Vinci Partners Investments Ltd (NASDAQ:VINP) reported strong financial results for Q4 2024, surpassing market expectations with an earnings per share (EPS) of $1.04 against a forecast of $1.01. The company also reported revenue of $163.6 million, significantly above the anticipated $134.42 million. Following the announcement, Vinci (EPA:SGEF) Partners’ stock rose 1.4% in aftermarket trading, reflecting investor optimism. According to InvestingPro data, the company maintains strong profitability with a 100% gross profit margin and has demonstrated consistent revenue growth of 9.03% over the last twelve months.
Key Takeaways
- Vinci Partners exceeded EPS and revenue forecasts for Q4 2024.
- The company’s stock increased by 1.4% in aftermarket trading.
- Fee Related Earnings (FRE) rose by 38% year-over-year.
- The company completed strategic acquisitions and launched new funds.
- The firm is positioned to capitalize on growth in Latin American markets.
Company Performance
Vinci Partners demonstrated robust performance in Q4 2024, with notable growth in Fee Related Earnings (FRE), which increased by 38% year-over-year to R$79 million. The company’s strategic initiatives, including the completion of acquisitions and the launch of new funds, have bolstered its position as a leading alternative investment provider in Latin America.
Financial Highlights
- Revenue: $163.6 million, exceeding the forecast of $134.42 million.
- Earnings per share: $1.04, surpassing the forecast of $1.01.
- Total Assets Under Management (AUM): R$327 billion.
- Adjusted Distributable Earnings: R$73.9 million in Q4.
- Quarterly Dividend: R$0.15 per common share.
Earnings vs. Forecast
Vinci Partners reported an EPS of $1.04, beating the forecasted $1.01 by 2.97%. Revenue also exceeded expectations, coming in at $163.6 million compared to the anticipated $134.42 million, marking a significant positive surprise for investors.
Market Reaction
Following the earnings release, Vinci Partners’ stock experienced a 1.4% increase in aftermarket trading, reaching a price of $10.15. This movement reflects positive investor sentiment and confidence in the company’s strategic direction and financial health. The stock remains within its 52-week range of $9.01 to $11.85. InvestingPro analysis suggests the stock is currently undervalued, with additional ProTips indicating strong financial health, including a remarkable current ratio of 12.68, demonstrating excellent liquidity. The company also offers an attractive dividend yield of 6.39%, making it one of the significant dividend payers in its sector.
Outlook & Guidance
Looking ahead, Vinci Partners is targeting the launch of over 20 credit products in 2025 and plans to continue fundraising for multiple funds across asset classes. The company is also exploring opportunities in data centers and digital infrastructure, anticipating further growth in alternative investments. With a market capitalization of $648.66 million and a P/E ratio of 16.99, investors seeking detailed analysis can access comprehensive valuation metrics and additional ProTips through InvestingPro’s exclusive research reports, which provide deep-dive analysis of over 1,400 US stocks.
Executive Commentary
"2024 was a transformational year for our firm," said CEO Alessandro Huata, highlighting the company’s strategic progress. Bruno Zaremba, President of Finance and Operations, added, "We are confident that 2025 will be a landmark year, further solidifying our leadership in alternative investments across Latin America."
Risks and Challenges
- Market volatility in Latin America could impact investment returns.
- Currency fluctuations may affect revenue, given 30% of income is in US dollars.
- Economic conditions in Brazil and other key markets could pose challenges.
- Integration of acquisitions and new ventures may strain resources.
- Regulatory changes in the financial sector could affect operations.
Q&A
During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the impact of foreign exchange on debt and revenues, the advisory fee structure, and the integration synergies with Compass. Management addressed these concerns by explaining the recurring nature of advisory fees and the anticipated benefits from the Compass integration.
Full transcript - Vinci Partners Investments Ltd (VINP) Q4 2024:
Conference Operator: Good evening, and welcome to Vincicompa’s fourth quarter and full year twenty twenty four conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, this call will be recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Anna Castro, Investor Relations Manager.
Please go ahead, Anna.
Anna Castro, Investor Relations Manager, VINCI Compass: Thank you and good evening, everyone. Joining us today are Alessandro Huata, Chief Executive Officer Bruno Zaremba, President of Finance and Operations and Sergio Pazos, Chief Financial Officer. Earlier today, we issued a press release, a slide presentation on our financial statements for the quarter, which are available on our website at ir.finchpartners.com. I’d like to remind you that today’s call may include forward looking statements, which are uncertain and outside of the firm’s control and may differ from actual results materially. We do not undertake any duty to update these statements.
For discussion of some of the risks that could affect results, please see the risk factor section over 20 F. We will also refer to certain non gap measures and you’ll find reconciliations in the release. Also note that nothing on this call constitutes an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to purchase an interest in any VIN2 Compas fund. Our results, VIN2 Compas generated fee related earnings of R709 million or R1.23 dollars per share and adjusted distributable earnings of R73.9 million or R1.15 dollars per share for the fourth quarter twenty twenty four. For full year numbers, Vincenzo Compost posted fee related earnings of R148.4 million or R4.42 dollars per share and adjusted distributable earnings of R239.1 million or BRL4.26 per share.
