Transcript

Joining us now from Singapore for an exclusive interview, the current chair, Connie Johnson and incoming chair, John Salata. Guys, thanks very much indeed for spending some time at this momentum moment, a momentous moments for your firm. Connie, let's let's start with you. You've got your guy. He's sitting next to you. Why is he the right person for the job? What can I say is hits you no. Ohh, he's a he's a super, good, super good leader. He's a good entrepreneur and you know, we care so much about soft tissues. So we care about his personality style, his values, but also before everything else is super good investor. He has been built the bearings and then we when when we when we came, came together with them, we were able to integrate bearings iniquity, but together build a global platform. And he's a perfectly positioned leader to continue to build this this platform into the global leader that way. Aim to become. So, so a great investor and a great person. Wow, that that's quite the compliments that you get coming from Connie there. Jean, let's talk about kind of where you do see this this firm going, a Connie set you up. He's got a great business. He's handing it over to you next. You are Asia focused. You have been Asia focused. Is that where we now see EQ's balance being? Is that the trend that we could follow in terms of where you could QT goes next? Well, Connie, Connie's handing over the business at a time when it's never been stronger. And so we're in a position to really take advantage of all the opportunities in our industry that we see today. I think the opportunity is certainly in Asia, but it's really a global opportunity for us. We're a very global company today. Asia is an important part of that story. We're both in Singapore right now. We're having our board meeting here today and tomorrow. So it's, it's a really critical part of our strategy, but we we see tremendous opportunity. For us to continue to accelerate our growth and drive our growth agenda that we've set out in our strategy. Connie, is this, is this a shift though? I think that's a question that people are asking. A couple of months ago, I think it was in an FT interview, but I think I may have seen it elsewhere. You talked about the fact that the focus should be on the United States, that that's where the balance of the business should be. You talked about maybe to doing takeovers in the United States. Has that changed? Well, the US is a big market and we are too small in the US. We should be bigger there. But the long term growth for us and for the world and for our industry is in Asia and we don't really see those markets sort of competing about our attention or our capital. We look where we are the best investment opportunities to make the, the the key for us is that whatever we do is like a planned process. You know this change that doesn't came up yesterday or the week before we had. And down 5 CEO successors, all nicely planned with good candidate and a well thought through process around it. So it's no change. It's a continuation to build equity into the global platform that that we hope it can become. Global platform, that is the, the keywords that I'm that I'm hearing it time and time again from you this morning. Connie, just just to stay with you for just a moment and I'll get John's take on this as well. We're starting to hear talk that investors are looking to European firms though, because they offer diversification, because they don't want to put money into the United States, that they want a more global benchmark in terms of the way they see their businesses needing to invest. Is that something that QT is seeing? And is that part of that kind of that global story that you're talking about? Yeah, we, we, we have, we have the, the, the lack to be ideally positioned to exploit that trend. And it's a very logical trend because people understand with the political risk we see around us, diversification is critical. What we can offer our investors is exactly what they're looking for right now. And it's not so that we're just buying paper, shuffling those around. We buy companies, we manage countries, we have people on the ground, we're local with locals. And that's a unique set up that I think we are rather lonesome about. And that's going to be. The success or the the key to our success going forward? Yeah, I would agree with that guy. We're seeing investors really thinking about rebalancing their portfolio and and diversifying more as Connie saying to Asia to Europe, both because I think of geopolitical considerations, but also just in terms of valuation and even things like portfolio construction and portfolio concentration correlation around the whole technology space and, and, and and the technology names in the US and whether they feel like that that is stretched. And and wanting to rebalance and and diversify more into global markets. So that's something that we're seeing in our business and it's benefiting our business actually. John, do you see, do you see that you talk about benefiting your business, Is that gonna make fundraising easier? Because the other thing we're hearing as well is that there's caution in the fundraising world right now and some firms are struggling, others aren't. But but maybe that geography that you talk about that that sort of home bias here in Europe, that Asia focus that opportunity, does that make, do you think that's going to make fundraising easier for QT? I think the answer is yes to that. And I and I think part of that's driven off of this dynamic, part of the part of it is also driven by the the distributions that we're making from our investment programs back to our investors. As we've announced in our public information, we've had a record year of distributions with something like ���20 billion of distributions back to our LP's at a time when people aren't seeing that many distributions. So it's a combination of performance distributions and and some of this portfolio diversification geopolitical. Considerations. Connie, in the past there has been a focus within the portfolio on renewables businesses. Now clearly there is and and you can see this obviously what is with what's happening with Ousted at the moment. There's been a significant amount of turbulence in that space as a result of what's happening in the United States. Are you going to stick with that as you think about Europe, as you think about Asia, do renewables and that side of the business maintain a significant portion of the portfolio? Not a significant portion there of course, adopting the strategies where we think the investment products are mostly attractive today. We talk about any of the transition, we talk about technical services, we talk about technical integration or technological integration across geographies and across sectors. So it's it's not so much renewable in itself. And I think we are extraordinarily well positioned to exploit that being in the US, in Europe and in Asia. Technology is traveling across borders and we need to be able to participate and play and follow what happens in each of the three different geographies that we're operating in. So renewables is there, but it's not an important and it has never been a it. Has there been any literacy action has been what we've been focusing on. OK, I I guess I'm probably widening the lens a little bit too much, Jean. Is a number of key questions around AI at the moment. So I'm curious to get your take in terms of the portfolio companies, what are you seeing in terms of the impact? What do you see going forward from here? How is EQT using AI in terms of its investment decision making process? It's a question that all investors are asking at the moment. How can I use this technology? What impact is it gonna have? What is your answer to that question at the moment? It's at the very top of our strategic agenda for the business. We are embracing it internally. We have teams of data science scientists working on that. Internally, we have our digital value creation teams working with our portfolio companies. I think there's a couple key things happening here. Number one, first and foremost, this is a productivity tool, a productivity tool that can be used by QT to, to, to drive our our investment performance and the way the efficiency in our business. But more importantly, I would say it's a productivity tool across all the industries and sectors thematics. That we invest in, which is critical for driving value creation as we move forward. Secondly, I'd say the, you know, what we're seeing in our portfolios is that having the right leadership team in place, those CEO's and management teams that get it and that are embracing AI quickly and moving quickly are going to be the ones that stay ahead and get ahead of this, this these, these these tremendous technology trends that are happening. So it's, it's a critical part of our future strategy and I think every single company in our portfolio. Needs to be focusing on this. Absolutely. And I'm sure your investors will be pleased to hear you. Hear you say that guys, just before I let you go, I, Connie, I have to ask the question. I, I, this is the end in terms of your, your chair, but but clearly not the end of Connie Johnson. And I suspect we're going to be hearing much more from you. What? Let me ask a simple question. What is next? I have a rather diversified private portfolio focusing on the entertainment. I'm sure that many of you have seen above voyage in London and that's one of the project and I like to work with sort of things that is changing. So the technological change forming the future entertainment market is clearly an area of alike but also biodiversity. I'm a little environmental muppet. I like to where we can make some good impact for the environment and so. It would see me and with you, we see him in a couple couple of different sectors like that. It sounds like you're gonna be busy and we're not seeing and we've not seen the last year yet, which I never thought we would. Anyway, Connie, great to see you. Thank you very much indeed, Jean, thank you very much indeed for your time. We look forward to hearing from both of you again very, very soon. Thank you very much indeed for your time. Yeah. Go the incoming chair over at EQT.