การประชุมแถลงผลประกอบการไตรมาส 3 ปี 2026 ของ Ridgepost Capital (RPC): สินทรัพย์ภายใต้การบริหารที่สร้างรายได้ค่าธรรมเนียมแตะระดับ 3.52 หมื่นล้านดอลลาร์

ประเด็นสำคัญ

• กำไรสุทธิปรับปรุงแล้วประจำไตรมาส 3/2026 อยู่ที่ 0.25 ดอลลาร์ต่อหุ้น กำไรจากค่าธรรมเนียม (Fee-related earnings) เพิ่มขึ้น 19% เมื่อเทียบเป็นรายปี สู่ระดับ 43 ล้านดอลลาร์ โดยมีอัตรากำไร FRE อยู่ที่ 48%
• Fee-paying AUM แตะระดับ 35.2 พันล้านดอลลาร์ เพิ่มขึ้น 2.4% เมื่อเทียบกับไตรมาสก่อนหน้า และเพิ่มขึ้น 21% เมื่อเทียบเป็นรายปี หากไม่รวม Stellus การเติบโตเมื่อเทียบเป็นรายปีอยู่ที่ 11%
• การระดมทุนและการลงทุนขั้นต้นเพิ่มขึ้น 1.3 พันล้านดอลลาร์ในระหว่างไตรมาส โดยในช่วง 9 เดือนแรกสามารถสร้าง Fee-paying AUM ได้เกือบ 4.5 พันล้านดอลลาร์ ซึ่งเป็นสถิติสูงสุดใหม่ของบริษัท
• ฝ่ายบริหารยังคงเป้าหมายการระดมทุนและการลงทุนขั้นต้นรวมที่ 10 พันล้านดอลลาร์สำหรับปี 2026 และ 2027 พร้อมทั้งคงเป้าหมาย Fee-paying AUM ที่ 50 พันล้านดอลลาร์ ณ สิ้นปี 2029
• Fee-paying AUM ของ TrueBridge เพิ่มขึ้น 32% เมื่อเทียบเป็นรายปี สู่ระดับ 8.7 พันล้านดอลลาร์ โดยกองทุน Secondaries II ปิดการระดมทุนด้วยมูลค่ากว่า 500 ล้านดอลลาร์ ซึ่งมากกว่าขนาดของกองทุน Secondaries I กว่าสองเท่า
• Ridgepost Capital คาดว่าอัตราค่าธรรมเนียมหลัก (core fee rate) ตลอดทั้งปี 2026 จะอยู่ที่ประมาณ 103 basis points ซึ่งสะท้อนถึงการเพิ่มขึ้นอย่างมีนัยสำคัญจาก 99 basis points ในไตรมาส 3

ข้อมูลทางการเงินที่สำคัญ

ผลการดำเนินงานและธุรกิจ

Ridgepost Capital ระดมทุนและลงทุน Fee-paying AUM ได้เกือบ 4.5 พันล้านดอลลาร์ในช่วง 9 เดือนแรกของปี 2026 ซึ่งเป็นสถิติสูงสุดตั้งแต่ต้นปีจนถึงปัจจุบันของบริษัท โดย Venture Capital มีส่วนร่วม 2 พันล้านดอลลาร์ Private Equity เพิ่มขึ้น 1.7 พันล้านดอลลาร์ และ Private Credit สร้างได้ประมาณ 700 ล้านดอลลาร์

บริษัทมีกองทุนมากกว่า 15 กองทุนในตลาด การริเริ่มระดมทุนในปัจจุบัน ได้แก่ กลยุทธ์ GP stakes ของ Bonaccord, venture capital ของ TrueBridge, กลยุทธ์ NAV lending ของ Hark Capital, private equity ในตลาดระดับกลางของ RCP และ Qualitas รวมถึงกลยุทธ์การเงินเพื่อโครงการและเครดิตภาษีของ Enhanced นอกจากนี้ Ridgepost ยังมีแผนที่จะเปิดตัวกองทุน direct lending สำหรับตลาดระดับกลางตอนล่างรุ่นถัดไปของ Stellus ในช่วงต้นปี 2027