We declare a quarterly dividend of BRL0.15 on the dollar per common share payable on March 27 to shareholders of record as of March 13. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Alessandro.
Alessandro Huata, Chief Executive Officer, VINCI Compass: Thank you, Anna. Good evening and thank you all for joining our call. We are delighted to be with you today as we announce results for the fourth quarter and full year 2024. As you all know 2024 was a transformational year for our firm, marking the beginning of a new chapter with the successful completion of our combination with Compass, alongside two other strategic acquisitions, MAF and Lacan. These milestones have significantly expanded our platform positioning VINCI Compass as the premier alternative investment and global solutions provider in Latin America.
We are already seeing tangible benefits reflected in our financial performance, with strong AUM growth, FRE and FRE as well as the immediate scalability of our distribution capabilities and extension of our product offerings. Let’s start with a brief overview of our results. Vinci Compass ended the year with $327,000,000,000 reais in total assets under management and advisory, driven by the combination with Compass our acquisitions in the forestry and agribusiness sectors but also with continued strong organic growth. Our fundraising momentum remained robust across private equity, credit and real assets segments contributing R3.4 billion dollars in capital subscriptions over the year including R1.4 billion dollars in the fourth quarter alone. These results represent exceptional accomplishments in the current fundraising environment.
We achieved a strong first closing for SPS4, our latest opportunistic credit solutions vintage. The fund secured close to R900 million dollars in commitments almost matching in this initial closing the total capital commitment of its previous vintage, driven mostly by reaps from SPS pre existing LP relationships across previous vintages showcasing the appetite investors have to increase exposure in this strategy in Brazil. We will continue to fundraise for SPS four in 2025 now targeting other investor channels such as institutional investors in Brazil, Latin America and globally. Another highlight was the final closing of VCP4, a remarkable achievement and a challenging scenario for private equity globally. The final closing of VCP4 was led by foreign institutional investors which, as we anticipated, would come in stronger at the end of the fundraising process.
With this final closing, VCP4 reached R3.1 billion dollars in total commitments making it the largest private equity vintage in our history. One key aspect of this fundraising process was the increase of our investor base across the local institutional community in Brazil. Approximately 50% of the investor base for VCP4 is now composed of domestic capital providers in comparison to a historical average of 30%. We have been consistently since our IPO thriving from the gradual shift to alternatives within the local institutional community in Brazil and we still have plenty room to grow. We are able to differentiate ourselves and still be able to raise capital in an environment with high interest rates by demonstrating our ability to generate value in investment companies uncorrelated to the local market’s performance.
On top of this the current macro scenario has created very attractive deployment opportunities that will likely position VCP4 in an advantageous position as the Brazilian economy continues to grow. Another major achievement in 2024 was the exceptional performance observed across multiple segments. Both VINCI’s pre existing funds and Compass strategies have delivered significant results in the fourth quarter. Our strongest contribution to PRE came from a dedicated Special Opportunities Fund to invest in Argentina in our global IPNS segment launched last year to capitalize on Argentina’s economic resurgence. The country has undergone a dramatic economic turnaround driven by a bold fiscal adjustment, a sharp reduction in country risk and an improving macroeconomic outlook.
The Argentine peso, previously under heavy pressure, has now stabilized and even appreciated due to a controlled devaluation strategy and declining inflation, reinforcing investor confidence. With growing optimism about structural reforms and strengthening economic fundamentals, we benefited from strong asset repricing and capital inflows, significantly boosting our performance revenues in this strategy. Turning to deployment activity, we had an active quarter for the private equity segment, deploying significant capital across our different strategies and funds. In November we announced the acquisition of a control stake in Outback’s stake house operations in Brazil through VCP4. Outback currently possesses the most recognized casual dining brand in Brazil and we are very excited to be partnering with Lumine Brands and continue to develop the brand in the country.
This investment builds on our proven track record in this sector following our successful investments in Burger King, Domino’s Brazil and Camara de Camarao. Additionally, our Impact and Return Fund, VRR4, secured minority stakes in two high potential Brazilian companies, Overejao and DRS. With these latest additions, VRR4 has now invested in nine companies spanning critical sectors such as water and sanitation, healthcare and financial services, bringing the Fund’s total allocation to approximately 90% of its capital commitments. As we build on this momentum, we are excited to start the fundraising for VRR5 in 2025, further expanding our impact investment strategy and unlocking new opportunities for innovation, growth and sustainable value creation in Latin America’s dynamic market. 2024 was a landmark year for our company, marking one of the most significant milestones since our inception with the successful combination with Compass.
