TP ICAP Group PLC

F:8D7

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q4

[Nicolas Breteau, executive]

So good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today, both in person and online. Our agenda for the morning is as follows: Robin will take you through our financial performance. The CEOs of business divisions. Dan Fields, Andrew Polydor, Mark Govoni and Eric Sinclair will report on their business. Then I will wrap up before we open up for questions.

But first, the headlines. We delivered a strong performance in '22. Macro events drove inflation to the highest rate indicates. As a result, Central Banks increased interest rates to levels last seen before the financial crisis. Against this backdrop, revenue grew 7% in constant currency and 13% on a reported basis.

Global Broking in particular, benefited from market volatility with high single-digit growth in constant currency across all asset classes. Productivity continued to improve. Revenue per broker was up 14%, and contribution per broker grew 20% before the impact of charges taken as a result of Russian sanctions.

Our high-margin businesses performed well. Revenue in rates, our largest asset class in Global Broking grew 7%. Parameta Solutions, our data and analytics business, was up 8%. This strong performance increased our adjusted EBIT by 8% to GBP 275 million and our underlying margin to 14%, excluding any impact from Russia, including duration charges, our margin was 13%.

We are managing our capital dynamically. As we told you last August, we have identified around GBP 100 million of cash, which we will free up by the end of '23 to pay down debt. By the end of '22, we had released GBP 30 million, and we are on track to deliver the remainder this year. The Board continues to assess our balance sheet and investment requirements and is committed to returning any potential surplus capital to shareholders. We're announcing today a final dividend per share of 7.9p, bringing our total dividend for the year to 12.4p, an increase of 31%.

Moving now to our strategic highlights. We are delivering our transformation at pace, including the rollout of our award-winning electronic platform Fusion. 40% of in-scope Global Broking revenue is now on the platform in line with our target. We are on track to complete our rollout by the end of '25, which will cover about 55% of the total Global Broking revenue with the technology already in place across many of our broking desk, the client adoption is now a key priority. Client feedback has been very encouraging, and we have now a dedicated sales team to drive adoption, which Dan will talk about later.

Despite the challenges of COVID, we're making good progress towards our '23 targets set out at our Capital Markets Day in [ 2020 ], subject to market conditions. Robin will brief you on the detail in his presentation.

We are also delivering our diversification strategy. In Energy & Commodities, our new institutional platform for spot crypto assets has now obtained FCA registration. Initial current feedback has been positive, and we are planning a full launch later this year. This is an exciting opportunity for the group.

Liquidnet has had to manage challenges posed by cyclical falls in many stock markets, and high volatility, which impacted block trading. This led to a decline in commission wallet. The business is actively diversifying its equity position and growing in cross-border Algo and program trading. Fixed income is a substantial opportunity for both Liquidnet and for the group. We're making good progress on the primary market offering. For example, we have partnered with around 30 syndicated banks. Our dealer to client credit proposition went live as planned last summer. All the client-facing technology is in place. Feedback is good.

Now the key issue is to grow liquidity on the platform. COVID has had a much impact on our dealers and potential clients prioritize the IT development needed to connect to the platform. We're moving up their priority list, and we're making good progress with the largest bank liquidity providers. But given these realities, it will take longer to reach our 3% to 6% target market share.

In Parameta Solutions, we're developing new products and building new partnerships. That is why we are announcing today a collaboration with a leading global analytics company, Numerics. We will combine their analytical expertise with our market data to deliver high-quality, independent fair valuations of OTC derivatives.

Finally, we continue to manage our cost base effectively despite inflation. We've achieved our '22 savings target of GBP 25 million. And we are on track to deliver at least million of liquid net integration synergies, exceeding our previous target of GBP 25 million.

Now over to Robin to take you through our financial performance in more detail.

[Robin Stewart, executive]

Thank you, Nico, and good morning, everyone. As you've heard, we delivered a strong financial performance in 2022. I'll start with the income statement where my comparisons with the prior year are in constant currency.

Total group revenue increased 7% to GBP 2.1 billion. Adjusted EBITDA was up 4% at GBP 357 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin was slightly lower at 16.9%. Adjusted EBIT increased 8% to GBP 275 million, and the adjusted EBIT margin was marginally higher at 13%. Excluding the impact of Russian charges, which totaled GBP 21 million, net of recoveries the margin was 14%.

Net finance costs of GBP 49 million were 13% lower, slightly below our guidance for the year of GBP 52 million. And this is the result of actively managing our cash to benefit from rising interest rates. Taken together, this resulted in adjusted earnings before significant items of GBP 194 million, up 31%. Adjusted earnings per share grew from 19.5p to 24.9p.

As Nico said earlier, the Board is recommending a final dividend of 7.9p per share which will be paid on the 23rd of May, bringing the total dividend for the year to 12.4p, an increase of 31%.

Let's turn now to the year-on-year movements in our adjusted EBIT. Adjusted EBIT was GBP 275 million compared with GBP 233 million in 2021. If you retranslate [ 2021 ] using 2022 exchange rates, it results in EBIT of GBP 255 million. Contribution before the impact of Russia increased by GBP 40 million, mainly driven by growth in our rates business.

Russian P&L charge reduced to GBP 21 million at the year-end as we realized gains of GBP 11 million in the second half. Management and support costs increased by GBP 27 million, driven by the inclusion of an additional quarter of liquid net partly offset by the delivery of our GBP 25 million cost savings target against the backdrop of high inflation. Strategic investment was GBP 3 million lower year-on-year. Finally, the weakness of sterling contributed to a GBP 25 million foreign exchange gain on the retranslation of net financial assets.

Turning now to the business divisions, where, again, my revenue comparisons are in constant currency, to give you a clearer picture of the underlying trends. I'll start with Global Broking. Total revenue in Global Broking was up 7% at GBP 1.3 billion with growth in all asset classes in a year of significant volatility driven by geopolitical events and a highly uncertain macro environment. Rates remains our largest and most profitable asset class. Revenue here grew 7% to GBP 566 million as Central banks increased interest rates to combat inflation.

Credit revenue grew 8% to GBP 118 million. FX and money markets, 9% to GBP 302 million and equity 7% to GBP 243 million. Despite the impact of Russia, contribution margin increased to 37.6%. Excluding this impact, the margin was just over 39%. Revenue per broker grew 14%, reflecting both higher revenue and a reduction in the average number of brokers. Contribution per broker was up 15% or 20% before Russian provisions, which are booked as front office costs.