การขายเกี่ยวเนื่อง (Cross-selling) ได้กลายมาเป็นส่วนสำคัญมากขึ้นในการระดมทุน โดยยอดขายเกี่ยวเนื่องทั่วทั้งบริษัทตั้งแต่เดือนมิถุนายน 2024 มีมูลค่ารวมประมาณ 1.7 พันล้านดอลลาร์ หรือคิดเป็นประมาณ 15% ของการระดมทุน เมื่อเทียบกับสัดส่วนผู้เป็นหุ้นส่วนจำกัดความรับผิด (limited partners) ที่ลงทุนในหลากหลายกลยุทธ์ซึ่งมีน้อยกว่า 5% ในวันนำเสนอข้อมูลต่อนักลงทุนเมื่อเดือนกันยายน 2024 ฝ่ายบริหารระบุว่าบริษัทให้บริการลูกค้ามากกว่า 5,000 ราย และได้ลงทุนในเทคโนโลยีและการบูรณาการข้อมูลลูกค้าเพื่อสนับสนุนการตลาดแบบขายเกี่ยวเนื่องเพิ่มเติม

TrueBridge ยังคงเป็นปัจจัยขับเคลื่อนการเติบโตหลัก โดย Fee-paying AUM แตะระดับ 8.7 พันล้านดอลลาร์ เพิ่มขึ้น 32% เมื่อเทียบเป็นรายปี หลังจากขยายตัวในรูปแบบการเติบโตจากภายใน (organic growth) ในอัตรา 17% ต่อปีตั้งแต่ไตรมาส 3/2020 กองทุนหลัก (Primary funds) ที่มีอายุมากกว่า 5 ปีสามารถสร้าง IRR สุทธิเฉลี่ย 19.8% ในขณะที่ Secondaries I และ Direct Fund III สร้าง IRR สุทธิที่ 43% และ 23% ตามลำดับ

กองทุน Secondaries II ของ TrueBridge ปิดการระดมทุนด้วยมูลค่ากว่า 500 ล้านดอลลาร์ ซึ่งมากกว่าขนาดของกองทุนรุ่นก่อนหน้ากว่าสองเท่า โดยกองทุนหลักรุ่นเรือธงล่าสุดสามารถระดมทุนได้ 851 ล้านดอลลาร์จนถึงเดือนกันยายน และฝ่ายบริหารคาดว่าจะเปิดตัวกองทุนรุ่นถัดไปในช่วงต้นปี 2027

แนวทางจากฝ่ายบริหาร

• ฝ่ายบริหารยังคงคาดการณ์อัตราค่าธรรมเนียมหลักตลอดทั้งปี 2026 ที่ประมาณ 103 basis points โดยอ้างถึงการล่าช้าในการปิดกองทุน และกิจกรรมเครดิตภาษีในไตรมาสที่สี่ซึ่งแข็งแกร่งตามฤดูกาลว่าเป็นปัจจัยขับเคลื่อนการเพิ่มขึ้นที่คาดไว้ในไตรมาส 4
• คาดว่าค่าธรรมเนียมย้อนหลัง (catch-up fees) สายตรงและสายรองจะมีมูลค่ารวม 6 ล้าน ถึง 8 ล้านดอลลาร์ในปี 2026 เทียบกับ 2.1 ล้านดอลลาร์ที่รับรู้ในช่วง 9 เดือนแรก
• ฝ่ายบริหารคาดว่าอัตรากำไร FRE ตลอดทั้งปี 2026 จะค่อนข้างทรงตัวเมื่อเทียบเป็นรายปี หลังจากอัตรากำไรช่วง 9 เดือนแรกอยู่ที่ 47%
• ไม่คาดว่าจะมีการปรับลดอัตราค่าธรรมเนียมขั้น (fee step-downs) หรือการหมดอายุของค่าธรรมเนียมที่สำคัญในไตรมาส 4 โดยฝ่ายบริหารยังคงคาดการณ์การปรับลดและการหมดอายุตลอดทั้งปีไว้ที่ประมาณ 5% ถึง 7%
• คาดว่า Net leverage จะลดลงจากประมาณ 2.7 เท่า ณ สิ้นไตรมาส สู่ช่วงกลางของระดับ 2 เท่าภายในสิ้นปี
• คาดว่าอัตราภาษีเงินสดจะอยู่ในช่วงหลักเดียวระดับสูงถึงสองหลักระดับต่ำสำหรับปี 2026 และอยู่ในช่วงกลางสิบ (mid-teens) สำหรับปี 2027
• Ridgepost Capital ยังคงเป้าหมายการระดมทุนและการลงทุนขั้นต้นรวมที่ 10 พันล้านดอลลาร์สำหรับปี 2026 และ 2027 และเป้าหมาย Fee-paying AUM ที่ 50 พันล้านดอลลาร์ ณ สิ้นปี 2029