Since the signing of our combination in March of twenty twenty four, we have been diligently working on the integration process ensuring a seamless transition that strengths our operations and capabilities and reinforced our commitment to delivering value to investors and shareholders. With the integration well underway, the teams from VINCI and Compass are now working together as a unified Latin American company leveraging our combined strengths to capitalize on market opportunities. Our focus remains on identifying and seizing growth avenues that will drive long term value while deepening our understanding of product demand from investors so we can provide them with the best solutions always. As we move forward, it is essential to analyze the broader economic landscape, which continues to shape the dynamics of our industry and influence our strategic decisions. In 2024, macroeconomic conditions underwent significant adjustments both globally and regionally.
The US economy has shown the remarkable resilience leading the Federal Reserve to pause interest rate cuts. The current scenario for strong growth bodes well for emerging markets in general. Commodities prices have been on an uptrend recently. Meanwhile in Chile market sentiment has improved significantly driven by a combination of factors: the implementation of a wide pension reform, the prospect of electing a more pro market presidential candidate and a decline in local interest rates. These developments have created a more favorable environment for alternative investments.
In many ways, Chile’s current momentum could serve as a reference for Brazil in 2026 as Brazil moves closer to presidential elections and we anticipate a monetary easing cycle starting in late twenty twenty five. For Aventi Compas, these dynamics translated into higher demand for alternative investments and global solutions further reinforcing our strong market positions. We have reached a stage where the strength of our brand and the attractiveness of our platform have set us apart from other local and regional players. This evolution mirrors trends observed in The US and European alternative asset markets where the industry has increasingly concentrated around leading firms. We are now seeing this same pattern emerge in Latin America, positioning VINCI COMPASS as a key beneficiary of this shift.
As we enter the new year we are stepping in an environment full of opportunities to further expand our presence across Latin America and strengthen our fundraising efforts both cross border and on local to local basis. Our extensive footprint allow us to effectively drive cross selling opportunities across the region while leveraging the unique advantages of global markets. This geographical diversity enable us to offer tailored solutions to our clients addressing their investment needs on a local, regional and global scale. Bruno will provide more insights into our exciting fundraising initiatives for 2025. To conclude, the strength and scalability of the VINCI Compass platform will continue to propel us forward in 2025.
We are very excited about the platform, our market position and the opportunities we see to continue providing solutions to our clients that address their financial allocation and investment needs be it locally, regionally or on a global basis. Thank you again for joining our call. With that, I’ll turn it over to Bruno.
Bruno Zaremba, President of Finance and Operations, VINCI Compass: Thank you, Alessandro, and good evening everyone. We are entering 2025 with an exceptionally strong fundraising pipeline positioning VINCI Compass for another year of robust capital formation and growth. We will have a number of products in the market this year with notable initiatives such as the development of our UCITS platform for listed equities, a number of new structured products and credits, real estate and IPNS, the continuing fundraising of flagship funds such as VICC and Vinci SPS, and a complementary host of high quality global strategies in third party distribution. One of our strategic focuses in 2025 is credits, which remains a cornerstone of our platform. We see significant opportunities for expansion and market share growth, and we are actively scaling multiple initiatives across diverse strategies and geographies, ensuring robust capital deployment opportunities.
Let’s begin with our local to local credit fundraising activities. In Brazil, we are advancing fundraising for our MAV3 vintage and our open ended credit products, including VCE, one of our flagship funds across our Brazilian private credit offering. In Peru and Chile, we are raising capital for additional funds in existing strategies, such as closed end senior secured lending and public and private credit funds. While in Colombia and Mexico, we are preparing to launch new strategies in credits. In the former, we are currently structuring Copco One, our first closed end senior secured lending fund in the country.
And in Mexico, we are currently setting up a structured private credit fund with an anchor Local LP as our first confirming and factoring firm in the country. With this product, we will officially launch our credit vertical locally. On the cross border fundraising front, we continue to gain traction. Our opportunistic credit solution strategy, SPS’s fourth vintage, secured nearly $1,000,000,000 in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four, and we anticipate continued capital raising across Latin America until early twenty twenty six. We are also actively fundraising for two open ended funds under Latin America corporate debt flagship, offering diversified exposure to high quality credit assets in the region.
Additionally, we are exploring new frontiers in private credit, including semi liquid strategies and additional private credit opportunities. In total, we currently have over 20 credit products to be raised in 2025 and more are in the works for future years. Our credit platform, which originated from four distinct groups, VINCI, Compass, Mav and SPS, has evolved into a highly complementary, diversified one stop shop for credit solutions. We are committed to deepening information synergies and fostering knowledge sharing across all of our strategies, ensuring greater efficiency, enhanced execution and stronger investment outcomes. One of our key medium term strategic agendas is the development of more local to local strategies across all our asset classes.
I think the development of Vincencompa’s Credit Group has shown how to combine organic and inorganic efforts to develop a strong market position. As we continue to grow our presence regionally, we will remain open to opportunities to partner with leading regional leaders or to develop the required capabilities in house, depending on the situation. We also have an ambitious agenda for our global IPNS in 2025 with conviction that our third party distribution strategy will drive strong inflows through a diversified and dynamic product offering. Our roadmap includes a comprehensive schedule of on-site meetings, events, sponsorships, and roadshows across key markets in Latin America and The U. S, ensuring deep engagement with investors and reinforcing our commitment to expanding best in class solutions to our clients.
