDA growth ultimately translates into high portfolio growth. There are a number of distortions that impact that in the short term. Not least of which is when we have new investments, they tend not to be marked up. Even if they have EBITDA growth, it doesn't contribute into portfolio growth, but it does eventually. There's also the impact of different structures across the portfolio, and obviously the impact of currency as well.

Operator

I would say that the high levels of the strong long-term growth potential, you can't always read across from that I think, Martin, if the question is talking about why is there a disconnect, if you look over time, we've had some years where the levels of EBITDA growth are greater than portfolio growth, some years where they're less. It's something which over time tends to sort of even out. As I say, you know, ultimately, strong portfolio growth does lead strong earnings growth leads to strong portfolio growth over time.

Speaker 2

I One other additional comment to make is that in periods where there is high volatility, as we see currently in the market, in the public markets, particularly since public markets are very driven by AI, there's a lot more volatility when you take out AI companies within the AI world. Managers tend to be very conservative, and so therefore they tend to be much more reluctant to write up the companies, and that's why you see a lot of flattishness in the underlying valuations and the NAV growth, despite strong portfolio performance and strong EBITDA and revenue growth.

Speaker 1

Super. The next theme of questions is on FX. As you've both said, headwind this year. Over the long term, it can be a tailwind as well in any given year. How do we think about FX hedging in our portfolio?

Speaker 2

FX hedging in private equity is very difficult and extremely expensive because we cannot predict. The hardest thing to predict in private equity is when the exits are coming through the portfolio. It's very difficult to kind of put a hedge in place, because on the hedging you need to kind of have good visibility on your exits in order to kind of put the hedges on and unwind them. It's very difficult, very expensive. When you look at the data, and you've seen that in the slide, private equity is actually quite. Because of its long-term nature and because of our diversified portfolio, it's actually a long-term, it has a natural hedge.

Speaker 2

We do not believe Unless you believe that there's a structural decline in one of the currencies, which we do not believe, and we certainly don't have the wanna make that currency bet, they kind of even each other out. You've seen that in the slide. Over a period of 10, 15, 20 years, long term, it just bounces back and forth and evens itself out.

Operator

It's also worth noting that a lot of the companies we back are themselves internationally diversified. They don't earn all of their revenue in one currency. If you take Circana, it has a significant European business, a big American business. It's an international company. You can't think of it as just being a pure U.S. exposure, and the same is true across the portfolio. You know, even if you did know the timing, understanding the precise exposure, the currency delta for each company would be very, very difficult to achieve.

Speaker 2

I think Q1 is a good example where it's bouncing back, it bounced back again.

Speaker 1

Great. Thanks. One more question on realizations has come in. With many global markets hitting all-time highs, are we concerned that we're not seeing more IPO exit activity in the PE sector broadly?

Speaker 2

No, we're not, because actually we try to avoid getting exposure to IPO company, companies which are very have high exposure to, in terms of their realization to IPOs. We think IPOs are obviously a great opportunity to kind of create more liquidity within private equity and within the markets. They also bring a lot of volatility into the portfolio, as we've seen with Chewy when we had a large portion of Chewy in our portfolio. That's why we actually like a portfolio which has, as I mentioned before, size GBP 250 million to GBP 2 billion in enterprise value, where they can be IPO'd, but there's many other exit options, and we're not entirely dependent on IPOs.

Speaker 2

Our portfolio doesn't really lend itself to, or you won't see, that much impact from IPO markets going up or down, which is kind of where we would like it to be.

Speaker 1

Great. Thanks, Oliver. A few questions on balance sheets and how we think about capital allocation. As you've both said, we have a very robust balance sheet, low net debt, high liquidity. What does that give us options to do, and how do we think about balancing that between investing for the long term and, as you've said, dividends and buybacks?

Speaker 2

So we're trying to find the right balance between shareholder buybacks, managing the discount, but at the same time, making sure we can continue to provide and build a portfolio which is generating strong NAV growth and portfolio performance and EBITDA growth. So we're constantly assessing that balance, that's why it's great to have a dedicated investment team and an active board where we constantly make sure we are looking at finding the right balance. Having a robust balance sheet gives you a lot of those tools and that optionality, which we like.

Speaker 1

Super. Thanks, Oliver. One more question has come in on uplifts. As you've said, the full exits we announced in the last 12 months were at a 3x multiple of cost and 11% uplift. That 11%, by the way, someone's just asked for the breakdown of that. That is realization proceeds of the full exits of GBP 196 million against a prior carrying value of GBP 176 million. The GBP 196 over the GBP 176 is what gets the 11% uplift. There's a few broader questions on uplift, which Colin maybe you can answer on just how do we see the go forwards uplifts, will it continue to be a premium on exit?

Operator

I would say that we, you know, it's a very long-standing pattern over a decade of seeing these uplifts and valuation. The obviously the number ebbs and flows, but I think we still believe that our managers tend to hold things at relatively conservative valuations. They only get rewarded on cash returns. There's typically no incentive to over-mark positions. I think One of the other things I would say is the level is also sometimes a function of the type of exit. We had a number of exits in the last year, which were to continuation vehicles, which by the very nature of that exit modality, are typically in line with carrying value.

Operator

Where we get more sales to strategics or to financial buyers, you tend to see higher uplifts. Some of that is not necessarily a reflection of, sort of anything happening in the broader economy, it's sometimes a function of how things are being exited. Overall, I think we know, we remain confident that that long-term trend, you know, I'm not a fortune teller, but that should continue.

Speaker 2

What we're particularly proud of that number is that we, out of the 49 exits at an average of a 3x of our invested cost, that's a very strong number, which I think, we think is a good indicator that we're buying quality companies, and they are growing into better companies, where we can generate that kind of investment returns, of 3x consistently over you know, as an average over 49 companies. We think that's a very strong indicator for our investment process and our ability to select good companies.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Oliver. A question just on the portfolio return. On a local currency basis, it was 4.8%. If we can just break that down, as best we can. Did it come, for example, from realized return? How much was it from unrealized appreciation? Were there any particular sectors that drove it, for example, just any more color on the 4.8% local currency return?

Operator

Well, you get a sense of what the realized return from the uplifts number. I mean, I think it's fair to say it was fairly broad-based. Our primary portfolio is very diversified, and the growth in the directs portfolio and secondaries portfolio is it's all very diversified. I wouldn't say there was a particular look through to any one sector or any geography. We looked broadly Europe and North America performed broadly the same in local currency terms. So, no, we didn't see any specific pattern. Again, I think that's a real advantage to having a diversified portfolio. We don't rely on any one sector or any one theme to generate our returns.

Speaker 1

Great. Thanks, Colin. I see no further questions online. If there are any follow-up questions, after this webinar, please feel free to contact the email address that you'll see on your screens. With that, Oliver, Colin, thank you very much, and thank you all for joining today.

Operator

Thanks very much.

Speaker 2

Thanks, everybody.

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