Yield, Shield, and Scale: Inside the Ares Management Playbook (With Blair Jacobson, Co-President)

Just to frame it for you, we have 700 people in Europe. We manage over $120 billion. And if you look at where the United States is, our market has penetrated 90-95%. If you look at where we are in Europe, we're probably 60-65%, it does vary obviously by country.

We just raised in Europe a 30 billion euro fund. That's how much total capital we have. We're relevant to all different sized businesses.

When you look at the state of the UK and education, that is one of the principal assets despite the politics, despite the economics. It's very well situated. It has a long-standing democracy, long-standing functioning economy. Will it draw and continue to draw the best minds in the world to study here and produce? Absolutely.

Thanks Simon. Great to be here.

Absolutely. The origins of my family, actually, we immigrated from Eastern Europe to the United States. My father's side in the late 1800s, my mother's side early 1900s. Interestingly, my father was from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and he knew somebody named Blair Jacobson, if you can believe it. And I think that's where my name came from.

Sure. Actually, I can even rewind a bit further on the education side. Williams College is a liberal arts school and I firmly believe in the value of education. I believe it expands your brain and for example, I double majored in political science and economics, but I minored in art history. So, I really had a wholesome education. I think that prepared me for what lay ahead. I was always interested in finance, grew up sort of firmly middle class. Knew that if I needed things, I had to be entrepreneurial and do things myself. And that got me interested in the banking world. So I started life at Kidder Peabody, which at the time was a great name, a storied firm founded centuries ago, financed the railroads in the US. That's really where I learned about finance and mergers and acquisitions in the first instance. That then inspired me to go to Chicago Booth for my MBA as you cited. I said if I like this I really need to learn it for real from the place where it was invented. Then got a job at Lehman Brothers. Was there early on before things went too awry but I got into the private equity and credit business in 2001 at Citibank. And it was a great learning ground for me. I was there for 10 years, 5 years in the US, then I moved to London 20 years ago in 2005 to continue with them.

So this is really interesting because going back more than 20 years, this was Ares' first and flagship private credit direct lending offer which as you say is a listed company in the United States where there are roughly 600 underlying middle market loans that have been originated and managed by Ares. So essentially the listed vehicle hires Ares to be its investment manager. So one thing the US did from a regulatory perspective is to encourage this type of investment. They said if you meet the generous criteria you mentioned, one which is distributing over 90% of your income to shareholders, you have to do a couple of other things in terms of what you invest in. The US government says that that income will not be double taxed. It will not be taxed at a corporate level and an individual level. So there's some advantages there. So that's really how we started in the US direct lending business 20-25 years ago when that industry was fairly nascent. So essentially it's a public company. It's bought by investors for its yield. Obviously its NAV might move around but the primary return is that again it has to distribute its yield and it currently yields between 9 and 10%. It's been very very consistent over decades and is now the single largest listed BDC in the market. Now contrast that to Ares Management that is also a listed company that we can talk about that sits up top that is the investment manager that sits on top of what you said in the beginning the 600 billion of assets that we manage on behalf of our clients. Roughly 60-70% of that is in credit. We also have over 100 billion in real assets in real estate. We have private equity. We have secondaries. We do many different things but Ares the listed business is really the fee stream collector that is the general partner of our funds and that is much more of a growth vehicle where the shareholders of Ares Management benefit from the growth of our fee streams and the cash generated by the business.

Yeah, I think that there's some truth in that. Again, growing up in the United States, dividend funds used to be utilities and the like. However, their dividend yields might be in the mid, maybe mid slightly upper mid level single digits whereas the BDC universe is firmly in the high single digits and that's created a really attractive offering in particular for individuals. So today when we talk more about the democratization of what we do, our products and services available to a broader group whether that's high net worth etc., our view is we've had retail investors in Ares for over 20 years. This is not new. It's developing. It's broadening. But as you say, the interest in yield and especially when you compare that to long-term averages, say for stock market appreciation also high single digits, low double digits, the yield on our BDC has been very very attractive over time.