ความเสี่ยงและประเด็นที่ต้องติดตาม

ฝ่ายบริหารอธิบายว่าสภาวะเศรษฐกิจมหภาคยังคงมีความผันผวน การลงทุนในสินเชื่อค่อนข้างซบเซาในไตรมาส 3 ท่ามกลางความเคลื่อนไหวของอัตราดอกเบี้ย ความกังวลเกี่ยวกับซอฟต์แวร์ SaaS และ hyperscalers รวมถึงความไม่แน่นอนทางภูมิรัฐศาสตร์ที่เกี่ยวข้องกับสงคราม

การระดมทุนและธุรกิจเครดิตภาษีได้รับผลกระทบจากปัจจัยทางฤดูกาลในไตรมาส 3 ชัดเจนยิ่งขึ้น ส่งผลให้กิจกรรมบางส่วนเลื่อนไปยังไตรมาส 4 และทำให้อัตราค่าธรรมเนียมหลักประจำไตรมาสลดลงเหลือ 99 basis points การฟื้นตัวที่คาดว่าจะกลับสู่ระดับ 103 basis points ตลอดทั้งปีนั้นขึ้นอยู่กับการปิดการระดมทุน ณ สิ้นปีและกิจกรรมเครดิตภาษีที่แข็งแกร่งขึ้นตามฤดูกาลเพียงบางส่วน

Ridgepost ยังคงลงทุนในช่องทางการจัดจำหน่าย เทคโนโลยี และโครงสร้างพื้นฐาน ฝ่ายบริหารกล่าวว่าบริษัทยังคงมุ่งเน้นการเติบโตที่มีผลกำไรและเชื่อว่าอัตรากำไร FRE ได้ผ่านจุดต่ำสุดไปแล้ว แต่ไม่ได้ให้แนวทางอัตรากำไรที่เฉพาะเจาะจงสำหรับปี 2027