In terms of net flows, we anticipate substantial inflows across all asset classes, partnering with world class GPs and top tier asset managers. Our offering spans traditional assets, alternative drawdown funds and semi liquid alternatives, each contributing to a well balanced, diversified mix of third party distribution products. These solutions allow our clients to complement our proprietary best in class local and regional products with exposure to the best global managers in their respective strategies, creating a true one stop shop for capital providers in Latin America. Still within global IPNS, we are preparing to launch two new proprietary funds in the VSP family, building on the strong momentum of our inaugural VSP funds. Following its success, we will introduce VSP2, a fund of funds focusing on primary and secondary opportunities as well as co investments in Brazil.
Additionally, we will launch the VSP Semi Liquid Fund, our first alternative semi liquid fund designed to capture primary and secondary opportunities in developed markets. This innovative structure aligns with a growing global trend offering enhanced liquidity while maintaining exposure to high quality alternative assets, a model we believe will be highly attractive to clients. We plan to kick off fundraising for both funds in the first half of the year, further strengthening our global IPNS platform by leveraging cross selling opportunities with our proprietary funds. In the Private Equity segment, as Alessandro mentioned, we are thrilled to announce the final closing of VCP4, marking a significant milestone for our platform. With a strong pipeline of opportunities, the team is fully focused on deploying our dry powder strategically, ensuring we capitalize on high quality investment opportunities.
At the same time, we are currently actively structuring VIR5, our next vintage impact private equity fund, with a targeted fundraising period spanning from the second quarter of twenty twenty five to the latter half of twenty twenty six. Shifting to the Real Estate segment, which encompasses our infrastructure, real estate and forestry strategies, we continue to make significant strides across all verticals. On the infrastructure side, we are approaching the final close of our Climate Change Infrastructure Fund, VICC. To date, we have already raised approximately 70% of the total target and continue to see strong interest from international investors. The ability to combine strong investment returns with strict investment guidelines across climate transition strategies has allowed the Fund to garner substantial LP interest and we continue to be optimistic about reaching the target size of the fund.
Turning to real estate, we are preparing to raise capital for two new products in the first half of the year in the industrial warehouse and residential sectors in Brazil. We are also looking into opportunistic investment opportunities in the real estate sector in general through club deals, while public markets in Brazil are not favorable for fundraising across our listed REITs. Additionally, our Brazilian and Uruguayan real estate teams are now fully integrated, working seamlessly to strengthen our footprint and looking to opportunities to expand the real estate practice outside of Brazil. We continue to research new investment themes, including data centers, a rapidly growing sector that is drawing global attention from alternative asset managers. As part of our ongoing market analysis, we are studying the evolving demand for digital infrastructure and cloud services.
While still in the early stages, we are evaluating how VINCI Compass could potentially position itself in the space in the future. As was the case with our residential development and logistic infrastructure strategy within real estate, we believe this could potentially be an added strategy to our real estate vertical. To round out our fundraising pipeline, we are also raising Lacan’s Force Vintage Fund within our forestry strategy, with a final closing expected by the end of the year. To put in perspective, Lacan three was approximately R500 million dollars in commitments and we are targeting a bigger number for Fund four. In the fourth vintage, we are going to be able to incorporate carbon credit returns into the Fund, which should not only boost underlying returns for the Fund, but also potentially attract more climate transition capital into the strategy.
With all of these initiatives in motion, we are poised for an outstanding year. We are confident that 2025 will be a landmark year, further solidifying our leadership in alternative investments across Latin America. The breadth and multitude of opportunities at Vincio Compas from a geographic and investment strategy standpoint means that we have flexibility to grow our business while also bringing outstanding investment solutions to our clients. Our commitment to innovation, disciplined capital deployment and thoughtful expansion should continue to drive our success creating long term value for all of our stakeholders. With that, I’ll turn it over to Serge to go through our results.
Sergio Pazos, Chief Financial Officer, VINCI Compass: Thank you, Bruno. Let’s start by covering our revenues. Fee related revenues totaled R218 million dollars in the fourth quarter, reflecting an 84% year over year increase. Focusing first on management fees, which totaled R170 million dollars representing a 70% increase year over year. The private equity segment was the largest contributor, accounting for 27% of total management fees, primarily driven by the successful final closing of VCP4 and the retroactive fees associated with these final commitments.
Excluding catch up fees from the last quarters of twenty twenty three and 2024, management fees still grew by 65% year over year, underscoring the strong revenue generation from our latest acquisitions and the continued momentum in securing new commitments for our closed end funds. Turning to advisory fees, we reported R40 million dollars in this quarter, with a particularly strong contribution of R19 million dollars from our corporate advisory segment. For the full year, this segment posted 43,000,000 RIs in advisory fees, exceeding our annual target by 43%. Despite the challenging IPO environment, our corporate advisory business has continued to deliver exceptional results, demonstrating its resilience and strength. Still, within advisory fees, the third party distribution for alternative products, part of our global IPNS segment, contributed with R18 million dollars in just the last two months of the year, after the Compass closing at the October.
