2023-08-01 15:25:25 ET
Tetragon Financial Group (TGONF)
2023 Half Year Earnings Conference Call
August 01, 2023 10:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Paddy Dear – Co-Founder
Paul Gannon – Chief Financial Officer
Steve Prince – Chief Executive Officer, TFG Asset Management
Conference Call Participants
Presentation
Operator
Good afternoon and thank you for joining Tetragon's 2023 Half Year Investor Call. You are all in listen-only mode. The call will be accompanied by a live presentation, which can be viewed online by registering at the link provided in the company's conference call press release. This press release can be found on the homepage of the company's website, www.tetragoninv.com. In addition, questions can be submitted online while watching the presentation. As a reminder, the call is being recorded.
I will now turn you over to Paddy Dear to commence the presentation.
Paddy Dear
As one of the Principals and Founders of the Investment Manager of Tetragon Financial Group, I'd like to welcome you to our investor call, which will focus on the company's 2023 half year results. Paul Gannon, our CFO, will review the company's financial performance for the period. Steve Prince and I will walk through some of the detail of the portfolio and performance and Steve will spend some time discussing the outlook. As usual, we'll conclude with questions those taken electronically by our web-based system at the end of the presentation as well as those received since the last update. The PDF of the slides are now available to download on our website. And if you're on the webcast, you can get them directly from the webcast portal.
Before I go into the presentation, just a few reminders. First, Tetragon shares are subject to restrictions on ownership by U.S. persons and are not intended for European retail investors. And these are both described in more detail on our website. Tetragon anticipates that its typical investors will be institutional and professional investors, who wish to invest for the long-term in a capital appreciation and income-producing investment. These investors should have experience in investing in financial markets and collective investment undertakings and be capable themselves of evaluating the merits and risks of Tetragon shares, and they should have sufficient resources both to invest in potentially illiquid securities and to be able to bear any losses, which may equal the whole amount invested that may result from the investment.
I'd like to remind everyone that the following may contain forward-looking comments, including statements regarding the intentions, beliefs or current expectations concerning performance and financial condition on the products and markets in which Tetragon invests. Our performance may change materially as a result of various possible events or factors.
So with that, let me pass over to Paul.
Paul Gannon
Thanks, Paddy. Tetragon focuses on three key metrics when assessing how value is being created for and delivered to Tetragon's shareholders. We look at how value is being created via NAV per share total return, we also look at investment returns measured as a return on equity, and we monitor how value is being returned to shareholders through distributions mainly in the form of dividends. Fully diluted NAV per share was $29.97 as of 30th of June 2023. After adjusting for dividends reinvested at the NAV, the NAV per share total return for the first half of the year was plus 1.7%. Since IPO in 2007, Tetragon has now achieved an annualized NAV per share total return of plus 10.5%. For monitoring investment returns, we use an ROE [Technical Difficulty] first half of 2023 net of all fees and expenses. The average ROE achieved since IPO is now 11.4%, which is within the target range of 10% to 15%.
Moving on to the last key metric, dividends. Tetragon declared a dividend of $0.11 for the second quarter, which represents a dividend of $0.22 for the half year. Based on the June month end share price of $9.86, the last four quarters dividend represents a yield of approximately 4.5%. Now onto the NAV bridge. This breaks down into its component parts, the change in Tetragon's fully diluted NAV per share, which went from $29.69 at the end of 2022 to $29.97 share per share at 30th of June. Investment income increased NAV per share by $0.88. Operating expenses, management and incentive fees reduced NAV per share by $0.26 with a further $0.13 per share reduction due to interest expense incurred on the revolving credit facility.
On the capital side, gross dividends reduced NAV per share by $0.22. There was a net dilution of $0.47 per share, which is labeled as other share dilution. This bucket primarily reflects the impact of dilution from stock dividends plus the additional recognition of equity-based compensation shares. And this was offset by share repurchases, which were accretive to NAV per share by $0.48.
I'll now hand back over to Paddy.
Paddy Dear
Thanks, Paul. As on previous calls, just before we delve into the details of our performance for the first half, I'd like to put the company's performance in the context of the long-term. And the context for the long-term is that Tetragon began trading in 2005 and became a public company in April 2007. So the fund has 18 years of trading history. What this chart shows is the NAV per share total return, which is the thick green line, and the share price total return, which is the dash green line. The chart also includes equity indices. It has the MSCI ACWI, and it has the FTSE All-Share. And lastly, it has the Tetragon hurdle rate, which historically has been LIBOR plus 2.65% and a point of note this moves to SOFR plus 2.75% as of the 1st of July this year.