ประเด็นสำคัญจากการตอบคำถามของนักวิเคราะห์

• การระดมทุนในไตรมาส 4 และ Stellus: ฝ่ายบริหารคาดว่าท่อส่งการระดมทุนในไตรมาสที่สี่จะแข็งแกร่งในประมาณ 15 กองทุน โดยรายงานว่าไม่มีความล่าช้าหรือการหยุดชะงักที่เกี่ยวข้องกับการเข้าซื้อกิจการที่ Stellus และวางแผนที่จะกลับสู่ตลาดด้วยตระกูลกองทุนกลุ่มที่ห้าและบัญชีแยกต่างหากที่เกี่ยวข้องในปี 2027
• อัตราค่าธรรมเนียมการจัดการ: การลดลงในไตรมาส 3 สะท้อนถึงปัจจัยด้านเวลาและสัดส่วนธุรกิจเป็นหลัก ซึ่งรวมถึงการเลื่อนการปิดกองทุนไปยังไตรมาส 4 และกิจกรรมเครดิตภาษีตามฤดูกาล ฝ่ายบริหารกล่าวว่าประมาณ 103 basis points ยังคงเป็นจุดเริ่มต้นอัตราค่าธรรมเนียมหลักที่คาดไว้สำหรับปี 2027
• การขายเกี่ยวเนื่อง: ลูกค้าร่วมคิดเป็น 15% ของเงินทุนที่ระดมได้ตั้งแต่วันนำเสนอข้อมูลต่อนักลงทุนปี 2024 เพิ่มขึ้นจากน้อยกว่า 5% ฝ่ายบริหารเห็นศักยภาพเพิ่มเติมจากการบูรณาการข้อมูลลูกค้าและการเพิ่มผลิตภัณฑ์ เช่น การให้สินเชื่อโดยตรงของ Stellus
• อัตรากำไรและรายจ่ายการลงทุน: Ridgepost วางแผนที่จะลงทุนในแพลตฟอร์มอย่างต่อเนื่องพร้อมทั้งบริหารจัดการต้นทุน ฝ่ายบริหารคาดว่าอัตรากำไร FRE ปี 2026 จะยังคงใกล้เคียงกับปี 2025 โดยรวม และกล่าวว่าอัตรากำไรดูเหมือนจะผ่านจุดต่ำสุดไปแล้ว
• Venture debt ของ WTI: ขณะนี้ฝ่ายบริหารมุ่งเน้นไปที่การลงทุนจากกองทุนที่มีอยู่ของ WTI กองทุนสืบทอดจะได้รับการระดมทุนเมื่อถึงเวลาที่เหมาะสม แต่ยังไม่มีการระบุขนาดหรือกำหนดการเปิดตัว
• การคืนเงินทุนแก่ผู้ถือหุ้น: Ridgepost ซื้อหุ้นคืนเกือบ 1.8 ล้านหุ้นในระหว่างไตรมาส 3 ที่ราคาเฉลี่ย 8.36 ดอลลาร์ คิดเป็นมูลค่าประมาณ 15 ล้านดอลลาร์ คณะกรรมการได้อนุมัติวงเงินซื้อหุ้นคืนเพิ่มเติมอีก 30 ล้านดอลลาร์ ในขณะที่เงินปันผลประจำไตรมาสยังคงอยู่ที่ 0.04 ดอลลาร์ต่อหุ้น

ถอดความการประชุมผลประกอบการฉบับเต็ม

บทถอดเสียงฉบับเต็มของการประชุมทางโทรศัพท์ผลประกอบการ

คำชี้แจงจากฝ่ายบริหาร

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Ridgepost Capital's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Latif, and I will be coordinating your call today. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded.

I will now pass the call to your host, Brian McKenna, Vice President, Investor Relations. Brian, please go ahead.

Brian McKenna

Thank you, operator, and thank you all for joining our call this morning. With us today, we have Luke Sarsfield, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Amanda Coussens, EVP, Chief Financial Officer. We also have other members of our executive team here that will be available for the Q&A session.

Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that this conference call as well as the presentation slides may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements reflect management's current plans, estimates and expectations and are inherently uncertain. Actual results for future periods may differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements due to a number of risks and uncertainties that are described in greater detail in our earnings release and in our periodic reports filed from time to time with the SEC. The forward-looking statements included are made only as of the date hereof. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events, except as otherwise required by law. Please note that nothing on this call constitutes an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase any interest in any fund sponsored by affiliates of Ridgepost Capital.

During this call, we'll reference certain non-GAAP measures that we believe can be useful in evaluating the company's performance. A reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is available in the presentation slides posted on our website and in our filings with the SEC. In addition, we will provide certain historical performance metrics for our funds and further details can be found in the presentation slides. Of course, past performance does not guarantee future results.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Luke.

Luke A. Sarsfield

Thank you, Brian. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call today. It was another very strong quarter for Ridgepost Capital, characterized by our stability and consistency against the backdrop of a rapidly evolving and highly dynamic macro environment. Adjusted net income per share totaled $0.25, while fee-paying AUM ended the quarter at $35.2 billion, up 2.4% sequentially and 21% year-over-year or 11% year-over-year, excluding the impact of Stellus. The growth in fee-paying AUM during the period was primarily driven by $1.3 billion of gross fundraising and deployment, including $475 million in Venture Capital, $450 million in Private Equity and $385 million in Private Credit.

Importantly, fundraising activity remains broad-based as we were in the market raising capital for more than 15 funds. Across the first 9 months of 2026, gross fundraising and deployment totaled nearly $4.5 billion in fee-paying AUM, representing a year-to-date record for Ridgepost Capital. Within that, $2 billion came from Venture Capital, $1.7 billion from Private Equity and approximately $700 million from Private Credit.