Adjusted EBIT was GBP 213 million and the margin increased from [ 16.8% ] to 17%. We also grew our market share, underlining our leading position amongst our listed peer group. In Energy & Commodities, market conditions were more challenging and revenue declined 2% to GBP 387 million, slightly outperforming ICE volumes, which were down 4% year-on-year. There was exceptional volatility in the European power and gas market, and we benefited from elevated levels of trading activity in the first quarter.

But from the second quarter onwards, client trading was curtailed because of significant margin requirements driven by the high price of gas. These liquidity constraints had a knock-on effect on oil markets where trading was also more subdued. The contribution margin decreased by 1 percentage point to 32%. Adjusted EBIT margin was 0.8 percentage points lower at 12.7%. The European energy prices are now returning to more normalized levels that sustained recovery is, of course, dependent on developments in Ukraine.

Turning now to Liquidnet. As we told you in our trading update at the third quarter, our agency execution division is now reported on a consolidated basis as Liquidnet. Our Liquidnet division comprises the acquired business of Liquidnet which we now call the Liquidnet platform along with COEX and MidCap Partners, which we acquired as part of the of Lui Capital in 2020 and have transferred from Global Broking.

Total revenue in this division increased by 18% to GBP 325 million. This includes the first full year of Liquidnet platform revenue as the acquisition completed in March 2021. Like-for-like revenue for the Liquidnet platform decreased in line with market activity as volatile stock market conditions led to subdued trading of larger blocks of equity where Liquidnet has a key presence.

The S&P 500 was down 19%, while the Stoxx 600 declined by 13%. U.S. mutual fund outflows reached record levels as investors rotated out of equities and into cash. The global level of cash holdings was the highest since the turn of the century. This environment, together with investment in our dealer to client credit proposition, which was weighted to the second half, impacted profitability of the Liquidnet platform. The rest of the division delivered strong revenue growth driven by relative value business as well as rates, futures and foreign exchange. Overall, the EBIT margin for Liquidnet decreased by 8.5 percentage points.

In Parameta Solutions, revenue grew 8% to GBP 177 million. This reflects the data and analytics business only as post-trade solutions has been transferred to Global Broking and liquid net where it is better aligned with the asset classes and customer base. The vast majority of Parameta's revenue comes from recurring subscriptions and it's almost all U.S. dollar-denominated.

Revenue growth was driven by the launch of new products, more regional sales coverage and distribution as well as an increasingly diversified client base. Adjusted EBIT grew 20% to GBP 79 million and a margin of 44.6%, up 0.3 percentage points on the prior year.

Moving now to significant items. These are not included in our adjusted results so that we can better measure business performance and compare with other reporting periods. Pretax significant items were GBP 113 million, broadly in line with our guidance of GBP 110 million. After tax and associates, significant items amounted to GBP 91 million, a 36% reduction on the prior year. About 80% of these costs were noncash including GBP 45 million from the amortization of intangible assets. This decrease was mainly driven by a GBP 9 million reduction in property rationalization costs and the nonrecurrence of GBP 29 million of charges in the prior year relating to a U.S. tax provision and debt refinancing costs. The reduction in significant items was partly offset by a GBP [ 16 million ] increase in cost to achieve group savings, largely redundancy costs.

Turning now to reported cash flow. Operating cash flow increased by GBP 213 million to GBP 324 million, driven by a growth in reported EBIT of GBP 66 million, a GBP 63 million positive swing in net matched principal balances and a working capital inflow of GBP 62 million compared to an outflow of GBP 17 million in 2021. This reflects higher trade and other payables built up at the year-end, partly offset by higher trade receivables.

The total for investing activities was GBP 78 million and this includes GBP 53 million of CapEx on technology and strategic projects, slightly below the prior year. It also includes GBP 50 million for the purchase of additional financial assets held as collateral for our match principle broking activity.

Financing activities were an outflow of GBP 163 million, including shareholder dividends of GBP 78 million and a repayment of GBP 47 million on our revolving credit facility. The weakening of sterling, particularly against the U.S. dollar, resulted in a foreign exchange gain of GBP 38 million. Taken together, this resulted in the group's cash balance increasing 16% to GBP 888 million.

At our half year results, we announced our intention to free up approximately GBP 100 million of cash by the end of 2023 to reduce debt. We are on track to achieve this. And in the second half of 2022, we released around GBP 30 million. As Nico said earlier, we continue to assess our balance sheet and investment requirements and are committed to returning further potential surplus capital to shareholders.

Turning now to look at contribution and EBIT margin. This slide shows progression in reported revenue and margins from 2018 onwards for Global Broking, Energy & Commodities and Parameta Solutions. In the case of Global Broking, you can clearly see the negative impact on revenue from the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, followed by a strong recovery in 2022. Because of our tight cost control, there was a much more muted impact on contribution margin and EBIT margin.

2022 margins in Global Broking are approaching our 2023 targets, excluding the impact of Russian charges, which underlines the strength of our franchise. We have maintained this cost discipline across the group. Growth in costs across the period is in line with our assumptions despite rising inflation in 2022.

And as I mentioned earlier, we delivered our GBP 25 million cost savings target. Reported revenue progression is not linear in Energy & Commodities and Parameta Solutions, reflecting exchange rate fluctuations as much of their revenue is U.S. dollar-based. Energy & Commodities fared well during 2020 and 2021, but faced challenges in 2022 as a result of the Warren Ukraine, impacted both the European gas and oil markets. In Parameta Solutions, the contribution margin trajectory reflects investment in new business, while the adjusted EBIT margin has grown steadily.

So turning now to our guidance on 2023 targets. In Global Broking, we expect to be close to the contribution margin target of 40% and relatively close to the EBIT margin target of 19%. Close means within the percentage point of the target and relatively closes within 1 to 2 percentage points.

In Energy & Commodities, we anticipate being relatively close to both the contribution margin of 35% and EBIT margin target of 15%. As Liquidnet is a newly formed division, we have set a contribution target for contribution margin of 30% this year. Parameta Solutions is expected to exceed both its targets.

Turning to the group EBIT margin. We have had to manage a number of highly disruptive events since we set this target in 2020. The world is now a different place. In particular, unfavorable market conditions from the pandemic in 2021 had a negative impact on our Global Broking business. The war in Ukraine led to a difficult trading environment for energy and commodities in 2022. The Liquidnet equities business was impacted by sharp declines in many equity markets last year and high levels of volatility and which caused institutions to curtail their activity. Against this backdrop and in line with market consensus, we're updating the 2023 group EBIT margin target from 18% to 14%.