Now, as you can see in this graph, over that time or over the time that Tetragon has been trading as a publicly-listed company, our NAV per share total return is 406%. And we believe this demonstrates our ability to compound investment growth and return value to shareholders. We believe our somewhat idiosyncratic structure of a listed fund owning a diversified alternative asset management platform, have helped us to create an alpha driven ecosystem of ideas, expertise, insights and connections.
In stress market conditions, like we had in 2002, this could mean that the value is being delivered through the preservation of capital, which we believe is essential for delivering value-based on long-term compounding. In 2023, at least in the first half, we've made a small positive return, but admittedly that's somewhat below our long-term target and also below a lot of the equity market indices. Some of the reason for this is that there has been a very narrow universe of growth in – or sorry, a very narrow universe of growth equity stocks and that have really driven this year's performance in most indices. And I think our diversification and our low correlation relies on broader themes to play out over time. I don't put this forward as an excuse merely as an observation.
So moving on and continuing the theme of looking at the long-term. Here are some more performance metrics. Our return on equity or investment return target, as Paul mentioned, is 10% to 15% over the cycle. The average return since IPO is 11.4%. I would just point out that the last figure on this table shows that 37.5% of the public shares are owned by principles of the Investment Manager and employees of TFG Asset Management. And we believe this is very important metric as it demonstrates a strong belief in what we do as well as a strong alignment of interest between the Manager, TFG Asset Management employees, and Tetragon shareholders.
This next slide shows the composition of Tetragon's assets. And what it does is look at the breakdown of the $2.8 billion of NAVs. So the color disks shows the percentage breakdown of our asset classes and strategies as of the end of last year, and that's on the left, and then compares them with where we are today or as at the end of the first half of 2023. You can see that there are some very small changes. Private equity and venture capital are now 14%, and that's up from 13%, that's mainly driven by mainly new – mainly valuations, but a couple of new investments. And the other segment to increase is equities or other equities and credit. And these are up 7% from 6%, and that is driven mainly by positive performance in the first half of the year. All the other asset classes are broadly the same or down small amounts in percentage terms, basically on a pro-rata basis with the two increases that I've just mentioned.
So now let's move on to discuss this year's performance in more detail. The NAV bridge that Paul showed was a high level overview of the NAV per share. What this table does is it shows a breakdown of the composition of that NAV at the end of June 2023 and takes it as a comparison with the year-end of 2022 and it does so by the different asset classes at the high level and shows the factors that contribute to the change in NAV. Thus, this table shows investment performance plus capital flows and thus tying back to the change in NAV. As you can see from the bottom row of the table, the aggregate investment performance labeled gains and losses generated a gross profit for the period of $83.3 million. Specifically, TFG Asset Management, which is our private equity holdings in asset management companies, had gains of $30.2 million and was the strongest performing asset class. And these asset management businesses continue to perform well with aggregate AUM increasing to approximately $42 billion from $37 billion a year ago.
Second, group event-driven equities, convertibles, and other hedge fund strategies is loss $8.3 million, bank loans, which are in our investments in CLOs generated well a small gain of $0.5 million, as flat as you can see. Real estate had a loss of – small loss there of $3.2 million. Private equity and venture capital, as I previously mentioned, had a gain of $31.9 million. Legal assets, a small gain of $1.7 million and other equities and credit, gain of $29 million. So what we're going to do now is move down into more detail on each category. And to do that, we'll start at the top going back to TFG Asset management.
And with that I'm going to pass over to Steve.
Steve Prince
Thanks, Paddy. I would now like to move on to the performance of our asset managers during this first half of the year. Our private equity investments and asset manager – management companies through TFG Asset Management recorded an investment gain of $30.2 million during the first half of 2023. It was mostly driven by our investment in Equitix, which is most of you know, is our integrated core infrastructure asset management and primary project platform. During the first half of 2023, Equitix made a gain of $53.2 million due to four factors: one, a higher valuation as the business continued to deliver against its business plan; two, a reduction in its net debt due to positive cash generation; three, Tetragon's dividend income of $9.1 million; and four, a strengthening of the British pound, which gained 5% against the U.S. dollar during the first half of the year.