As we look forward to the fourth quarter and 2027, capital raising and deployment pipelines are strong, including ongoing fundraising for: one, our GP stake strategy, Bonaccord; two, our venture capital strategy, TrueBridge; three, our NAV Lending strategy, Hark Capital; and four, our middle market private equity strategies, RCP and Qualitas. We are also preparing to launch our next vintage at Stellus early next year as we expand our lower middle market Direct Lending fundraising efforts, while our project Finance and tax credit strategy Enhanced will continue to be in the market.

Bottom line, we are well on our way to achieving our aggregate $10 billion gross fundraising and deployment target for 2026 and 2027 as well as our 2029 year-end fee-paying AUM target of $50 billion.

Now I would like to spend a moment discussing the drivers of the consistency and stability in our results. We believe we benefit from 3 key factors: One is the underlying structure of our business; two is the complementary nature of our platform, which is built to optimize our strategies, both individually and collectively. And three, are the positively differentiated investment performance across our middle and lower middle market strategies as well as our venture funds. Said another way, the contractual nature of our model, our complementary platform and differentiated investment performance work synergistically to drive the consistency and strength of our results.

In terms of the underlying structure of our business, the majority of our fee-paying AUM sits within traditional drawdown funds where management fees are earned on committed capital basis, meaning we generally do not earn management fees on net asset values. Importantly, drawdown fund structures are not subject to investor-initiated redemptions and in fact, the weighted average remaining duration of our fee-paying AUM stands at approximately 7 years.

In addition, approximately 98% of our third quarter fee-related revenue was generated by management and advisory fees. Ridgepost Capital also has no direct exposure to realizations. So, not only are our fee-related revenues driven by management fees, but bottom line earnings are driven entirely by fee-related earnings. We operate a capital-light business model and the conversion of our adjusted net income to operating cash flow is high. Through the first 9 months of this year, we have generated $86 million of adjusted net income and $75 million of GAAP operating cash flow with modest ongoing CapEx needs across the business.

Moving on, the clearest example of how our complementary platform optimizes our strategies is the meaningful increase in cross-selling activity. As a reminder, at the time of our September 2024 Investor Day, less than 5% of our LPs had invested across multiple strategies. Over the last 2 years, we have diligently worked to increase our cross-marketing capabilities and enhance our client data integration across our strategies. These synergies have positively contributed to our fundraising efforts, and we're pleased to report that aggregate firm-wide cross-sells since June 2024 total approximately $1.7 billion or roughly 15% of firm-wide fundraising.

This cross-sell activity has been driven primarily by the flagship funds across our strategies. For example, we've seen clients from our Private Equity business invest in our venture capital strategy across several investor channels, including wealth management and pension funds. We also have had insurance LPs who historically invested in our private credit strategies commit to funds within our Private Equity strategies as these investors expand their private equity allocations.

Furthermore, given our broad network of investors across distribution channels, we're also excited about the capital raising opportunities of Stellus, our lower middle market Direct Lending platform and across our Private Credit businesses more generally.

Cross-selling is just one example of how our strategies benefit from the One Ridgepost platform. But when combined with differentiated investment performance, we believe these platform benefits create a powerful foundation for organic growth. Given that we're seeing significant momentum across a number of fronts in our Venture Capital strategy, I also want to spend a few minutes on TrueBridge, who has been a leader investing in this part of the market since 2007. Investment performance remains a standout. TrueBridge's primary funds that are more than 5 years old have generated an average net IRR of 19.8%, while Secondaries I and Direct Fund III at TrueBridge have generated net IRRs of 43% and 23%, respectively.

On the back of this differentiated performance, fee-paying AUM at TrueBridge has organically increased 17% annually since the third quarter of 2020 and recent trends suggest that momentum has accelerated as related fee-paying AUM ended the third quarter at $8.7 billion, up 32% year-on-year. Equally important, it's clear that the velocity of capital being raised and deployed in the Venture ecosystem continues to be robust, and TrueBridge remains at the very center of this.