So, we listed around 11 years ago. At the time, our firm managed about $75 billion. And it wasn't a decision we took lightly. However, when we thought about where we were as a company and where we wanted to go, we did see several advantages to being listed. First and foremost, what we were able to do was distribute ownership in our company. This was really critical because as we were getting bigger, we can talk about culture, but we wanted everyone not only to care about their individual business unit, maybe the funds that they manage, but we also wanted them to think more broadly about the firm and what was good for the company to reinforce collaboration. So that was the first point. The second point was from a branding perspective and you named some of our peers. For whatever reason, historically, private equity firms enjoyed probably more brand recognition, more newspaper coverage than a firm like ours. So, we did view, we thought we owned the credit universe. We viewed becoming listed as a way to improve our brand awareness. And third, we're quite growth-minded and growth oriented. So, we viewed being listed as a way not only to create capital to enter into new businesses. And when you look at where Ares is today versus when we were listed, when we were listed, we had credit, some private equity, and real estate. Well, now we've got all of that, but they've grown significantly, in particular, real estate. We've got secondaries, we do all these other things. We've expanded geographically, but we've also been able to grow inorganically since we listed. Now that we have this public currency, we've made something like 15 different strategic acquisitions for our firm to help us grow, expand, and diversify.

So, the way I would frame that is we're always thinking about how we can do the best for our investors, those who entrust us with capital. Again, that's pension plans, corporate pension plans, public pension plans. It's people's retirement savings, for example. It's insurance companies. It's sovereign wealth and what we're not trying to do is be a financial supermarket. We're not trying to be everything to everybody. We've seen some of the peers in our space try that with I would say limited success or even detriment. So, we're staying focused. That being said, we're always looking for new exciting places to be involved for our investors. And I can name a few which are interesting. We've recently gotten into through acquisition the data center development business. We're very big believers in digital. We've been investing in digital for 10-15 years. But what we didn't have was data center development capabilities, a team to find land, power, permitting, water, sign leases with hyperscalers. So that is new for Ares, not the team we brought on board. Secondly, we just announced that we completed the acquisition of a scientific fixed income manager. When you think about the impact of data, you think about the impact of AI on the investing space. In particular, the more liquid investing space, loans, bonds, investment grade, adding real rigor and analytics to how that's done has been a very interesting place to be. So we've now brought those capabilities inside but again it's more of an evolution from where we've been rather than a revolution.

So it is changing. As I mentioned earlier, I've lived in the UK for over 20 years. So, I've seen the development. Ares as well has been international with our headquarters here in the UK since 2006-2007. And just to frame it for you, we have 700 people in Europe. We manage over $120 billion. And we have, I would say, seven major offices, but well into the double digits when you count all of them. So we do have some real perspective on this in terms of breadth but also in terms of the development and I think one of the exciting things that we saw was that the US model for private capital could be successful in Europe that inspired us to enter Europe as I mentioned nearly 20 years ago. What changed everything was the GFC. The GFC not only shrunk the banking sector and think about where we are now in the UK. You had Irish banks, Icelandic banks landing here, they went bankrupt. You had HBOS consolidating to Lloyds. You had RBS gets subsumed by the government. You had Northern Rock go bankrupt. You had Continental European banks go home just like Barclays stopped lending in Germany. So the banking sector shrunk and we were a beneficiary of that trend because we came, we had capital. By the way, we hired a lot of former bankers on staff who knew these companies and knew the owners of these businesses. And then after that, we saw regulation really discourage banks from making these types of loans. So, what have we seen? We've seen the market share of the banking sector lend to frankly very very healthy middle-sized businesses decline over time. Whereas the market share for firms like ours, institutional firms again investing on behalf of insurance and pension sovereign wealth largely for yield grow significantly. And if you look at where the United States is, our market has penetrated 90-95%, if you look at where we are in Europe, we're probably 60-65%, it does vary obviously by country, but we think there's a lot left to go. So again, we are seeing the march of private capital alternatives be successful in Europe.

Yeah, it's a good question and I think there are two sort of diverging views on this. One is always asked, why does Europe not have a Silicon Valley? Does that say something about risk and culture? On the other hand, what I point to is a lot of people think private equity started in the US with Kravis, but actually if you look at post-war reinvestment in the UK, that's when 3i started in 1945. So, it actually has a very very long-standing history here as well. So, I think what we've seen again is a very strong acceptance. It took time by the way. When we rocked up with Ares business cards, nobody knew what we were in 2006, 2007, but now everybody will speak to us, which is great, and that's on the borrower side, but also in terms of groups that entrust capital to Ares, Europe is a major market for us as a firm. Again, we have 120 billion of assets under management here. So, we've seen increased adoption there. So, I think that that is only improving. So overall in terms of risk appetite will it ever be exactly like the US that's a question mark but certainly it's been very strong.