During the first half, Equitix continued to grow its AUM, which increased from £10 billion pounds to £10.4 billion. Finally, Equitix started raising capital for Fund VII after closing Fund VI at £1.5 billion in AUM. It also raised some capital into managed accounts during the period. The investment in BentallGreenOak, a real estate focused principal investing, lending and advisory firm, had a small loss of $2.4 million. This was primarily due to a reduction in carried interest estimates for certain existing funds. BentallGreenOak's operating income continued to rise versus its 2022 results and is currently in line with its business plan.
During the first half of 2023, distributions to Tetragon from BentallGreenOak totaled $8.7 million, which reflected a combination of fixed quarterly contractual payments, variable payments, and some carried interest. Tetragon's investment in LCM made a loss of $8.5 million in the first half as market multiples decreased and discount rates increased. In addition, AUM of LCM decreased by 5% as LCM has not issued any new CLOs so far this year due to current market conditions. TFG Asset Management's other asset managers produced a collective loss of $12.1 million during the first half of the year due to a combination of a reduction in the fair value of some of these managers as well as working capital support provided to the newer businesses.
This category includes Polygon, a manager of open-ended hedge fund and private equity vehicles focused on event-driven equity investing; Acasta partners, a manager of open-ended hedge fund and managed account vehicles, employing a multi-disciplinary approach; Tetragon Credit Partners, a structured credit investing business focused on primary CLO control equity as well as a broader series of offerings across the CLO capital structure; Hawke’s Point, an asset management business that provides strategic capital to companies in the mining and resource sectors; Banyan Square Partners, a private equity firm focused on non-control structured and common equity investment opportunities; and finally Contingency Capital, a global asset management business focused on credit-oriented legal assets investments.
I am going to now turn it back over to Paddy to go over our hedge fund investments.
Paddy Dear
Thanks, Steve. Tetragon invests in event-driven equities, convertible bonds, credits and other strategies through hedge funds. The majority of these investments are through funds managed by Polygon and Acasta Partners, both of which are part of TFG Asset Management. So as you can see here, our investment in the Polygon European event-driven strategies recorded a loss of $14.3 million for the European event-driven investments. And we actually increased by $20 million our investments in that strategy over the period. The Polygon Global Equities strategy had a small loss of $1.3 million, but the position remains relatively small at only $4.4 million. And investments in Acasta Partners funds generated a gain of $8.9 million in the first half, and we actually reduced holding by $10 million during the first quarter. And investment in funds managed by third party managers at a negative $1.6 million during the first half of the year. And again, Tetragon actually reduced its holdings in these by about $6.5 million during the period.
So let's move on to bank loans. Tetragon predominantly invests in bank loans through CLOs. What we do is take majority positions in the equity tranches. Tetragon CLO portfolio recorded a very small gain during the first half of 2023. Tetragon's investments are split as shown here between LCM deals, non-LCM deals, and funds managed by Tetragon Credit Partners. We continue to view CLOs as attractive vehicles for obtaining long-term exposure to the leveraged loan asset class. So as you can see here in aggregate, the bank loan exposure recorded a gain of $0.5 million for the first half of 2023, so essentially flat.
Our performance was driven on the upside by some high yielding reinvestment opportunities, so reinvestment spreads widened. Risk-free rates have increased. The rising rates should flow through the system. So they may increase and hopefully do increase the cash flow generation ability of CLO equity. The first half has generally had a relatively benign level of loan losses for the year. But on the negative side, there has been some deterioration in some older loans and some lower recoveries where defaults have occurred.
Specifically on the LCM CLOs, those directly owned LCM CLOs gained $6.3 million, investments generated $18 million of cash proceeds and as at the end of the period, the total fair value was $148 million. I should note that at the end of the first half, all the LCM CLO transactions were compliant with their junior-most O/C overcollateralization tests. The next group of the investments in vehicles managed by Tetragon Credit Partners, and these are funds TCI II, TCI III, and TCI IV. So at the end of the first half, Tetragon's commitment to TCI II was $70 million, and that's fully funded. Its commitment to TCI III was $85.9 million, and that again, is fully funded. And its commitment to TCI IV was $25.6 million, of which approximately 75% has been funded. So TCI II and III are both fully invested and TCI IV still is in its initial investment period. And the total fair value of this segment in aggregate is $120.8 million.