I'd like to end with our remaining 2023 guidance based on the current market outlook. As the U.K. corporate tax rate rises from 19% to 25% in April, we expect the effective tax rate on adjusted earnings to increase to about 28%. We anticipate group net finance expenses of around GBP 49 million, broadly in line with 2022 despite rising interest rates. At the half year, we will tell you more about how we are managing our debt portfolio as we free up excess capital and focus on refinancing our January 2024 bond. We plan for lower significant items of approximately GBP 85 million pretax, excluding any unanticipated legal and regulatory charges. We expect to deliver at least GBP 30 million of Liquidnet integration synergies this year, and to complete the integration by the year-end.

Finally, our dividend policy remains unchanged. The policy targets cover of approximately 2x adjusted post-tax earnings with a payout range at the half year typically between 30% and 40%.

Thank you very much. I'll now hand over to Dan to talk about Global Broking.

[Daniel Fields, executive]

Thank you, Robin, and good morning, everyone. I'll provide some further color on Global Broking performance in 2022, the outlook for 2023 and some of our strategic priorities.

Global Broking is the largest interdealer broker in the world where we are present we are #1 or 2 in the market. And in rates, we are the global industry benchmark. In 2022, we leveraged these inherent strengths to capitalize on favorable market conditions.

As you've heard, we grew revenues in all asset classes and extended our industry-leading market share to 42% relative to our listed peers. We also continued to invest in our franchise, deploying new technologies, so our brokers can service our clients better. It is this combination of tech and talent that is compelling for clients, especially in times of market stress as we saw last year.

Our priorities in 2023 are to remain focused on enhancing our position as a world-leading liquidity provider and advancing the aggregation of our liquidity pools. As central banks continue quantitative tapering, our liquidity is increasingly relevant to market participants. We are also focused on developing the quality of our revenues by increasing the stickiness of our client relationships, being selective in where we transact and improving broker productivity.

The ongoing rollout of Fusion, our award-winning electronic liquidity platform underpins these priorities. So let me turn now to the market conditions in which we are operating. I will start with our largest and most profitable asset class rates.

In 2022, interest rates increased from near 0 to pre-financial crisis levels and many of our clients look to us and our expertise for support. Rising inflation led to central banks increasing short-term rates dramatically, as shown by the U.S. yield curve on the top right-hand side of the slide. This created a significant amount of volatility, opportunity and volume in our short-term rates businesses, especially in the first half of the year, as you can see in the chart on the bottom right.

Looking ahead, we see rate increases and inflation moderating. We also expect ongoing quantitative tapering and elevated levels of government debt issuance. We could, therefore, see a shift of activity and a steepening of the medium and long end of the yield curve. This is good for us given that there is more margin in long-term product. While we don't expect the same levels of volatility and volumes that occurred in the first quarter last year, we expect to be operating in a favorable rates environment in 2023.

I'll now turn to credit, equities and foreign exchange. The transformational shift in interest rates supported activity levels across all asset classes in 2022, and we expect this to continue. In our credit business, credit default swap volumes increased, though volumes decreased with lower levels of issuance.

Whilst we see volatility dampening into 2023, we expect both improved bond issuance and risk appetite. In equities, we are finding growth through leveraging our global offering and our distinctive blend of exchange-traded volatility businesses and OTC liquidity services. In foreign exchange, there were 3 key drivers of volatility in volumes in 2022. The strength of the U.S. dollar, the pound hitting all-time lows in conjunction with inflationary pressure and geopolitical uncertainty.

Looking ahead, we expect recessionary pressures and interest rate rates to continue driving currency volatility. We also anticipate potential U.S. dollar weakness benefiting emerging markets and G10 currencies. And as the interest rate outlook becomes clear in the second half, we believe this will lead to increased risk appetite.

I will now turn to the progress we are making to transform our business through Fusion. Our Fusion platform is formed of 3 complementary and integrated elements. Fusion Markets is the electronic platform through which clients can access the aggregated liquidity and of all our brands in a seamless and secure way. By pooling our brand's liquidity across asset classes, more clients will choose to do more business with us. But Fusion is much more than a front-end order book. FusionConnect focuses on building the automated connectivity and straight-through processing capability of the group. This streamlines the client onboarding process to our suite of platforms, which means we can move faster from initial engagement to go live. It also fosters a seamless flow of real-time pre-trade and post-trade data between market participants.

FusionClear captures our post-trade services. It provides automated post-trade processing and settlement solutions to help clients accelerate trade confirmation, reduce operational risk and eliminate bottlenecks. Our brokers sit at the heart of Fusion, drawing on its capabilities to construct the most relevant liquidity solutions to best meet the needs of our clients. So in short, Fusion enables us to meet more of our clients' needs across the full life cycle of a transaction. This seamless integrated approach is what characterizes modern market infrastructure.

As the platform is cloud-based, it has the flexibility to add new tools and functionality so that it is aligned to the changing needs of clients and market participants. This makes TP ICAP well positioned as the environment evolves. Equities is already on Fusion, so the scope of our rollout covers our other asset classes, rates, credit and foreign exchange.

At the end of 2022, Fusion was live on desks to cover 40% of in-scope revenue versus 20% in the prior year. We are on track to complete our rollout by the end of 2025. Fusion helps to drive client stickiness, broker productivity and contribution. We are focused on deploying it in areas where it will have maximum impact and on driving client adoption.

Key launches in 2023 include credit as well as adding volume matching functionality on our sterling interest rate swap desks. In those areas where Fusion has already rolled out, it has been very well received. "Fusion is the most modern, intuitive and easy platform to navigate." This is just one of many positive comments from clients.

We have a systematic approach to drive client adoption of Fusion with a new dedicated sales team. They developed the necessary marketing and prelaunch materials to explain the benefits of Fusion. They then work in partnership with our brokers to engage clients. This goes beyond simply explaining the service offering to include helping clients with their tech setup and supporting them at the outset. The sales team also acts as the primary point of contact for client feedback, channeling this to our product and development teams to tailor Fusion to meet specific client needs.

Importantly, the team will also monitor usage and establish a set of internal KPIs, focusing on revenues, contribution and volumes. We will provide a further update in a global broking teach in this autumn. The purpose of this session is to give more detail on our business.

So in conclusion, our strategic priorities in Global Broking this year are to improve revenue quality, broker productivity and contribution. We also want to leverage our position as a leading liquidity provider. And of course, we will continue to roll out Fusion for the benefit of our business, clients and the financial ecosystem. We are executing these priorities against an encouraging backdrop for our business. The interest rate environment is supportive of secondary market volumes.

As I mentioned earlier, less central bank liquidity means more demand for our liquidity. And we see a potential steepening of the medium to long end of the yield curve, which will be good for our business. In short, Global Broking is well positioned to benefit from current market trends, whilst continuing to shape the market infrastructure of tomorrow.

Thank you very much. I will now hand over to Andrew Polydor to talk about energy and commodities.