Yeah. So, I would say for us, one thing that we figured out early was we had to be local. So, again, we've been in London for almost 20 years, but shortly thereafter, in 2009, we opened up offices in Paris, Frankfurt, Stockholm. We hired local people. They speak the language. They understand the culture. They understand the legal systems that we operate in. We added Amsterdam and Madrid. We've now added Milan. So, we're really pan-European. So, I think the first blockage to unlock is you just have to be there. You have to have local people again who know the companies, know the owners of these businesses. And then the second thing again, we do have a filter. And remember, our goal in life is capital preservation. It's don't lose money. We're largely fixed income investors. So I say that's the second thing as it relates to the screening process. But I think overall, this is well documented and well described. Europe does have some wood to chop as it relates to its financial system, whether it's securitizations, whether it's harmonizing, but at the same point, Europe's 27 countries. We've had Brexit here in the UK. By the way, the vote was about 10 years ago. Time's really flown. So I think that there are some inherent challenges to realizing some of that harmonization which also is why from a private perspective we can have people, we can have funds, we comply with all the regulations so we're actually able to effectively address a lot of those blockages.

So really good question. The short answer is yes. We love smaller and midsize businesses. Maybe not mom and pops that are a little bit less creditworthy, have a little bit less reason for being. But if you think about the middle market that is really what drives the economy. It is such a high percentage of number of companies, of economic activity. So it's a really fertile place to get involved. These businesses are growing. They're adding people. They're adding services. They're developing new plants. They're expanding in other European markets. However, the other thing to remember is that this is precisely the area where the banking system has challenges addressing because of some of these regulatory pronouncements that they now have to abide with. So, it's a mix of a large fertile market which is looking for capital like ours. And if you contrast that with the large markets, maybe capital markets issuers, the good news is we just raised in Europe a 30 billion euro fund. That's how much total capital we have. We're relevant to all different sized businesses, but in terms of what our investors hire us to do, they want risk return that looks better than what's available in liquid markets. So, if we can achieve that in times of market dislocation or stress with bigger companies, we'll absolutely do it. We've written billions of pounds of loans into single companies, but we do find the mid-market to be a growth engine and really be more wanting of capital like ours.

Sure. So going back to what I was mentioning earlier, sourcing what we call origination is really the most important thing we do. It's the front engine that drives our entire business. That's why we invest so much. So, for example, in Europe, we have about a hundred people in all of our offices talking to these 1,400 companies every year that you mentioned before. In the US, we probably have over 200 people doing that. And if you think about that size and scale and scope of team, it's probably bigger than many, if not most, banks. That's the first piece. The second piece is where do these people come from? Frankly, many of them come from banks. They're talking to similar clients, whether they're the companies, their advisers, their owners, their stakeholders that they've talked to for their whole careers. The big challenge again is convincing them and educating them about why talking to Ares is a good idea. And again, we've made so much progress on that in the last 20 years. But again, overall, finding these loans isn't the tough part. The tough part is what you mentioned earlier, which is screening them, making sure we're getting involved at the right companies with the right risk adjusted return potential in line with what we guided our investors to expect.

So I think you have to rewind quite a bit because we've been involved in this business for 10-15 years. It's a major effort for our firm. We're currently invested as you alluded to in something like 15 different sports leagues. We originally got into sports in a major way during COVID when ticket revenues basically disappeared. And these leagues and these teams which historically had been financed maybe by cheap bank financing or frankly wealthy people and owners started to think that maybe they should start looking for institutional solutions and we had been a part of this ecosystem for some time. So the first thing is that we developed relationships with many of the, and this is very relationship oriented business as you can expect and that's not three months, it's not three years, it can often be five or 10 years in importance. So the first thing is really understanding your counterparty, understanding the team. By the way, it's not all just teams. It's also investing in leagues. And it's not just leagues that you might be familiar with. It's women's volleyball. It's lacrosse. It's sailing. I mean, it's so diverse. It's youth leagues, for example. It's the whole ecosystem. It can be data analytics for sports. It can be ticketing for sports. It can be equipment. I mean, it's very diverse. But again when we evaluate team opportunities, another thing to mention is where are we in the capital structure. Go back to what we've been talking about quite a bit. Ares DNA is a credit DNA, it's our single largest business as we've also mentioned. So therefore from a downside perspective how we invested in sports teams is rarely as a pure equity owner.