In the first half, Tetragon's investments in funds managed by TCP generated $12.8 million in cash distributions and had a net loss over the period of $4.6 million. I would note also that in the first half, TCI IV purchased stakes in mezzanine debt tranches of three U.S. CLOs and also note that CLOs held by TCI II, III and IV were compliant with their junior-most O/C tests at the end of the first half. And lastly, the non-LCM managed CLO segment. This segment saw a loss of $1.2 million for the first half and it generated $1.5 million in cash distributions. Tetragon didn't add any non-LCM managed CLO investments over the first half, and at the end of the period, the fair value of this segment stands at $9 million. And also to note that all those non-LCM CLOs, again, were compliant with their junior-most O/C tests at the end of the period.
So moving from loans to real estate, Tetragon holds most of its investments in real estate through the BentallGreenOak managed funds and co-investment vehicles. The majority of these are private equity-style funds that concentrate on opportunistic investments targeting middle market opportunities in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, and there where BentallGreenOak believes it can increase value and produce positive unlevered returns by sourcing off-market opportunities where it sees pricing discounts or market inefficiencies.
Collectively, this segment had a loss of $3.2 million during the first half of 2023. And primarily this was due to losses in the U.S.-focused investments. So the U.S. funds and co-investments actually lost $4.3 million, and that’s across three funds and three co-investments and mainly exposure. The losses were mainly driven by exposure to hotels and residential.
In the U.S., we have U.S. focused funds and co-investments, and in aggregate they had a gain of $1.1 million. Tetragon invested here in three different funds across Japan, which is predominantly Tokyo and Pan-Asia, which is predominantly South Korea. In Europe, the funds and the co-investments were flat in the first half.
And lastly, we have this section, which is other real estate, and this is our farmland investments in Paraguay, managed by a specialist third-party manager and for the period, the investment generates a loss of an $0.2 million over that period.
So with that, let me now hand you back, Steve.
Steve Prince
Thanks, Paddy. Tetragon’s private equity and venture capital investments was the largest driver of performance during the first half of the year. It generated gains of $31.9 million. Investments in this category are split into the following subcategories. First, investments managed by Hawke’s Point. Second, investments managed by Banyan Square Partners. Third, other funds in co-investments where Tetragon invests in a non-affiliated fund as a limited partner or in a special purpose vehicle as a co-investor. And last, direct, which comprises direct private equity investments on the balance sheet. Those include venture capital investments.
Tetragon’s Mining finance investments managed by Hawke’s Point generated a gain of $14 million during 2023, which was driven by operational progress at one of its Australian gold project investments and positive exploration results in corporate developments. And another Australian investment. Tetragon invested in additional $6.5 million into Hawke’s Point funds during the period. Most Banyan Square’s portfolio companies achieved solid operating results despite macro headwinds.
However, the portfolio’s growth was partially offset by the continued contraction in multiples. So that resulted in a net gain during the period of $3.8 million. There are 13 positions in the fund, including positions focused on cybersecurity and application software. Our investments in externally managed private equity funds and co-investment vehicles in Europe and North America made gains of $3.4 million during the period. These investments are spread across 32 different positions.
And finally, the direct category produced gains of $11 million during the period, which is mostly related to positive performance in the investment in Ripple Labs. It is also worth mentioning that post the Q2 2023 valuation date in July 2023, a judge ruled that a U.S. judge ruled that Ripple Labs did not violate federal securities law by selling its XRP token on public exchanges. We believe this is positive news for the company.
Moving on to legal assets. Tetragon makes these investments through vehicles managed by Contingency Capital. Tetragon has committed capital of $60 million, $19.7 million of which has been called to date, including $2.5 million during the first half of the year. A gain of $1.7 million was generated from this investment during the period. The performance of the Contingency Capital fund’s portfolio continues to be above the underwritten projections and performance targets, and remains uncorrelated to the public equity and debt markets.
On to the other equities and credit bucket, as well as the discussion of cash. Our balance sheet investments in the other equities in credit category reflect single strategy ideas and produced a gain of $29 million during the period all from equities investments. Performance was driven by several positions, including two larger technology holdings that drew down in 2022, but have benefited from 2023’s more supportive growth equity environment.
Further gains were driven by a tactical trade in a temporarily-dislocated U.S. regional bank and appreciation in a UK biotech company due to positive Phase 2 trial data for an oncology therapy. The other credit bucket had flat performance during the first half of the year, and that bucket currently comprises only one position.
In cash, Tetragon’s cash at the bank balance was $31.5 million as of June 30. After adjusting for known accruals and liabilities, both short and long-dated, Tetragon’s net cash balance was minus $262.3 million. Tetragon has access to a credit facility of $400 million with a maturity date in July 2032. As of the 30th of June, 2023, $300 million of this facility was drawn, and this liability has been incorporated into the net cash balance calculation.