[Andrew Polydor, executive]

Thank you, Dan, and good morning, everyone. As you know, we are the leading broker in energy and commodities with a global footprint, diverse client base and a wide product range across 3 brands: Tullett Prebon, ICAP and PVM. Our market-leading margins reflect the scale and diversity of our platform. The majority of our clients' base consists of physical trading companies and energy and commodity producers, but we are also seeing an increasing number of clients from the buy side.

Oil generates around 55% of our revenue, and we have a global footprint in both power and gas. Environmental products are a small but growing portion of our revenue mix. Our new digital assets offering also sits within Energy and Commodities business.

Now turning to our priorities for 2023. We continue on expanding in growth areas such as environmental products and digital assets as well as rolling out the Fusion Energy Management order management system for oil. 2022 proved to be a challenging year for Energy & Commodities as the war in Ukraine disrupted supply lines. The main issue was with European gas and the rush to secure supplies for the winter months. This drove prices up to historic highs, which in turn caused credit and margin issues leading to lower volumes in the market. It also had a knock-on effect on European power and oil and in particular, gas oil.

As you can see from this chart, there was a direct correlation between an increase in Dutch TTF price, which is the main benchmark for European gas and a decrease in the market volume shown in red here. Towards the end of the year, gas prices dropped significantly as a result of a mild winter across Europe and the gas storage being almost full. This resulted in freeing up of margin and credit allowing the market to trade more freely, which increased volumes.

Gas is currently trading at EUR 49 in the TTF. This compares with EUR 350 at its peak last year and around EUR 20 before the war. The outlook for both gas and oil look much healthier in 2023. And the opening up of China, after an extended period in COVID lockdown, should also bring volumes back to the market.

I'd like now to turn to one of our strategic priorities, expanding in the environmental space. We are well placed as the market's transition to a low-carbon future. Last year, gas was designated a low emissions energy source of COP27. So our global footprint in gas, together with other products such as emission credits and green certificates will help us play a leading role.

To further enhance our position, we are linking all our liquid natural gas, renewable energy and emissions businesses globally, so that we can serve our clients more effectively in these growing markets. In Norway, the government issued green certificates to renewable energy producers, which electricity suppliers legally obliged to buy. We have recently rolled out our Fusion platform to service these clients successfully in this green certificate market.

We are now looking to roll out Fusion for these new green markets in other regions such as Australia and South America. We expect renewables to become the largest source of electricity generation, with estimates suggesting that 38% will come from renewable sources by 2027. Despite this, oil will continue to play an important role with demand expected to grow 8% by 2050.

Our power and gas clients are also starting to actively trade renewables and emissions. This allows us to use our current teams and infrastructure to service the growing market without having to add additional head count.

Now moving on to digital assets. The collapse of FTX clearly raised concerns about regulation of the crypto industry. As a result, investors are turning to firms that are regulated and are capable of servicing the institutional marketplace. We now have received our FCA registration after an 18-month process, and we are starting to see demand from our larger institutional clients. A recent survey shows that a majority professional investors believe that institutions will hold 60% of all digital assets within 7 years compared to just 3% today. So the market is pivoting from retail to institutional participants.

We are working closely with both Global Broking and Liquidnet to take advantage of this, and in particular, the move towards tokenization of assets. As a reminder, we run a segregated model. We do not hold client money, and we do not take positions. Our institutional clients like this model as well as the fact that we have a known custodian in fidelity and a number of market makers, such as Flow Traders committed to showing liquidity.

So in conclusion, the markets are returning to some sort of -- some sense of normality after a period of disruption. We plan to take advantage of more favorable market conditions and continue to harness the growth in environmental products and digital assets and to roll out Fusion to new regions whilst also working to increase our margin by improving broker productivity. Thank you very much, and I'd like to hand you over to Mark Govoni to talk to you about Liquidnet.

[Mark Govoni, executive]

Thank you, Andrew, and good morning, everyone. Let's begin with a strategic overview of our priorities for this year. Liquidnet is a trusted award-winning business with a network of over 1,000 institutional accounts spending 46 countries. We have a strong market position that we are actively building on.

Since I joined Liquidnet a year ago, I've had a close look at our business and updated our strategy to reflect current market conditions. This strategy focuses on 4 areas: First, we're committed to completing the integration of Liquidnet in achieving at least GBP 30 million of synergies on an annualized basis. This includes the ongoing rationalization of the property portfolio.

Second, we aim to grow and diversify our equities franchise by expanding algorithmic and program trading offerings. This specifically addresses the cyclical challenges facing institutional equity markets right now. 2022 was a tough year for the stock markets. We'll also continue to expand our cross-border offering, which allows traders to execute trades in other regions, leveraging our global footprint.

Third, we plan to expand our dealer to client business, which was launched last year by connecting more dealers to more buy side, expanding geographies, enhancing our Request for Quote platform. This is a substantial opportunity. And of course, we remain focused on the delivery of our 2023 contribution margin target. In short, we are combining electronic trading with the skills of our traders to grow and diversify our revenues, while we'll also complete the integration of Liquidnet and delivering our financial targets.

I'll now turn to some key trends that impacted equity markets last year, which were very challenging. Block trading was negatively impacted by the underperformance of active equity investors, while cash flows into ETFs and passive strategies remain stable. These factors inform both our future growth initiatives and our focus on diversifying revenues.

We are #2 in both U.S. agency alternative training system and EMEA large and scale markets. And we are the market leader in larger market in EMEA, which is defined as 5x large in scale.

From a U.S. perspective, block trading, our key segment reached its lowest point in the past decade, representing just 6% of total market volumes. This impacted our activity. EMEA large in scale volumes declined by 15% year-over-year, while 5x large in scale volumes decreased 39% in the second half. While our positioning inside this segment is very strong, tough equity market conditions had a significant impact on levels of block trading globally.

Now turning to our equities business. Since I joined, our focus has been on building a robust equities franchise to deal with cyclical markets. Institutional volumes faced challenges last year, and this could persist based on the macro environment. So we are diversifying into new areas to build resilience in our business during all market cycles. We are growing our client base.

Last year, we added 80 new clients globally. We are leveraging TP ICAP's footprint to penetrate additional geographies. We now have a local presence in Paris, Madrid, Frankfurt and Johannesburg. And we've strengthened our coverage model. We simplified and enhanced the training experience for clients. We've also expanded our offering.

First, to allow more clients to source differentiated liquidity. For example, we launched the very first volume-weighted average price cross in Asia. Second, we focused on cross-border trading, which represented 18% of our revenue in 2022. Third, we've increased program trading revenue 15% last year. And fourth, we've enhanced our algorithmic trading offering, which was 31% of total revenue.