Many of our investments, including some that you mentioned, are structured. Many of them come in the middle of the capital structure with a lot of equity subordination, equity value underneath our loans. So when we run our downside cases, yes, do we look at if maybe some of the funds dry up due to either relegation or changes in league position? Absolutely. And we want to make sure that we're aligned with the best teams, not, for example, a team that was recently promoted and might be relegated the next season. Some of the ones you mentioned have been in their respective leagues, at the top of their respective leagues, for decades if not longer. I would say in the team side, that's what we're focused on. So when in the case of Chelsea, it's a pref equity. You've got no security. You're taking a view on the likely cash flows and the growth of the franchise. And I guess it's a matter of public record what the coupon is on that prefer.

Yeah. Put it this way without getting too deep into confidential details. You know, where we are in the capital structure is different from where the equity holder is, the common equity holder is. And when we think about where our loan to value is based on the company, its revenue profile, not only tickets, a lot of the revenue of course comes from broadcasting revenue, comes from league, etc., in addition to just general merchandise sales and other branding opportunities, we feel very good about where we're sitting in the capital structure.

Yeah, I'm glad that you asked that question because when we say SME, it's sports media entertainment. Most people stop at the S because it's most visible and really interesting for people. But it is a broad and diversified strategy. And again, go back to what I was mentioning before, we value very, very stable and diversified revenue sources. So to pick another example that should hopefully resonate, we very much like the music royalty space.

Right? So, for example, again, if we can make a loan to a diversified catalog where you've got a lot of historical operating history and diversification, that's something that we really, really like doing. Again, probably more from a lending perspective perhaps than an equity perspective. But again, as we think about the broad swath of opportunities, everyone is consuming much more media more broadly. Sports, by the way, is the only thing people still pay for live. That's very important. But if you think about the amount of time that people spend on Spotify streaming music, etc., that's another massive grower. So I'd say that our music investing is a bit of a derivative of that trend.

Sure. I'd frame it in a couple ways. The first thing to mention is we are engaging in an infrastructure super cycle. The amount of capital that will be required not only to satisfy mundane needs, you know, fixing roads and bridges and airports and the like, but as we think about energy transition, I mentioned digital infrastructure a little bit earlier, as we think about the explosive growth there, all of that will require capital, debt, and equity. I think what we've seen in particular in a European context is that given the fiscal position of the governments around Europe and the UK, the government won't be able to fully satisfy that. So the need for private capital is very, very significant. So when we think about pricing infrastructure debt, a lot of it actually goes back to what I was mentioning in the SME context as well, which is to say if you're backing something with either a long-term contract or revenue visibility where your counterparties are very, very strong and creditworthy, that makes for a very, very good investment thesis. We see infrastructure debt pricing, you know, it's usually at a little bit of a discount to sort of equivalent corporate debt, but a lot of that is based on the quality of the infrastructure asset itself and again its revenue profile, its contracts which aren't always available in the corporate world. So in terms of risk-adjusted returns, we're seeing a lot of interest from our clients who again want that yield to focus on infrastructure. And what we're seeing more broadly is the typical context of private credit is corporates. Again, banks are doing a little bit less. It's more in the form of private equity firms are big consumers of leverage finance. They do a lot of business with us. But what we're seeing is our asset classes are growing dramatically outside of corporate. That's asset-backed. It is infrastructure. It's many of these other areas. It's real estate debt that are growing dramatically. So again, we see a big future in infrastructure debt.