It’s important to highlight that the majority of global IPNS advisory fees come from one time upfront fees charged on third party alternative commitments. We anticipate that further upfront fees could materialize throughout 2025 directly associated with the fundraising pipeline for alternative drawdown and same liquid funds, which Bruno mentioned earlier, and it continues to progress. Starting this quarter, we have introduced a new revenue line, other revenues, which includes brokerage fees in The US and Chile and fund service fees in Mexico. On the brokerage front, we serve both high net worth individuals and institutional clients. For retail clients, we offer a comprehensive service not only executing trades on their behalf, but also assisting in the construction of investment portfolios tailored to their financial objectives.
For institutional clients, our role is primarily execution focused, providing full trading execution service or minimum prime accounts, depending on their needs. Meanwhile, fund service fees related to the operational service we provide for funds in Mexico. Unlike brokerage fee, which are transaction based, fund service fees are recurring, though they are subject to foreign exchange fluctuations. This quarter, fund service fees totaled R4.7 million dollars Another important aspect to highlight is the composition of our fee related revenues by currency. Approximately 30% of our revenue was received in US dollars in the fourth quarter, underscoring the global reach and natural currency diversification of our business.
Turning to fee related earnings. Fourth quarter fee related earnings totaled R79 million dollars reflecting a 38% year over year increase, supported by higher management and advisory fee. For the full year 2024, FRE reached R248 million dollars or R4.42 dollars per share, up 15% on a per share basis. We anticipate continued momentum in FRE growth for 2025, driven by strong fundraising pipeline and the full contribution of Compass and Lacan revenues and FRE, which are now fully consolidated into our results. From a margin standpoint, the fourth quarter was a strong quarter as both our corporate advisory and third party distribution business had strong revenues, in addition to strong catch up fees from VCP4 helping us dilute more efficiently our fixed costs.
We believe a more normalized FRE margin run rate at the current time would be in the low 30%. We continue to work diligently to leverage the combined business and drive margins higher over time. As part of our income statement presentation this quarter, you will notice a new line item: placement fee amortization and rebates. These reflect fees paid to distributors that, due to accounting procedures, are not deducted from net management fees, unlike certain other distributor fees that directly impact the line. We introduced this change following our combination with Compass, where these expenses are more significant, particularly in the credit and IP and S segments.
Prior to the merger, our exposure to placement fee amortization was minimal, primarily within the private equity segment. While this adjustment has only a slight effect on our consolidated FRE margin, in segments like credit and IP and S, where these costs are more mature relative to revenue, It can significantly impact segment margins. As a result, the reported FRE margins for these segments may not fully reflect the underlying operational performance of the business. Although realized financial income delivered strong investment returns during the quarter, it was generated from a smaller investment portfolio, as cash was allocated toward capital costs from close end funds and payments related to acquisitions. As a result, we observed a decline compared to the previous quarter, reflecting our active capital deployment strategy.
Regarding the other items line, this quarter we experienced an FX impact on Winch Compass net debt position in US dollars, which impacts our debt position in dollars from the convertible preferred structure with IRIS. The Brazilian real suffered from a 14% depreciation against the dollar during the fourth quarter resulted in a negative impact of approximately R16 million dollars on adjusted distributable earnings. However, it’s important to highlight that as of the February, the Brazilian L had already appreciated by 9% compared to its exchange rate at year end. Therefore, if the Brazilian Real continues this appreciation trend, we expect to gradually offset this impact in the coming quarters, with most of this effect coming already in the first quarter of twenty twenty five. Regarding non operational expense, as previously anticipated, we incurred expenses related to the closure of the Compass Combination along with associated transactional expense and costs from the acquisition of LaCanne.
We remain committed to transparency, and I want to assure our investors that this line includes only these items, reinforcing the nonrecurring nature of these expenses. Turning to performance related earnings, as Alessandro mentioned, we delivered strong results this quarter with R16.5 million dollars in PE, marking a four seventy eight percent year over year increase. This strong performance was driven by recognitions across our global IPNS, real assets and credit segments, reinforcing the strength and diversification of our platform. In Global P and S, which was the largest contributor to P and E this quarter, our results were driven by third party distribution liquid, global solutions and commingo funded strategy, with a notable highlight to the VINCI Argentina Fund. In real assets, the largest contribution came from real estate in Peru, reflecting the robust performance of our real estate investment in the region.
Finally, in credit, key highlights included the VHG Fund, which benefits from our confirming and structured credit strategy and Compass Yield 30, which delivered strong results within the local currency high grade credit strategy, further strengthening the resilience and breadth of our credit vertical. Speaking of performance, I’d like to highlight the gross accrued performance fees in closed end funds totaled R437 million dollars by the fourth quarter, up 17% quarter over quarter, driven by the mark to market appreciation in December in our onshore Brazilian funds. Our offshore funds, however, experienced a delay in mark up recognition as a quarterly reevaluation follows a sixty day disclosure timeline set by the Fund Administrator. Looking ahead, given the FX depreciation of the full year of 2024, we anticipate that our offshore funds may face a temporary negative impact on gross accrued performance fees in the next quarter. To wrap up, I’d like to cover our distributable earnings.