The company actively manages its cash levels to cover future commitments and to enable it to capitalize on opportunistic investments and new business opportunities. During the first half of 2023, Tetragon used $142.2 million of cash to make investments, $25.1 million to repurchase its shares and $10.3 million to pay dividends. $119.4 million of cash was received as distributions and proceeds from the sale of investments.
Future cash commitments are $113.5 million, and those comprise investment commitments to BentallGreenOak of $30.2 million, private equity funds of $33 million, Tetragon Credit Partners funds of $6.5 million and Contingency Capital of $40.3 million and to Contingency Capital’s working capital loan of $3.5 million.
Finally, I want to go through our future investment expectations. We expect our event-driven equity and convertible exposure to remain stable. We expect to continue to invest in CLOs via various Tetragon Credit Partners funds, but we also expect to continue to receive cash back from some of their initial funds.
As mentioned previously, we have commitments to BentallGreenOak funds, but our existing investments continue to distribute capital. So we expect our total real estate investments to be relatively stable over the next year. We do have some private equity allocations and commitments that we think are going to keep growing and we expect our Banyan Square allocation will continue to grow.
And legal assets, again, as mentioned in the cash section, Tetragon will continue funding its commitment to Contingency Capital vehicles. In the other equities and credit bucket, we expect to continue to invest in these opportunities, but the timing of those investments is less certain.
Lastly, we’re hopeful that there will be additional allocations that we’ll make to new asset classes. And while we continue to look at new businesses to buy or build, there’s nothing we’re considering imminently.
Finally, I just want to remind people beginning on the 1st of July, 2023, the hurdle rate has been amended to equal three-month term SOFR plus approximately 2.75% per annum.
And now I’m going to hand it back to Paddy.
Question-and-Answer Session
A - Paddy Dear
Well, I’m afraid, I don’t personally think there is a simple answer. But I think to tackle the question, we need to start with the reasons that Tetragon trades at a discount to NAV. And of course there’s no guarantee that any of these are the reasons, but I thought it worth looking at some of the reasons not exclusively that we have been given by shareholders – potential shareholders and brokers. So these – this is not meant to be an exclusive or exhaustive list, but it is – it’s what we think are the things to focus on. One is the complexity of what we do and that leads into a lot of investors want to allocate to a pure play because they see themselves as the asset allocator and therefore our complexity and our diversification is not what they’re looking for.
Thirdly, that complexity reads to us not being for retail. And as I think most of you know, that excludes much of actually the active buyers of UK closed-end funds. The retail and wealth management sector has become increasingly important and large part of the buyers for closed-end fund universe in the UK. It also means, therefore that we’re not on platforms. So for some people it’s difficult to buy.
Some people have noted our structure in particular non-voting shares, the fee structure, the layout of the high watermark having an external manager. We do own illiquid investments. And some of these obviously are hard to value. And I think for a lot of investors, they don’t have necessarily the ability to go through and value those. We have a few assets that certainly at any point in time, we tend to have assets that some people don’t like. Maybe they’re too esoteric things like Crypto currencies or CLOs, legal assets at any point in time, as I say, we’re going to own things or likely to own things that some people don’t like or agree with. Some people perceive that we have an overhang of U.S. funds on the share register. I’m not sure how true that is, but that been commented on. And some people just say the discount is there because it always has been.
So I think those are sort of some of the things to bear in mind. And I think the reason it’s worth repeating them and mentioning them is that there isn’t obviously in our view a silver bullet that solves all of those at any one time. But the question is what can be done? And I guess at the risk of sounding not meaning to sound trite, but I think the conclusion is one has to find more buyers than sellers and that is the same for any company, for any public security. And so how do we set about doing that? Well, we believe here that the absolute first rule is performance and compounding over the over the long term is what we set out to do and is the bedrock of what we do.
I think as most people are aware collectively internal principles and employees own about 38% of the shares. So we certainly eat our own cooking and we want the performance for all of our shareholders, including the 38% that are internal. I think it’s imperative that we explain why we do what we do as well as what we do and how we invest. I think a lot of people see us as a very complex instrument and we inevitably and always trying to simplify. But at the same time explain why we’re doing, which gives people sort of some comfort in what we’re trying to achieve. Also we believe that creating that why in some of our processes, hopefully builds repeatable processes and hopefully repeatable outcomes and therefore makes it easier or better to perform and certainly that’s the objective.