In September, TrueBridge announced the final closing of Secondaries II, raising more than $500 million of capital. Notably, this was more than double the size of Secondaries I, and Secondaries II was raised in roughly 1 year, highlighting the demand that exists from LPs for Secondaries in the Venture ecosystem, not to mention the growing opportunity set from a deployment perspective.

We're also seeing strong demand for TrueBridge's flagship primary funds. The latest vintage continues to be in the market, raising $851 million of capital through the end of September with continued momentum into year-end. We expect to launch the next vintage in early 2027. One other observation from TrueBridge's fund table on Page 24 in our earnings deck. Looking at fund sizes from Fund IV, a 2015 vintage, through Fund VIII, a 2023 vintage, flagship successor funds have increased in size by more than 20% on average from vintage to vintage.

Given that virtually all of our fee-related revenue is driven by management fees, the vast majority of which are earned on a committed basis, not on net asset value, increasing fund sizes are an important driver of Ridgepost Capital growth longer term. This growth in fund sizes, coupled with ongoing product innovation, creates a straightforward growth formula across our business. We're seeing this play out real time at TrueBridge, as I just highlighted, while the same dynamic is also occurring at many of our other strategies.

With that, I'll turn it over to Amanda.

Amanda Coussens

Thanks, Luke. As highlighted earlier in the call, we delivered another strong quarter of results in the third quarter. We generated $0.25 per share of adjusted net income in the period. Fee-related earnings totaled $43 million, up 19% year-over-year, while the FRE margin came in at 48%. Fee-related revenue totaled $89 million in the quarter, up 17% year-over-year. Management and advisory fees represented nearly all of fee-related revenue in the third quarter, totaling $87 million, reinforcing the durability and stability of the earnings profile at Ridgepost Capital. The average core fee rate, excluding direct and secondary catch-up fees, totaled 99 basis points in the third quarter, down 1 basis point from the second quarter.

Similar to trends across the industry and broader capital markets activity during the period, we experienced more pronounced seasonality across our business in the third quarter, specifically for fundraising and our tax credit business, which modestly impacted our core fee rate in the period. Some fundraising activity shifted from the third quarter given the timing of specific fund closings, although fundraising momentum remains strong as we head into year-end. As it relates to our tax credit business, the pipeline continues to build for what's typically a seasonally strong end of the year. In terms of the outlook for the core fee rate, despite the third quarter seasonality, we continue to expect it will total approximately 103 basis points for the full year in 2026, implying a healthy step-up in the fourth quarter. We also expect direct and secondary catch-up fees will total $6 million to $8 million in 2026. And for reference, these catch-up fees totaled $2.1 million in the first 9 months of this year, including $1.1 million in the third quarter.

I did want to spend a minute on the FRE margin. As I mentioned earlier, the FRE margin came in at 48% in the third quarter, bringing the year-to-date total to 47%, which is in line with the first 9 months of 2025. Notably, our FRE margin through the first 9 months of 2026 was stable year-over-year for the first time in a few years. And given the momentum we have across the business into year-end as well as some year-end seasonality, we expect similar year-over-year trends for the FRE margin on the full year in 2026.

Moving on to capital management. We continue to operate with a balanced and flexible approach. As Luke mentioned earlier, through the first 9 months of the year, we've generated $86 million of adjusted net income and $75 million of GAAP operating cash flow with modest ongoing CapEx needs across the business. This cash generation supports our capital allocation priorities, including maintaining our $0.04 quarterly dividend and offsetting dilution from annual employee stock issuance through share repurchases. Following the Stellus acquisition in June, we also continue to prioritize deleveraging. At the end of the quarter, net leverage totaled approximately 2.7x, and we're on track to end the year in the mid-2s.

During the third quarter, we did lean into buybacks, repurchasing nearly 1.8 million shares at an average cost of $8.36 per share, totaling approximately $15 million. The Board has approved an additional $30 million of repurchase authorization under our program. To conclude, a few reminders. The borrowing rate on our credit facilities totaled SOFR+ 260 basis points. We continue to expect our cash tax rate to be in the high single-digit to low double-digit range for full-year 2026 and in the mid-teens for full-year 2027. And fully diluted shares outstanding, including partnership units exchangeable for shares, totaled approximately $129.2 million in the third quarter.

