Earnings Sentiment

Sentiment Analysis of the earnings transcript to help figure out if there are any bullish or bearish sentiments that could be gathered from it. We're doing ML and AI based analysis on the earnings call to get some more insights.

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Sentiment Distribution

   

Earnings Call Transcript Word Cloud

     

Bullish Statements during Earnings call

Statement
So that's the package that you get with an equity investment in Burford, and we're very pleased about where the business sits today
Winning cases is excellent and we obviously love it
But nonetheless, the numbers are quite attractive and this has led to consistently attractive performance, which is why we love this business so much
We see assets we can invest in, where we can help our counter-parties and it's a win-win
And then, of course, the other thing you are buying when you buy Burford stock is a business model that has been able to continually invest in new assets that we deem attractive and that we think have potential to generate returns
We've now got a very long and substantial track record in generating desirable returns from that portfolio, making it past -- making around $2.5 billion of cash recoveries
As to what the future holds for people, I am but a speculator, but I'll say that we've got a very strong asset recovery team
And, Trevor, you're correct that there's only one left now, but that case has been quite successful thus far, which is why you've seen accruals and increases in its fair value gain
You're adding to that the industry leading origination platform, which has shown itself capable of generating new business on a very regular and reliable basis
So in terms of performance, in terms of the portfolio's output and activity levels and again even looking at unrealized gains showing that things are moving, we're just very pleased with how things have been shaping up this year
We are also a very sizable asset manager, and we're delighted especially to see the performance of not only our funds in general, but of our BOF-C, our sovereign wealth fund arrangement, which, as I said earlier, has really started to throw off income for us
So we're really very pleased with how that's going and with the asset management contribution to the overall profitability of the business
And where we win, you see the returns are really quite attractive
Things are just really going very, very well from our perspective
I know that it's a long sales cycle, often it's years, but I know that there are enough of those out there to provide us with a continued runway of future growth
We have a net $21 million increase year-over-year in our carry plan, given the positive events from this year
Our asset management business continues to perform and we continue to reap the rewards of using the funds to augment our balance sheet efforts
If we turn the page, we turn to one particular asset that, of course, has the potential to generate considerable upside, actually outsized returns
So all-in-all very happy with where we sit nine months into 2023
And we think that that brings long-term growth to our shareholders and to the balance sheet and compounds on a continuous basis
And I think Burford is delighted with the position in the business, and we've now moved to the place where we probably weren't ten years ago, where I don't think that Burford as an institution is dependent on any single human being, whether that's Jon or me or anybody else in the business
We really both love what we're doing and really enjoy this business
And finally, then you've got the YPF assets, which Jon touched on and which have the potential in the future to generate truly outsized returns for us
Total capital provision income had a huge increase year-over-year from $676 million versus the $80 million last year
Total income from BOF-C has been steadily increasing year-over-year
And so, while in YPF, we had an extraordinary win with a judgment for more than $16 billion, the largest in the history of the issuing court
Our liquidity and receivables are in a strong position as of period-end, highlighted by $347 million of cash and securities as well as $70 million of receivables
Very clear, very interesting
And of course we ended the period with very substantial cash on hand, with very significant liquidity, just because of all of the cash that we have generated, augmented by the notes that we issued earlier this year
And so, we continue to deploy cash from the balance sheet into attractive assets, targeting returns north of 30%
       

Bearish Statements during earnings call

Statement
I'm just looking at the Burford only data in your release, and I wondered if you could just provide some color on why, in Q3, the commitments and deployments were materially lower than in previous quarters and year-on-year
So what happens in litigation, it's hardly ever the case that litigation goes faster than planned or expected
On the bottom of the slide, our leverage levels remain well below covenant levels
So in Brooklyn, for example, which is a very busy US court, there are still multi-year delays in getting a case to trial, it'll take you about four times as long to get to trial in Brooklyn as it will in the Northern District of Florida
And the fact that these numbers go up and down, a little bit from time-to-time has no particular meaning to us
And as you may recall, when we went to trial in July on the YPF case, even though we had won in March, the summary judgment, there was an extremely wide range of potential damages
We knew it was going to be a significant award, but we didn't know how significant it was going to be
The second guiding principle is we don't ever want to lose our shareholders' money on something that we didn't understand
When I showed you the slide of the three outcomes, it goes to adjudication, we win or lose or it settles, as long as we have properly evaluated the risk beforehand and understand there will be some losses, but as you can see from our track record, those losses are manageable and much smaller than the wins, that is the result of us not making bets where we don't truly understand the risk
   

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