Good question. So let's talk first about secondaries. As I think the audience will appreciate, the asset classes that we operate in are illiquid. We do get a premium for investing in illiquid assets. We also require our investors to agree to a 10, 12-year fund construct in general that is in itself illiquid. However, decades ago, it was discovered that you could have secondaries which in the original context meant the limited partner investors in the fund could seek to sell or exit their positions to a larger pool of secondary capital. It started with private equity then moved on to real estate and infrastructure but now we're starting to talk about credit secondaries and the high-level theme is that you think about the stock market turns over almost 100% every year whereas private investments 1, 2, 3, 4%. So again, there's some room to grow there. So let's talk now about continuation vehicles. I would say in private equity they're used for different reasons than what we see in the credit space. In private equity, if you're a manager, you say to yourself, I've owned this company for five, six, seven years. I've built a lot of value. But Warren Buffett doesn't have to sell his companies. He likes to hold them for a long time. Continue to benefit from that appreciation. So, if I'm the private equity manager, I have this relationship, this sort of vested interest. If I can orchestrate a way for my investors to get liquidity, if they want to, by the way, if they don't, they can roll into this new vehicle, I can continue to manage that company that I've invested so much time and effort into for a longer period of time. That's basically how the CV market works in private equity. Credit's a little bit different. Credit's only a few years old and the reason for that is this always tracks the development on a lag of the primary business and again as private credit has grown it was only natural that over time secondaries would start to play a bigger role in continuation vehicles.

What we've seen thus far in terms of continuation vehicles for credit is when investors say, I've been in a fund for eight or 10 years. I've gotten back maybe all of my invested capital. I'm really playing for a little bit more, but maybe I want liquidity sooner. You know, maybe I have other obligations I need to meet or maybe I want to reinvest capital in another area. So, I think on a credit side, it's been more of a liquidity management tool for investors. And again for us as the fund manager, we can continue to manage those exits until they realize. Now remember the big difference between private equity and credit is in equity you control your exit. You can hold something forever. Credit every underlying loan does have a maturity, you know, usually seven or eight years. So in credit those vehicles naturally will have to wind down over time whereas in equity they don't.

So I think from our perspective, we're very focused on the long term. That's what we tell our investors. You know, do we watch things day-to-day? Yes. But again we're much more focused on the long term. However, there has been a new cycle more recently concerning some significant bankruptcies in the United States. You know, are those related to private credit? Does it presage issues to come in the future? I think you mentioned Jamie Dimon earlier making some comments and that's a narrative that as a firm we've come out strongly against. We do view these credit events in the US as being a bit idiosyncratic. Both actually had fraud allegations attached to them and interestingly neither had major private credit investors. Actually the investors in these companies were the broadly syndicated loan markets and also bank balance sheets. So I think our perspective is, you know, these things will happen from time to time but they don't presage any major issues with private credit although I think the news is getting their minds around it and that impacts the public markets but in fact what we've come out and said recently in our earnings announcements is the quality of our underlying loan portfolios remains very strong and as an example in the United States that's 600 underlying companies it's a pretty good sample set and what we've seen is that profits are growing high single digits, low double digits. We're seeing loan to value in those companies is approaching 40%. That means that there's 60% equity subordination in these loans and further in terms of broader credit metrics those are also trending in a positive way as the companies are growing and also as you said rates are coming down a little bit. So actually from a fundamental perspective, we think things are in pretty good shape. Maybe it takes the market some time to get their mind around it. That's why we're always very happy to tell the story. I told this story as you said last week in the House of Lords. So we understand the concerns. We just don't think that they apply to our business.

So overall, again, we've offered our private credit vehicles to retail investors through our BDC for over 20 years. It's performed very well through some very difficult times by the way, through the GFC, Brexit, COVID, high inflation, high rates. So again, I think we've shown over time performance is good. Loss rates are like low single-digit basis points, incredibly low. That's now broadening out. It's broadening out first with high net worth investors. We think it's a good thing for them to get access to what institutions have primarily had access to before, but only in the right ways. These are investors who are very, very carefully qualified. They have to meet many standards and requirements. They also receive significant education through their financial advisors in the first instance. So I think it is a knowledgeable investor who comes into these types of products and hopefully we believe has been educated about the potential risks and understands those over time. The next wave which is being discussed is making it even broader, in particular in the United States, to 401k clients. I would say in some degree, can that effectively be a small portion of their portfolio? Similarly again, if they're educated, if they're qualified, if they understand what they're getting themselves into, both the risks and the opportunities, we think that's a good thing.

So, take a step back. You asked earlier about our screen and our filter. Again, what we're trying to do is lend to the absolute best companies that we can find. We define that in a couple ways. Number one, as I mentioned, they're growing high single digits, low double digits, very profitable, average margins 20, 25%. Importantly, they're in sectors and industries with good tailwinds, things like healthcare, business services, telecommunications, software, you know, really good businesses. And from that perspective, again, we've been with these companies for a very, very long time. We're not super worried about zombie companies. Again, these are companies that have professional owners that are also driving results. You know, one thing to mention as well is 80 or 90% of the businesses we back have professional ownership and the guys of private equity firms in particular who also have exit ambition. So I would say that that's not the biggest risk that would keep me up at night, but I appreciate David's question.