Turning to our fixed income business. The combination of evolving market structures and listening to our clients shows there is a substantial opportunity here. Our primary markets offering had a great year. We launched in September of 2021 and within a year, the number of banks sending deal announcements to the platform more than doubled. It is now at 30. We're capturing over 80% of new issues on any given day, up from 60% at launch. And last year, we saw 830 new bond deals trade. 180 users engage with the order book and $12 billion in firm orders. We were also recognized with an award for launching outstanding electronic trading initiative.

In the secondary market, we made strong progress. Our traditional dark pool negotiation engine continues to consolidate its position. We're attracting new members that leverage automated workflow solutions into our dark pool. This is a big differentiator for us. Last year, this resulted in a 35% uplift in new members and dealers increasing by 53%, leading to volumes growing by 120%. I'm very pleased with this growth. Our success this year will be built on dealer connectivity, evolving our request for quote platform and starting order book trading so that our primary market workflow is complete.

I will now turn to dealer-to-client credit. I've been working closely with the team as we roll out this proposition. As you heard from Nico, progress on the technology front, a key deliverable is good. client-facing technology is in place today. Client feedback is excellent, as you can see from the quote on the slide. The key issue for us now is growing liquidity on the platform.

COVID-19 has slowed progress on IT projects across the Board for both dealers and clients. We have been impacted by that. Getting to our target market share of 3% to 6% will take longer than initially planned as we factor in these COVID-related backlogs. However, we have made good progress connecting dealers and clients. Major banks are already connected via API, and we're being moved up the priority list in technology cues. We are now working closely with Global Broking to leverage dealer connectivity and drive the delivery of this proposition. The size of this opportunity remains exciting and substantial.

To conclude, macro factors have challenged the segment in which we compete. We expect volatility to remain until inflation pressures ease. However, we believe this trend is cyclical, not structural. So extended volatility periods to subside and equity allocations to revert back to the mean over time.

Our offering is unique in the market. And our priorities are clear: growing and diversifying our equities franchise, connecting dealers and clients to our dealer client platform and completing the Liquidnet integration. I believe we have the right strategy and the right resources to disrupt the market.

Thank you very much. I'll now hand it over to Eric Sinclair to talk about Parameta.

[Eric Sinclair, executive]

Thank you, Mark. And good morning, everyone. Parameta Solutions has some key attributes, which contribute to its current success and future opportunity. They include a unique set of proprietary OTC data from the world's largest interdealer broker, a subscription-based model with a retention rate of 98% and more than 850 clients.

High-quality talent, combined with investment in technology, which provides significant operating leverage and a strategy based on new products multichannel distribution and further diversification of our client base. This has delivered high contribution margins of 50% and a business that's growing faster than the rate of the industry.

In addition, we are creating value by developing commercial partnerships, which combine the expertise of others and our unique data to give us a faster time to market. Our strategy, which focuses on expanding our product offering, broadening distribution channels and diversifying our client base is driving both growth and strong contribution margins. In product, we've achieved some key milestones. Our evidential pricing service is a game-changer. It leverages neutral data from real observable transactions rather than opinions.

We've already launched this service for bonds and foreign exchange, and we plan to launch it for rates in the first half of this year. We are also the first intra-dealer broker to be authorized by the FCA as a benchmark administrator. We now have 9 benchmarks with clients licensed to use it for product issuance. This validates the value of our rates franchise in the capital markets. We now want to pursue opportunities in Europe and have applied for benchmark authorization from the EU.

In 2023, we expect over half of our sales to come from new products. Multichannel distribution is another important driver of growth and of attracting new clients. 5 years ago, 95% of our revenues were generated by distributing our services via market data vendors. Today, that is 80%. 20% comes from direct distribution to clients, including via the cloud. Direct distribution improves margins and opportunities for cross-selling. Our client base is well diversified and includes banks, market data vendors, governments, energy and commodities companies and corporates.

I want to turn now to the partnerships, which are helping us to leverage our data and drive growth. Last August, we launched Clear Consensus in partnership with PeerNova, a leading data management and analytics software firm based in Silicon Valley.

Clear Consensus combines our observable transactions data from our evidential pricing service with PeerNova's technology. This offers clients operational efficiency, improved measurement of fair value, enhanced risk management and potential capital optimization. We are announcing 2 new commercial partnerships today.

Clients have been telling us that they need a successful solution for the valuation of OTC derivatives as a result of changes in risk and accounting regulation. So our first collaboration is with global analytics company, Numerics. Together, we are committed to building a differentiated and cost-effective service for the valuation of OTC derivatives, integrating the best data with the best analytics to target an addressable market of $6 billion.

We are also partnering with General Index, a benchmark provider in the energy and commodities markets, seeking to disrupt the traditional benchmark industry. By partnering with General Index, we can build a new proposition with our leading content for liquefied natural gas. General Index will act as our EU benchmark administrator and they also manage the calculation activity.

In conclusion, we have made excellent progress on the execution of our strategy in 2022. We are delivering new products, broadening our distribution and diversifying our client base. Our partnerships are driving growth by allowing us to access markets with greater certainty of execution, and this gives us confidence in the outlook for 2023 and our continued ability to outperform the wider market data industry. To this end, we are focused on delivering value for shareholders with ongoing double-digit growth in contribution and EBIT. Many thanks.

And now I'd like to turn it back to Nico to conclude.

[Nicolas Breteau, executive]

Thank you, Eric. So in conclusion, in 2022, we built on our market-leading positions, deep liquidity and global presence. Our strong revenue performance combined with our operational leverage has delivered an increase in profitability. Our transformation through the deployment of Fusion is on track in both Global Broking and Energy and Commodities. We continue to diversify our business through targeted growth opportunities in Energy & Commodities, Liquidnet and parameter solutions.

Finally, we are managing our capital dynamically and are on track to free up GBP 100 million by the end of this year to reduce debt with the commitment to return any further surplus to our shareholders. As we continue our transformation journey, we plan to take advantage of a more favorable market environment, albeit with less volatility than in 2022 to capitalize on our deep liquidity and leading market position.

Thank you. I'll now open up for questions. So could you please tell us your name and organization before you ask a question. And I'll invite my colleagues to join me here.

[Kim Bergoe, analyst]

It's Kim Bergoe from Numis. I have 3 -- 4 questions actually. One is I think at the half year stage, you told us something about current trading. We're now sort of halfway into March. Could you tell us anything about what it looks like at the moment, across sort of different divisions and platforms you've got what current trading looks like?