So in terms of the outreach, we obviously have these calls. We have our monthly, we have the annual, we use our brokers, JPMorgan and Jefferies to get out and talk to investors and potential investors. We use Edison and we’re always looking to improve the quality of that reporting and explanation. And of course, I think dividends and buybacks are relevant. But they’re not certainly the only thing that matters. And I apologize if that’s a long answer. And I’m sorry if it doesn’t give a single answer to the solving the problem, but I don’t think there is one, and we’re continuing trying to achieve all of those things on that focus list.
A second question here. Can you please provide more information regarding historical track record and the contribution to performance of the other equities and credit bucket? And would it be possible to be more transparent going forward regarding this book without giving up proprietary information?
So this is about the segment of the portfolio that’s pretty opportunistic. I think Steve gave a quite a good breakdown of the $29 million or so of profits made in the first half. But just to reiterate briefly that was driven by some tech names a one-off opportunistic trade in a U.S. bank during the funding crisis and a positive investment in one of our life sciences biotech names. We don’t tend to give single name exposure. We’re trying to give as much transparency as we can without actually naming the stocks, but would happily discuss offline if there are any suggestions as to how we could report differently. But just to reiterate the current exposure is predominantly in tech, biotech, and life sciences.
In terms of historic performance, I mean, yes, we do have that. We produce those numbers quarterly for that segment. So there’s full transparency on those returns. However, I would caution, but the way we think about it is those positions the size really in respect of the total $3 billion of portfolio of the NAV. And as a consequence, we don’t view it. And I recommend that you don’t see it as a portfolio in its own right. I mean, it might at its most extreme, it might be a single position. And that position may be sized to the $3 billion of NAV rather than the size of that bucket of the portfolio.
Next question. What is the rationale behind not raising the dividend? The risk-free rate has risen dramatically since you cut the dividend from $0.1875 [ph] per quarter.
Well, I think the – my first answer here is that we believe the dividend should be related to the NAV with a view to the share price, but not the risk-free rate. So we actually disagree with the premise in the question. And secondly, looking towards that as a focus, actually our NAV per sure has not risen dramatically in the first half, sadly, it’s only risen a small amount, and hence why we wouldn’t be expecting to see a rise in the dividend.
But also as I’ve said on previous calls, we believe that dividends and share buybacks should be considered together, given that both of them are returns of capital to investors. And with the current discount, I guess that being just over 60% we would probably have a preference of buybacks over dividend increases, not that we’re doing either at the moment, but equally with the $300 million of net borrowings, as Steve just mentioned, we feel a little constrained on cash.
Next question here is on our investment in Ripple. It says, can you comment on how the SEC Ripple decision impacts the company’s investments and valuation? And can you describe how you are able to structure your Ripple investment to generate a superior return? So just to reiterate what Steve was saying earlier and I’m going to oversimplify, so if you do want to know exactly what the judge ruled, you should go to what the judge said, not what I say. But my summary is that the judge ruled that XRP as a digital token is not of itself a security. And the – and therefore the sales of XRP on exchanges are not securities. The sales of XRP by their executives are not securities. However, the judge did rule that certain institutional sales made directly to institutional buyers in the U.S. did constitute securities.
So I think, in general, our assessment is a very positive outcome for XRP and therefore for Ripple. And indeed the exchanges have re-listed XRP in general. But we wait to see if the SEC appeal the decision. The factual evidence to date is that XRP, the currency has traded up from about $0.30 pre-announcement to $0.70 give or take post announcement. So that obviously is very healthy for the underlying XRP currency. But as far as what we own is concerned, we own the Series A and Series B in Ripple Labs, which is a private company. And so as to the question about valuation, well, the valuation will be done using the normal independent process in Q3 in the usual way. So I can’t make any comments about valuation.
And on the second part of the question I will try and be very brief because we’ve been a shareholder in Ripple for many years now. But we originally bought into Series A and Series B shares in Ripple. We then led the Series C for Ripple and at that point sold out of our Series A and B shares. The company then bought back the Series C from us. So obviously that had been a privately negotiated transaction. And then we have used some of those proceeds to buy back into the A’s and B’s, which is where we are now. So that hopefully gives you some idea of the summary of where we’ve been.
That I think ends the questions. So I’m going to leave it there. But thank you very much indeed for joining us and enjoy the rest of the summer. Thank you.
Operator
This now concludes our conference. Thank you all for attending. You may now disconnect.
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Tetragon Financial Group (TGONF) 2023 Half Year Earnings Call Transcript