Adjusted distributable earnings totaled $73,900,000 in the fourth quarter or $1.15 per share, representing a 16% year over year increase on a nominal basis. On a per share basis, adjusted E showed a slight 2% decline, entirely driven by the impact of FX depreciation during the quarter. Excluding the R16 million dollars of FX exchange rate impact, adjusted distributable earnings would have totaled R90 million dollars with adjusted EPS per share reaching R1.40 dollars per share, reflecting a 19% year over year increase on a per share basis. It’s important to emphasize that without the FX effect, both our nominal and per share figures would have shown significant growth, further reinforcing accretion from our organic and inorganic growth initiatives to our shareholders. In closing, I’d like to once again emphasize the strong momentum we continue to experience as a firm.
We remain fully committed to generating long term shareholder value, leveraging both organic growth initiatives and strategic inorganic opportunities to further expand our platform. With that, I would like to close our remarks and open the call for questions. Once again, we’d like to thank you for joining our call. Please, operator, you can proceed with the questions. Thank you.
Our
Conference Operator: first question comes from Ricardo Buschpiegel with BTG (LON:BTG). You can open your microphone.
Ricardo Buschpiegel, Analyst, BTG: Hi, everyone, and and thank you for the opportunity to make questions. I have two here on my side. So first I wanted to hear your, your, your thoughts on why should we expect about the evolution of a Ferrari (NYSE:RACE) margin fraud this year? Right? So there’s any you guys deal like a, a very big M and a here with compass, so just to understand a little bit better, the pace and the evolution of, of the improvement as you, tackle the, the synergies of this transaction.
And, and secondly, if you could also talk about, pay, what should we expect in terms of dividend payout for, for 2025? Should we expect some, somewhere close still to 90% or 95% is what was be helpful. Thank you.
Alessandro Huata, Chief Executive Officer, VINCI Compass: Okay. He got to, thank you for a question. That’s Alessandro. Good evening for everybody. I will start with the first question about the evolution of the FY margin.
We expect the the to regain, margin FRE moving forward basically with two main actions. That’s quite simple and we already identified that we can deploy them over time. First would be, efficiencies in terms of costs and structure. We already identified doing our previous work with Bain, where when we define the integration process. But moving forward, we already saw after a few months of integration that, we really have a lot of opportunities to really gain a lot of efficiencies, in our cost structure.
And second, one of the main pillars of this deal was, were the complementarity of the two companies. And, we have these two main levers in this complementarity that we’ll explore that will translate in higher margins. First, a larger amount of 35 distribution in Brazil, where Compass and Vinci, of course, was very, still not very relevant. And the second would be to introduce the higher margin products in other countries in Latin America, initiatives that are already, starting to happen especially in private credit and other alternative asset classes. In other countries in Latin America, take advantage of the of the track record of VINCI, where we are tapping local markets in other Latin America countries where Compass had a very good presence, and, of course, a very good LP base.
Bruno Zaremba, President of Finance and Operations, VINCI Compass: Ricardo, this is Bruno. Just to add on the first FRE margin question, Sergio made a comment in his prepared remarks talking about the expected level going forward. So we had a number of about 36% in the fourth quarter and for a recurring basis we were mentioning in the call, we mentioned a number in the low 30%, which I think is what we expect to do at least for the first year of the new entity, of the new combined entity. So I think that’s a good level to shoot for in terms of expectations for 2025. And in regards to the payout, at this point, we don’t see any change in what we have been doing, so the target has been historically to pay something around 80% of distributable earnings.
At this point in time, we’re going to keep the same targets, which was approximately what we did in this quarter. And looking forward, I think at least for the time being, we’re going to keep this same percentage targets. So nothing changes on that, on that side.
Ricardo Buschpiegel, Analyst, BTG: Oh, very clear. And just another question that I have, I was looking at the AOM variation, from one quarter to another, and there was a big, relevant effect related to, effects in bags. Right. I understand that compass have their AUM mostly in USD and given the VRO co depreciation had a positive effect on your AUM. But why would it be the, the number that helped in terms of revenues?
Right. Just to, to understand a little bit the effect on the, the p and l of this currency fluctuation.
Bruno Zaremba, President of Finance and Operations, VINCI Compass: Yeah. The, I think Sergio mentioned that as well. Right? Today, we have about, 30% of the of our revenue in dollars and other breakdowns in the other currencies. Realize is about 40%, thirty % in dollars, and the balance of, of of the results are in Chilean pesos, Argentine pesos and so on and so forth.
So I mean, having that depreciation impact on AUM now, we would like I mean, we would see the from the dollar standpoint, the impact on that 30% revenue that we have in dollars. And depending on relative terms for the other currencies, the rest of the impacts as the other currencies move against the real. But in this quarter, the most significant impact was from the dollar variation, which is at 30%.
