Chief Executive, Bridgepoint Group
Bridgepoint Group plc 2026 Interim Results
Bridgepoint Group plc held its 2026 Interim Results presentation on 17 July 2026. The session featured Raoul Hughes, Chief Executive Officer, and Ruth Prior, Group Chief Financial Officer, who presented the company's interim results and provided an update during the event.
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About Raoul Hughes
Raoul Hughes, Chief Executive of Bridgepoint Group, presented the company's 2026 interim results on 17 July 2026 alongside Group Chief Financial Officer Ruth Prior. Hughes stated that the business is "firing on all cylinders" and noted that the pending acquisition of Cain and Anderson Real Estate has been "very well received" by both firms' teams and fund investors. He reported a 78% increase in EBITDA compared to the first half of 2025, with a margin of 61%, and said that first-half results exceeded expectations due to strong fundraising progress and earlier-than-expected recognition of performance-related earnings. Hughes said the group will be "stronger, more diversified and more resilient" following the Cain acquisition, with equal balance across Europe and the US and 50% of assets under management in real asset investing. He described financial performance for shareholders as "compelling," with earnings growing and becoming increasingly fee-related earnings-centric, and an EBITDA margin trending above 60%. Hughes also highlighted a record 16.6 billion euros returned to fund investors, driven in part by the closing of the Calpine transaction, and noted that pipelines for both deployment and exits remain strong for the second half of the year.
Transcript (5 segments)
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Raoul Hughes0:05
Hello again, everybody. I'm Raoul Hughes, Bridgepoint Group's chief executive, and I'm here today with Ruth. Given it's only a couple of weeks since we announced the acquisition of Cain and Anderson Real Estate, when we gave a full sum update on where we are as a firm, we thought we'd do it a bit differently for this year's interim results and post a short video presentation along with the RNS. In light of that very recent and detailed update, we'll keep this presentation this morning short with a focus on what has changed since we last spoke. In summary, the business continues to fire on all cylinders. The agreement to acquire Cain has been very well received. Ruth and I have met the whole of their team since then, and I'm really pleased to say the transaction has gone down very well at both Cain and Birchwood, and importantly, also with our fund investors. We're all very excited about getting going together. At the time of the announcement, Ruth said that first half results would be good. And we've come in even better than expected thanks to strong progress with fundraising and earlier than expected recognition of PRE. This has led to a 78% increase in EBITDA compared to the first half of 2025 at a margin of 61%. Now, turning to fundraising, at the time of announcement, we increased our fundraising target to 28 billion euros, and I'm pleased to say we've seen further positive progress in the last couple of weeks. I'll come back to in a minute. But first, the financials. The first half is a story of strong growth and even better performance in the top end of the expectations we talked about the other week. Pro forma for Cain, total group AUM increased by 38% to 120 billion dollars. Excluding Cain, AUM for the current group increased by 12%. Management fees grew by 23% including catch-up fees with FRE increasing by 42%. Combining the growth in FRE with the earlier and greater than expected strength in PRE, our EBITDA increased by a tremendous 78% compared to the same period a year ago. And so, back to fundraising. We have raised 2.5 billion euros of further commitments since the Cain announcement. B8 has held a further close and now stands over 7 billion euros and has exceeded the size of its predecessor fund. ECP 6 has raised 7 billion dollars and with the recent agreement of its fund investors, the hard cap has been increased from 7.5 billion to 7.8 billion dollars of external money. And this has been done to accommodate LPs who would otherwise have missed out on an allocation. When the GP commitment is included, this means that we are now highly confident of a fund of greater than 8 billion. And finally, BDL 4 held its final close early this month at 5.1 billion euros of investable capital. Great progress heading into the finishing straight before the year end. And now I'll hand over to Ruth to talk you through the numbers in more detail.