Secondly, a more technical question, I guess, that's more for Robin about you had a pretty big increase in sort of the joint venture line. If you could just highlight a bit what was driving that? And then a question on perimeter there. How should we be looking at that sort of going forward? Is that -- should we continue that rate? Or is it likely to accelerate from here? Because obviously, there's a lot of focus on that particular line.

[Nicolas Breteau, executive]

Thank you for your question. Maybe a few words about current trading before my colleagues will answer the other questions. So we've seen a very strong start of the year. In January, what we've witnessed is a very active -- level of activity in Global Broking, but we have very high comparative in 2022. But nevertheless, we've seen a lot of trading activity. And also, in particular, Andrew was mentioning the kind of normalization of the energy market, and we've seen a very strong level of activity in power and gas.

So we think that this part will normalize this year. We think that, as Dan mentioned, you've seen the opportunity to trade more on the medium part of the curve for rates. So we remain optimistic, but we have to see how the rest of the year will be. Your second question is about the benefit of the JV. So maybe, Robin.

[Robin Stewart, executive]

Yes, Tim. We've certainly seen a very strong pickup this year on our JVs and associates line. that's really dominated by 3 things, but the outright star growth in there is our joint venture in Shanghai, TP Citco. That's had an extremely good year -- but also, we've had strong performance in JV arrangements we have in Tokyo and also South America. But it's really dominated by the Shanghai JV venture.

[Nicolas Breteau, executive]

Eric, on Parameta.

[Eric Sinclair, executive]

Great. Well, thank you for the question. We continue to target double-digit growth in revenue. But more importantly, we're focused on profitable growth. We're not building products just to spend money recklessly. And we are very focused on ensuring that it's profitable growth. If you look at it as our revenue grows, we're seeing the benefit in our operating leverage. So we have a global team and that operating leverage is helping both contribution and EBIT as we grow.

A couple of other factors will have seen, when I mentioned about direct distribution. There's 2 issues that are driving margin improvement for us. Direct distribution improves our margin as does the automation of our business operations group who are using artificial intelligence to help us scale and grow without the increase in costs at the same rate. And this is one of the reasons why we're ahead of targets on the Capital Markets Day from 2020.

[Unknown Analyst]

[ Simon Stuart Hunk ] from Peel Hunt. I've got 2 questions, please. Firstly, on Fusion. I think in the past, you've given us some sort of sense of the benefits of where it's been introduced. I just wonder if you could give us a sort of update on that. And as a sort of subset of that question, -- why does it take so long for the last 15% to be achieved when you made such good progress in the first 40% of best that's been rolled out to?

And then secondly, a small one for Robin. Just why there's not more benefit from higher interest rates coming through on the net finance side?

[Nicolas Breteau, executive]

Thank you for your questions, Fusion. So yes, we -- it's -- we continue to roll out the platform. And as you mentioned, our first objective is to deploy the technology. So to deploy the technology, desk after desk, and that's what we focused on. So we have reached our target of 40% in scope. We have plans this year to continue to deploy Fusion on credit, on FX and rates. And we've seen that each time we deploy the technology, and it is used by our brokers and clients, we reached better KPIs, higher level of contribution, a high level of productivity.

So we have started to see some benefits of the deployment of Fusion, but -- it's really now the second phase that we are focusing on. It's -- after the deployment is the adoption. So the adoption is what is critical. It's not just deploying the tech on the screen. We want to increase the percentage of revenue generated electronically. So what we've done this year, which is new, is that we've built a sales team, especially dedicated to reach out to clients to increase the rate of adoption of Fusion. So that's -- for us, it's critical because -- of course, we are focusing on deploying the tech, but it's really important to make sure that it's properly used, and we will get the benefits. We get the benefits in profitability but also get benefit in market share. Your second question, maybe for Robin.

[Robin Stewart, executive]

Well, your third one was on net interest was net interest income. It's fair to say keeping our sort of guidance on that interest being fairly in line with this year, that does include a significant uptick in our interest income. We've done a lot of work over the last over the last year to look at where we operationally hold our cash and how we can enhance the yield on that as best as possible through negotiation with banking arrangements or looking at alternative ways in which we collateralize some of our trading accounts. So that is actually enhanced to June 2023, just offset by some additional interest costs that we have as well . You had a second question on why it I think you can answer that ...

[Nicolas Breteau, executive]

Yes. I mean you say why is it taking so long to reach the extra 15%. Well, it's -- I don't think it's taking so long. We have a target in 2025. We will reach -- we will deliver that target. But -- but again, what really matters to us is to work on the adoption, and we have a set of KPIs to measure the success of that adoption.

[Piers Brown, analyst]

It's Piers Brown from HSBC. Just a couple of questions maybe for Mark on Liquidnet. So when you talk about the market share 3% to 6% target range being delivered later than planned. What sort of time frame should we be thinking about for some sort of meaningful revenue to come through from the credit side? Is that a sort of 3- to 5-year project? Or if you can give any sort of clarity on that?

And then just secondly, in terms of the actual nuts and bolts of this, I mean you talked about focusing on being reprioritized in the technology queue of the [indiscernible] that you're trying to sign up. I mean how do you practically do that? Is it just a question of being in front of them constantly or other things you can do in terms of the functionality of the D2C offering, which would assist that?

[Mark Govoni, executive]

Yes. Thanks for the question. So as I think Nico mentioned and I did as well, I think our key deliverable was to get, obviously, the technology in place and get it deployed. So we're in a good spot there. And we've made good accomplishments. And obviously, the connectivity piece, we faced some challenges COVID across the spectrum, changed the priority set for our clients and for our dealers.

So yes, I think getting to our 3% to 6% target range will probably be about 12 to 18 months later than we had initially planned, to answer your question specifically. And in terms of -- and how do we drive the dealer engagement. And as I mentioned, I think working with our -- with Dan and Global Broking is critically important for us. They've got strong strategic relationships with these dealers top-down in the firm and across different product sets and global broking.

So I think our ability to work with them to drive dealer connectivity is a massive focus for us. And that's what I think will continue to move us up in the technology queue and make sure that we're viewed as a priority as a strategic group with relationship to those dealers.

[Enrico Bolzoni, analyst]

Enrico Bolzoni, JPMorgan. Just a couple of questions for me. One, can you give us an update on how you see the regulatory framework evolving if there is anything specific you are monitoring opportunities or threat over the latest month? And second question, how are you thinking now in terms of inorganic expansion of the specific areas you think are interesting you could build on horizontally or vertically?

[Nicolas Breteau, executive]

so The regulatory framework in our industry has changed considerably over the last 5 to 10 years. So we've adjusted to that. So we've -- if you remember, we've deployed a new enterprise risk framework. We've invested in the third line of defense with compliance risks and audit functions. So that's been a very relatively considerable investment for us over the last years. We see some -- we have seen some push for from regulators to regulate venues. And we are the largest operator of venues in the world for electronic execution. So we don't see new changes in this area, but that has been the major change over the last years.