So again I would say paper cut at best. Going to what I had mentioned earlier in particular around the US, by the way, fraud's really hard to detect. You know I think it always happens once or twice in everybody's career. That's also why from a credit investing perspective, we have massively diversified portfolios. So if anything does happen, it doesn't impact the portfolio that much. But I should also go to some pains to mention that those businesses, now there are three that were indicated and again potential fraud still needs to be investigated. You know, all of those were entrepreneur companies. None of them were backed by private equity. I think most of our industry faces private equity who are very responsible owners of businesses, very low correlation with fraud. So I think from our perspective, paper cut at best.

Sure. I think once you clear the bar of basic knowledge about our industry, our company, and by the way, you need to do some research on a firm that you're interviewing with specifically, as well as basic financial competence and literacy. I think we're trying to understand things like what motivates you, what gets you out of bed in the morning. Second thing would be are you a well-rounded person? It's great to have people who work 24/7 but we do want people to have some balance. I mentioned earlier in my career, in my education, I value this quite a lot personally as well. I'd say the third thing is how much do you know about the world? I always ask people if they read a newspaper every day, by the way the answer is usually no. I've had two hard copy newspapers delivered to my home for more than 30 years. I feel very strongly that you can't operate in your own silo or vacuum. You really need to understand what's going on in the economic situation, different companies and politics etc. So I'd say those are sort of the extra ways that candidates can differentiate themselves.

Sure. So the answer to the first question, I've always valued education very, very highly. My mother was a teacher for 45 years. And you know, I've always believed that when I have something to give back, given my station, educating that next generation is critical. And I've also believed that universities can benefit from practitioners in addition to academics sharing. So what I usually do is I go, I was actually there last night lecturing as well. I usually teach in a private equity module. But what I tell the students is that if you do not understand the L in the LBO, you don't understand anything. And their eyes always light up like, wow, there's more than just the equity side. So again, bringing the benefits of my 30-year plus career to these students who are generally just starting to think about or embark on their careers, I think can be very, very powerful. And I get a lot out of it, too. They always ask very interesting questions that are quite well educated. Maybe they're getting them from ChatGPT. I'm not sure.

They definitely get it from you, Simon. So again, I get a lot out of it. I sort of see the gears churning in their brains. And it's something that I'm very, very committed to. And I think when you look at the state of the UK and education, that is one of the principal assets of this country. You actually mentioned at the very beginning the UK's situation and despite the politics, despite the economics, it's very well situated globally. It has a long-standing democracy, long-standing functioning economy but again the university system here is incredibly powerful and it would not be surprising in an international world where everything is fluid and people can move around that with additional funding, additional focus, will draw and continue to draw the best minds in the world to study here and produce.

It means it's a good time to invest.

Oh, wow. I'll give you a fiction book that I really liked. Hopefully everyone remembers the seminal movie Jaws that just celebrated its major anniversary. A UK writer contacted the Benchley family, who Guy wrote Jaws, and said, I would like to do the following. The most memorable character from everyone thinks it's Roy Scheider, but it was actually Robert Shaw's character Quint who was manning the boat. And he gives this seminal speech in the movie about being on the USS Indianapolis, the ship that went down in the Pacific delivering the atomic bomb in the '40s. And the crew were then basically devoured by sharks. So this writer wrote a book called Quint, a first-person autobiographical novel from his perspective and it is a fantastic read. Not only do you learn the background of this character, he takes you through what happened on the USS Indianapolis and I will tell you you will learn more about sharks than you ever cared to by reading this book. And that was a great fictional novel that I would highly recommend. It's called Quint. Q-U-I-N-T.

He's Ansel Adams quality photographer. We have a big debate in my family. Some of us are mountain people, some of us are beach people. I think I would actually err on the side of the beach in that regard. There's a little island 30 miles off the coast of Massachusetts called Nantucket where we often holiday and if I had one place to go, I think that would be it.

Great. Thank you so much, Simon. It was a great session.