Ricardo Buschpiegel, Analyst, BTG: That’s clear. Thank you.
Conference Operator: Our next question comes from Guillermo Grispe with JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM). You can open your microphone.
Guillermo Grispe, Analyst, JPMorgan: Thank you, Allison and team. Congratulations on results and good luck on the new chapter. Two questions on my side. One, sorry to insist on the FX, but now the 16,000,000 that you guys mentioned on the releases as the impact from US debt. Just remind us a little bit, what exactly is this debt and is this unhatched and is expected to continue to be unhatched in the P and L?
And then my second question is related to performance fees. It seems that, and correct me if I’m wrong here, but it seems that a large portion, the largest was IPNS, right, the contribution from from this segment. Just remind us if it should be recurring or not the the contribution to to performance from this this side of the business. I understand there is also being charging Tina and and the results on Peru. But I think the largest chunk here of of performance was IPNS and just want to understand if we’re gonna see this every quarter.
Thank you.
Bruno Zaremba, President of Finance and Operations, VINCI Compass: Okay, Guzman. This is Rune again. Thanks thanks for the questions. In regards to the exchange rate, the exposure that we have on the debt side is the the convertible preferred with ferries, right? So that’s the exposure that we have.
We have put a target of having a small exposure to that fluctuation over time. And obviously, this quarter was significant exposure at least on the income statements because we have a little bit of the exposure that is unhedged and will continue to be unhedged. We have not hedged it fully, but this quarter with the devaluation of the currency, the impact was higher. The reason why we don’t have a full hedge is because our business is already partially in dollars. So we’re going to recover over the next few quarters the cash flow from this loss.
But on a momentaneous basis, given that the devaluation was very strong in the fourth quarter, we have this mismatch. But if the currency stayed at 6.15, which was the I think around the currency around the level where it finished 2024, we would earn these results back on the FRE given the net exposure that we have to dollars. So that’s the rationale that we did. We look at the cash flow profile, the dollar revenue that we have in the business, and look at that on an ongoing basis to see what kind of exposure we are comfortable in having. And nowadays, we figure that the exposure is between four and six quarters of FRE to fully offset the impact that we have on the mark to market of the debt position.
In regards to PRE, the PRE actually was quite diversified. I was reading through the notes here. In 02/2024, we had more or less 20 different products paying PRI. So it was quite diversified, the impact, and most of those obviously in the fourth quarter. There were two there was one bigger beneficiary to that line, which was Argentina.
Peru was also an important impact, but Argentina, I think, was the one that really stood out a little bit. It’s difficult to say. I mean, obviously, Argentina will not be such a we don’t expect Argentina to be such a contributor in future quarters, but hopefully that will go to another fund, right, given that we had 20 different funds contributing to PRE. Hopefully that role that Argentina had in 2024 for us will be taken over by another fund in 2025, and we’re able to repeat the level of period that we had in ’twenty four. But it’s difficult to anticipate, so I wouldn’t want to commit to repeating this number going forward.
It depends on markets, the performance of the funds, but hopefully we’re gonna get same good results in ’25.
Guillermo Grispe, Analyst, JPMorgan: That’s clear. And just one follow-up, just to confirm, Compass is a % in the quarter. Right? It it’s full three months?
Bruno Zaremba, President of Finance and Operations, VINCI Compass: No. It’s just November and December. So we had, two months, of Compass this quarter. Yes. Although, the contribution from Compass was it was good because the upfronts that we collected in this quarter were strong.
So they were stronger than I would expect like in a normal, you know, in a normalized basis. The fourth quarter, these two months that we had, they were strong because of timing of the upfront collection. So they had a good impact to the numbers in the fourth quarter despite being just two months. Yeah.
Guillermo Grispe, Analyst, JPMorgan: Okay. Super clear. Thank you.
Conference Operator: Our next question comes from William Parangiardi with Itau BBA.
William Parangiardi, Analyst, Itau BBA: Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Good night. My question here is regarding the consolidated business and if there is any new seasonality effects that we should be aware of, be it in terms of fundraising, fees, even performance and expenses. If there’s something here we should be aware of so, we could put it into our models, it would be very, very helpful.
Bruno Zaremba, President of Finance and Operations, VINCI Compass: Okay. William, this is Bruno again. I think I think the main seasonality that, that I would expect for us to have is that we are more than doubling our advisory fee line. Right? So, we had, as a standalone company, the corporate advisory segment, which was difficult to forecast on a quarter to quarter basis because it depends on when the the deals close and when our advisory fees would would come in.
With the incorporation of Compass, this exposure now is more than double of what we had on a standalone basis. The advisory fees from Compass depend on the timing of the closings of the funds that we are attributing our third party distribution business, so they also vary from quarter to quarter. So I would expect on a go forward basis this line, specifically the advisory fee line, to be the line that we would have more seasonality throughout the year depending on the timing of the closing of the transactions, in the case of corporate advisory, which we already had, and now depending on the timing of the closing of the of the funds that we are raising on third party distribution, also affecting on the on a quarter to quarter basis, right? Those are the two main aspects I would expect to have some bigger seasonality going forward.