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Ruth3:04
Thank you, Raoul. I'm going to take you through a really strong first half performance, which has helped de-risk the full year numbers. Successful fundraising in the first half helped deliver a 16% increase in management fees, excluding catch-up fees, which is bang in line with guidance. And as you heard Raoul say, we're increasingly confident of achieving our recently revised fundraising target. The standout performance today is in the PRE line, where 121 million pounds of carry recognition and co-investment gains has delivered 2/3 of the PRE expected for the full year. Combined, FRE and PRE resulted in underlying EBITDA of 227 million pounds, a margin of 61% which is slightly above the top end of guidance. And finally, our liquidity has continued to improve at 3.3 times last year's average daily traded volume in the first half. With the final IPO lockup expiry later this month, the free float will increase, and this will be reflected in FTSE Russell index weightings at the next rebalancing in September. The flywheel of capital deployment and exit continues to turn in the middle market. In line with our consistent tempo of deployment, we have made seven new platform investments in private equity. And in infrastructure, we have invested in the largest service provider to the nuclear power industry in North America. Capital invested in the last 6 months totaled 3.6 billion euros. BE 7 has made its final investment, and BE 8 has announced its first. Along with further investments in the pipeline, we expect to deploy approximately another 2 billion euros in the very short term. Moving on to capital returned, we have set a new record of 16.6 billion euros sent back to fund investors. Thanks in no small part to the closing of the Calpine transaction. Excluding Calpine, capital returns of around 4 billion euros in the first half would still compare favorably to prior periods. And the consistency of capital returns remains a key point of differentiation for us with our LPs. Returns in infrastructure have been nothing short of extraordinary, with Symmetry, Calpine, and Cornerstone all achieving money multiples between 4.4 and 6.4 times. And this has contributed to the strength in PRE we are reporting today. And encouragingly, the pipelines for both deployment and exits remain strong for the second half of the year and beyond.
I'm going to take a little time now on both AUM bridges, as there were a number of moving parts in the first half, including a particularly positive increase in fee paying AUM of 28%. Starting with AUM since year end, fundraising added $3.2 billion and Newbury Bridgepoint added $3.9 billion. Divestments total $17.9 billion and of that total around $14 billion was from the Calpine exit. This includes both the cash received on closing and the co-investors have chosen to take their capital in specie. That is to say they have taken locked up shares in Constellation rather than waiting for cash proceeds. Value progression in the funds added $5.2 billion and an FX was a headwind of $1.3 billion. On the fee paying AUM side, successful fundraising added $11.3 billion while the addition of Newbury Bridgepoint added $3.5 billion and deployment in credit funds added a further $0.7 billion. Realizations totaled $1.3 billion while step-downs accounted for $0.6 billion. The significant difference between the fund divestment movements in AUM and the realizations and step-downs in fee paying AUM is due to the quantum of co-investment which was required alongside fund capital to fund the Calpine transaction at the outset. The co-investment for Calpine was not fee paying and therefore not included in fee paying AUM. And lastly on fee paying AUM, FX was a headwind of $0.8 billion. With new flagship funds being raised in private equity and infrastructure, the group management fee remains broadly flat at 1.17%.
In PRE, the 120.7 million pounds recorded in the first half leaves us well positioned to reach our guidance of around 25% of total income for the full year. Due to the strength of PRE in the first half, our EBITDA margin reached 61%. With 2/3 of the PRE expected for the full year recorded in the first half, the EBITDA margin for the full year is likely to be a little lower while still comfortably within the guided range of 55%. So you have everything in one place, here is a reminder of the guidance for Cain. With nothing having changed in the last 2 weeks, I'll move straight on to the next slide. Which is guidance for the group. Prior to the acquisition of Cain. A handful of things have changed since we last spoke on the 29th of June and are shown here in black and red font. BE 8 has now raised 7 billion euros with the final close expected in Q1 2027 at between 8 and 8 and a half billion euros and has begun to pay fees sooner than originally expected in early June. BDL 4 held its final close at 5.1 billion euros of investable capital and ECP 6 held a further large close on the 30th of June to reach 7 billion dollars. Meaning that fees on that additional capital were payable in the first half. As I flagged was possible in my comments 2 weeks ago. All other guidance shown in gray is unchanged since we last spoke. And with that, I'll hand back to Raoul.
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Raoul Hughes9:11
Great, thanks Ruth. My summary of performance for the first half is simple. The business is firing on all cylinders and making really positive progress. With the pending acquisition of Cain, the group will be stronger, more diversified and more resilient. Equally balanced across Europe and the US and with 50% of AUM in real asset investing. And a group that is uniquely positioned to capture the opportunities we see across the alternative landscape. Financial performance for shareholders remains compelling. Our earnings are growing materially while becoming increasingly FRE-centric with greater cash generation, and our EBITDA margin continues to trend above 60%. We are building the platform we said we would build, growing in line with a clear strategy, and doing so while preserving the high-performing and entrepreneurial culture that has underpinned our success from the beginning. Our middle-market positioning and focus on alpha-driven investing continues to differentiate us. And across every one of our asset classes, we now have category-killing products, each benefiting from powerful structural tailwinds, whether the surge in demand for power and AI infrastructure, long-term demographic change, or the growth in the fastest-moving parts of the European economy. And in a market where liquidity remains a key focus for LPs, that combination of strong value-added returns and cash back is proving highly valuable. The largest institutional investors in the world recognize this and continue to invest in our almost exclusively closed-end funds in increasing numbers. And that concludes this morning's presentation. Thank you very much for watching.