Of course, Brexit continued to be a topic. We've seen clients -- more clients migrating to Europe, their trading activities. And we've -- over the last [ 4 ] months, we have adjusted to that. We have a full setup covering the EU clients. So we are in place and ready for that transformation.

Your question about inorganic expansion. So no, we have a strategy in place. For the time being, really, it's to transform our business by the deployment of Fusion in our broking activities. And this is happening well at pace. We are also working very actively on our new proposition for credit in Liquidnet. We think that it's transformative for our group because that's a new relay for growth dealing with the buy side and leveraging the relationships we've had for many years with the dealers.

We continue successfully to grow Parameta. That's -- that's really important for us. Rather than go for inorganic, you've seen that we do more joint ventures and partnerships with the right partners in order to capture new areas, new market such as the index or the fair valuation of derivatives. So that's more the direction we are taking in the diversification of our business.

[Eric Sinclair, executive]

Nico, if I could comment. Yes, on the regulatory issues, actually, for Parameta Solutions, many of the regulations are accretive to our business. One of our top-performing products in 2022 was our surveillance product as we help our clients deal provide the order and trade reporting, they need to meet the regulatory obligations. So that's been very good for us.

I mentioned the fair value pricing. Those who have been in the industry a long time know that it used to be a best practice. And those of you who are CFAs in the market know that, that all got revised in 2020 during COVID. This has become regulation now. It's not just a best practice. So that's accretive for our business. That's why there's so much appetite for what we're doing with clear consensus -- with the OTC derivative service that we're going to be launching.

A couple of other examples would be FRTB. It's very expensive for the banks to use the standard approach. If we can help them do internal modeling, it helps dramatically reduce the regulatory capital they need to deploy. So there's a number of opportunities we have to help our clients not just provide more value in the data, but actually help them with capital optimization and issues like that. And the final thing is for Andrew Polydor Group's, where we are a leader in the energy and commodity space, Parameta Solutions benefits from that.

We've -- they are leaders in transition fuels like natural gas, where we've announced today the launching of the natural gas indices, which is good for us, but also our clients have ESG reporting obligations. And so our environmental package benefits from the environmental initiatives that Andrew's team is taking on board, and we increase our environmental package to include things like renewable certificates and guarantees of origin. These types of activities are actually broadening our client base because the obligations go well beyond the traditional E&C clients. So for Parameta Solutions, we look at regulation as an opportunity in most cases.

[Nicolas Breteau, executive]

No further questions. Maybe on the phone.

[Unknown Attendee]

Yes. I have 2 questions online both from [ Steven Hayes from Close Brothers ]. The first 1 for you, Robin. What is the plan to refinance the 2024 bond? And the second question relates to Parameta, can you comment on the recent press speculation that Parameta as in sales process is Parameta core or noncore to the business?

[Robin Stewart, executive]

Okay. So on the first question, that's coming on refinancing the bond. Obviously, we have a bond which matures in January 2024. I think it's fair to say that we will post launch of these results look very hard at that we have been looking at when is the right opportunity to refinance that. That's something we'll do in the coming months.

[Nicolas Breteau, executive]

Yes. On Parameta, I mean we have as you know, a policy of not commenting on market rumors. What I could say is that like any other listed companies TP ICAP is very mindful of his duties to stakeholders. So we are looking at options on how to generate value for shareholders.

Parameta is a great asset, very successful. You've seen the component growth rate of 11% over the last 4 years. We see opportunities for further development. Outside today, Parameta is mostly selling data in a market where we are largely dominant compared to our competitors.

So as Eric illustrated, we are now entering larger markets and growing markets. So that's -- there's a lot of further developments for Parameta.

[Unknown Attendee]

Thank you, Nico. I believe there is a question on the phone lines.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And our first question today goes to Vivek Raja, Offshore Capital.

[Vivek Raja, analyst]

Good morning, gentlemen. There's 3 areas, if I can, please. I want to ask about. The first one is going back to Liquidnet and the D2C credit proposition. I just wonder if you could be a bit more specific in terms of where you've got to in terms of connectivity, how many dealers you're connected into? And maybe how many more dealers do you think you'll be adding, if I could push you to say that this year, appreciating there was a technology. And if you like, how many dealers do you need to have for the opportunity to be significant enough in terms of liquidity for you to start seeing material revenues there? I can ask that question that way.

The next thing I wanted to ask about was the capital release. So the GBP 30 million that's been released so far, could you just give a bit more detail on that and perhaps also what areas you're looking at for that GBP 100 million target, where exactly that cash is being released from? And then the last thing was on profitability. So your -- was it 2020 Capital Markets Day had a sort of medium-term group operating margin target of 18%.

I just wanted to invite you to sort of comment on that target, whether that is still something you think is achievable and sort of connected to that, you did 19%, I think, in Global Broking in '22. Where do you think that could get to with Fusion efficiencies?

[Nicolas Breteau, executive]

Thank you, Vivek. So the liquid net D2C proposition, maybe I'll say a few words and Mark could complete. So yes, so what -- we have several products to offer in the liquid net credit. We started, as you remember, with the dark pool and we've seen much more liquidity and clients joining this dark pool. We've more than doubled the revenue of the dark pool in 2022. But we are completing this with other services and D2C request for quote is also very important for us.

So for that, you need -- so we've deployed the technology. We have the trading functionality -- it's in place. We have around 450 buy-side clients already connected electronically. We need more of those. But as you pointed out, what is critical is to get enough liquidity streamed by the dealers, the investment bank dealers into the platform.

We have succeeded in getting some large dealers to quote on our API to be able to start streaming. But we have faced more delays than expected on their side because as Mark pointed out, post-COVID, we are discussing with teams. We have a huge backlog of IT developments in their banks. So we're pushing hard to get prioritized.

The ideal scenario is to have the 5 largest U.S. investment banks streaming onto our platform. We are deeply engaged with them. We hope to have 3 at least of those connected electronically in the coming months before the end of this year. So that's working, but taking a little bit longer than we expected. Mark, would you like to add anything?

[Mark Govoni, executive]

No. I think Nico said it well. I think the connectivity via API to be part of the workflow is what our major focus is and our major focus is on the top dealers, and we are in flight with them in progress with them in technology testing, development, different phases across those. And we believe the engagement with those top 5 dealers will get us on the path to our revenue targets in our year. So we feel pretty good about that.