Conference Operator: Our next question comes from Tito Labarta with Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS). You can open your microphone.
Tito Labarta, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Hi. Good evening, Alessandro. It’s Bruno, Sergio. Thank you for the call and taking my questions. My question, following up a little bit on the the advisory fees, I guess, particularly for IPNS because you mentioned some of those are are onetime.
Just to understand, how much of the the advisory fees should we consider as onetime? And I think, Sergio, you also mentioned that you may have some other one time advisory fees just to think about what’s recurring. I understand there’s some seasonality there that you just mentioned, Bruno, but what’s recurring and what’s, one time? And then somewhat related to that, if on the IPNS, if we look at the fees, the management fees as a percentage of the fee earning AUM, you know, we expected that to come down given the incorporation of Compass. But is the level we saw this quarter, is that the right level to think about going forward?
And I understand you only included two months of Compass. Right? So it would probably be a little bit higher. But just to think about the the management fee as a percentage of AUM, particularly for IPNS, how do we think about that going forward? Thank you.
Alessandro Huata, Chief Executive Officer, VINCI Compass: Yes. Tito, that’s Alessandro. I’ll take the the the last question. Yes. Of course, take in consideration that we just incorporated two months of Compass.
We expect this fee level will be the stable level if you take out the one times that are more upfront related to more drawdown funds that we distribute through our terabyte distribution business. So this is the level of recurring. So this is taking a cost ratio again the two months, not the three months, that will be around the percentage level that we should expect moving forward. I’ll leave Bruno to talk a little bit more in detail about the one times.
Bruno Zaremba, President of Finance and Operations, VINCI Compass: Yeah, Thilo, good to talk to you. I think what Sergio mentioned in his remarks, the non recurring nature, are the advisory fees that we paid as costs regarding the close of the transaction. So we had a Compass in in La Canada this quarter, and there were fees associated with those two transactions, due diligence fees and also advisory fees for for those deals, which we have separated in our income statements. And those are non recurring nature because they are a % M and A related, right? So those fees are paid and will no longer happen.
In the case of the revenues from advisory fees in global IPNS, they are recurring, they are part of the business, right, so the business in third party distribution, we have two options, let’s say, of receiving revenues in that business. For the liquid third party distribution business, we receive a fee on the average AOM or average revenue over time, so it’s a more normalized level of fees because it depends on the AUM and revenue that we have in a certain quarter. They are measured and we receive those revenues, and they they enter into our management fee numbers so they are not carved out into into advisory fees. What we book into the advisory fees is the other type of revenue that we receive from third party distribution, which is related to the closed end funds that we market. So when we market a fund which is not liquid and people have commitments for a long term, like a private equity fund or a real estate fund that has a typical drawdown structure, we charge fees on the placement of these funds that depend on the amount of capital that we raise, and each fund has a different percentage, right, negotiated with the partner.
These fees, they are not they are recurring, so they are part of the business. As long as we have drawdown funds being distributed, we’re going to charge these fees. But they are less stable, right, because they depend on the timing of the close of the product. So usually we charge at the time of the close. It’s a percentage of the AUM that we raise depending on the funds, but it’s a recurring revenue stream.
It’s it’s not stable quarter to quarter because it’s a little bit lumpier because it depends on when the fund is closed, but it’s a part of the business. So we expect it to to continue going forward as part of our third party distribution business.
Tito Labarta, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Okay. Great. I think that’s clear, Bruno. Thanks for that. So so we should consider those advisory revenue fees as recurring.
There will be and it’s not necessarily seasonality. It depends more when the funds close, not because you get more in four q versus two q. It’s more when the funds close.
Bruno Zaremba, President of Finance and Operations, VINCI Compass: Exactly. So we had a good fourth quarter. I think fourth quarter was a a a a good number, like, from a a sustainable level basis, I would say probably towards the upper end, but we expect the advisory contribution from third party distribution, as I made a comment in the prior answer, to more than double the advisory fees for us on a combined basis. If you add the corporate advisory, what we had before, and add the advisory coming from third party distribution, that’s going to be, more than two x what we had before. Obviously, it will fall in different quarters, but it’s gonna be a much bigger number, going forward for for sure.
Tito Labarta, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Okay. No. Very clear. Thanks, Bruno.
Conference Operator: I would now like to turn the floor back to mister Alessandro Orta for the closing remarks. Please, mister Orta, you can proceed.
Alessandro Huata, Chief Executive Officer, VINCI Compass: So, we’d like to thank you again for for continuous interest and support and, to let you know that we are very optimistic and update with the prospects of our business moving forward. This is the first call of the combining numbers, and we are certain that we have a very good future for VINCI COMPASS. So thank you again, and good night.
Conference Operator: This does concludes today’s presentation. We thank you all for your participation and wish you a very good evening.
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