[Robin Stewart, executive]

On the second question on capital, you asked Vivek. It's Robin. Yes, we announced that we'd -- of the 100 -- since announcing that target at the half year in August last year between then and the year-end, we released GBP 30 million of that GBP 100 million. We captured a GBP 30 million of the $100 million. That primarily was through some purchase price adjustments on liquid and a sale of a property that we had in Paris that we no longer needed as part of our property rationalization.

In terms of what's to come, the things that we're looking at, which we have targeted, which will yield the balance of that over the course of this year, include things like the completion of our pension -- defined benefit pension scheme wind up, which is close to conclusion as well as a broker-dealer consolidation in the U.S., which should free up some capital that we deploy there. And we also have elements of capital that currently sit in some of our U.K. regulated entities that we have -- we no longer use following the restructure of our U.K. REG entities where we've gone from 8 companies to 3 over the last few months.

We're waiting on some deregistrations from the FCA, particularly from a client money perspective, first and foremost, and then following that full deregistration, which will allow us to release trapped cash in there. And so once we get through all of those hurdles, which we are very confident of doing this year, that should allow us to do that full GBP 100 million. And that kind of links up -- just one last thing. It kind of links up with a question from Stephen at close brothers as well in terms of the bond. The refinancing of that is kind of connected as well to the release of this GBP 100 million.

So when we come back to do our half year results, I think we'll be able to give you a lot of detail on that refinancing as well as the -- ultimately, the paydown of some of our debt. So that -- by the time we get to the end of this year, beginning of next, we'll have reduced the overall debt portfolio of the group by GBP 100 million.

[Nicolas Breteau, executive]

Word on CMD targets?

[Robin Stewart, executive]

So CMD targets -- sorry, my writing is not very good in terms of writing down your question. I think you talked about the group targets that we had at the Capital Markets Day, I think we said that our 2023 group target was 18% in aggregate, which included -- which was 17% for the core group. You remember when we set the targets, we hadn't acquired Liquidnet and we were anticipating that the growth in Liquidnet would achieve another 1% on that EBIT margin. .

I think from a group target perspective, we'll be very close to that at the end of this year. we -- you've seen that we revised our guidance down from 18% to 14%, though, for the group perspective because of the -- all of the discussion we've had on the equities markets and the high volatility impacting the core franchise of Liquidnet and also the slowdown in the delivery of the D2C project. that delay and sort of market impact has therefore delivered a reduction in the overall group number.

[Nicolas Breteau, executive]

But as you have pointed out on Global Broking, first and foremost, so our target in terms of contribution, we will be very close, if not at target on contribution. So if we have an objective of 40% of contribution on Global Broking. And we have reached it in some months in 2022 and some months in 2023. So we will be at all very close to these targets. So that's very important for us in the transformation of our core business.

[Robin Stewart, executive]

And what we try to do on the -- just adding to that, what we tried to do on the slides...

[Vivek Raja, analyst]

So if I could just follow up. And I think my question about the profitability target was you had set a group margin target, call it, medium term in 2020, [ in fact in '23 ] of 18%. What I'm asking is, do you think -- and I appreciate the reasons why that hasn't been able to be achieved for D2C, just taking longer to achieve and obviously, codes and so forth.

What I'm asking is do you think that is still an achievable target over the medium term -- and I'm thinking, particularly, obviously, once the DC proposition does get up and running? And secondly, with the benefits of Fusion, do you think that is an achievable medium-term target?

[Nicolas Breteau, executive]

Yes. We remain confident that it's an achievable target, yes, because we can see that we will exceed that target for Parameta. We will be very close to this target for, if not at target for Global Broking. We are relatively close in Energy and Commodities. Here, as we discussed, it's more a question of the market normalizing. It takes a bit longer to roll out our credit proposition on Liquidnet, and we've been impacted by the market environment. But -- so it's a question of delay. It's -- but it remains highly achievable, yes.

[Operator]

We have no further questions. I'll hand back to the host for any closing remarks.

[Unknown Attendee]

Are there any remaining questions in the room just before -- okay.

[Unknown Analyst]

Just a couple of follow-ups for me. One was to that last question about the 18% margin. And I think it's just a different way of phrasing that is the change that you have from the [ 18 ] to now currently [ 14 ]. Is there anything sort of structural in that? I think that's a different way of asking the same question. Do you think -- are you structured your more or less profitable business today than what you thought when you set the target originally?

Secondly, I just had one question about sort of current events or events over the last week, SVB, of course, what's your direct exposure there, if any? And then secondly, how should we be thinking about you sort of fall out from that and the secondary impact?

[Nicolas Breteau, executive]

So I mean your second question first, we do not have any exposure to SVB or the second bank that -- yes, Signature Bank that went [indiscernible] yesterday. So no exposure or whatsoever. So the other question is what potential impacts. We are obviously closely monitoring any secondary collapse or impact on clients such as hedge funds. But so far, we haven't noticed anything.

Could it mean maybe a slower raise in rates in the U.S. in the coming weeks or in the coming months, probably -- it probably means also that as a consequence, inflation will be maybe a bit more difficult to combat inflation, given that central banks might want to somehow allow a lot of factors to get liquidity without selling very, very depressed assets as securities. So they might actually inject some liquidity, which will have an impact on inflation decrease.

So let's wait and see, but what's important is that we have no direct exposure, and we're not impacted by that. Your first question, 18%. Are we less -- are we less profitable? So would you like to start?

[Robin Stewart, executive]

No. So I think -- I mean what -- the journey that we try to show is to where we are today versus where we're trying to get to those targets. I think is trying to show 2 things. One is that in terms of what we're in control of, i.e., the -- pretty much -- we're more in control of, say, the contribution margin. That's very much in line with where we anticipate -- we're trying to get to. So we're very much a close to or delivering or exceeding our contribution targets. .

The EBIT margin outcome as a consequence really of the revenue line, and that's been market conditions, which are cyclical for us. That's -- I think we're very clear that we've had those revenue dynamics over the intervening years from when we set those targets, which has effectively caused the lower EBIT delivery that over those intervening periods to where we're trying to get to.

Importantly, though, the cost line of the group within -- between contribution and EBIT margin is absolutely bang on in line with where we had anticipated that to be when we set those targets in 2020. So despite the recent inflationary environment that we've seen, we've managed our costs absolutely in line with our modeling, and we've pretty much delivered on most of the contribution targets. So it's really a case of us getting back to more normalized market conditions on the top line, which will push along delivering that final outcome.

[Unknown Attendee]

Any more questions in the room? I don't believe so. I'd just like to thank everyone for joining us this morning, both in the room and of course, on the webcast. We look forward to speaking with you again at our half year results in August. So that concludes this morning's presentation. Thank you.