With that, I'll turn it back to Luke for a few closing comments before we open it up to Q&A.

Luke A. Sarsfield

Thanks, Amanda. Before we move to Q&A, I want to share a few closing remarks. The macro backdrop clearly remains quite fluid. But as we've discussed at length, the structure of our business, the complementary nature of our platform and our differentiated investment performance generate a well-balanced, highly durable earnings stream across all operating environments. We continue to focus on what we can control. First and foremost, that includes delivering differentiated returns for our LPs. It also involves expanding the breadth of our fundraising initiatives, including scaling our existing funds, developing new products and leaning into cross-marketing opportunities.

Given our management fee-centric model, our growth formula is straightforward. We have to continue to deliver for our LPs while also finding ways to incrementally grow our AUM base. These 2 objectives are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they very much work together. We believe we've created a winning formula on this front with Venture Capital and Private Equity as notable examples.

Finally, I want to acknowledge an important milestone for Ridgepost Capital as we celebrated the fifth anniversary of our IPO 2 weeks ago. We've made tremendous progress over that time, deepening our capabilities across Private Equity, Private Credit and Venture Capital. I'm incredibly grateful to our entire team for the hard work and dedication that's driven our success. I'm so proud of what we've built together and even more excited about the opportunity ahead. Bottom line, we have significant momentum across the business as we close out the year, and we're excited about the opportunities ahead in 2027.

Thank you for your time today. I'll pass the call back over to the operator to begin the Q&A session.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Kenneth Worthington of JPMorgan.

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Kenneth Worthington

Maybe first, how does 4Q look from a fundraising and fee expiration and step-down perspective? From fundraising, are there new funds that are in market in 4Q? And then to what extent did Stellus commitments get postponed at all by the acquisition? And from a deployment perspective, is there some further strength expected just from seasonality in the fourth quarter and anything with expirations?

Luke A. Sarsfield

Great. Well, thanks, Ken. Great to talk to you. A couple of observations. One is, as we noted, we think the fourth quarter pipeline for fundraising continues to be very strong. We highlighted, I think, that we have about 15 funds in the market across a number of our strategies. And I think that number is going to stay pretty consistent in the fourth quarter. And so there are a number of strategies that have been and will continue to be in market across many of our strategies, but particularly RCP and Qualitas, certainly Bonaccord, Hark and TrueBridge. And so we have a number of things that are in the market and will continue to be in the market.

We think that there is good momentum in many of those fundraises, and we think we'll see tangible progress through the fourth quarter. Obviously, year-end, I think, is a very natural time for a number of allocators to sort of consider finishing off their allocations for the year. And so typically, we see some positive seasonality in the fourth quarter, and I think we would expect this to be very similar to that.

As it relates to Stellus, and I'll generalize the comment a little bit more to credit broadly. As we noted, I would say the third quarter, given a lot of the puts and takes in the wider world, obviously, the interest rate moves, some of the concerns around software and SaaS and hyperscalers and the like and then geopolitics, I guess, I would say, with the war, I would say it was a fine, if somewhat muted macro backdrop across credit deployment. I think we're seeing some signs as we head into the fourth quarter that things are improving. There's also generally some seasonality in that business as well as transactions aim to accelerate and close before year-end. I'd make a couple of comments to your question specifically on Stellus. Number one, I will tell you, we saw no sort of delays vis-a-vis Stellus or any disruptions as it related to the acquisition or anything that we did. Recall that we closed, kind of, the complete set of fourth fund and fourth fund related, kind of, separate accounts in April of this year.

And so, we see a lot of momentum in that business. I think as we noted on the call, we anticipate being back in the market raising kind of the fifth family of funds and related separate accounts in 2027. And so we're really, really optimistic around the momentum in Stellus from both a fundraising perspective and also from a capital deployment perspective as we head into the fourth quarter and beyond.

Kenneth Worthington

Great. And anything on step-downs and expirations?

Amanda Coussens

Ken, thank you for the question. We are not expecting any large step-downs or expirations in the fourth quarter and still expecting about 5% to 7% for the year.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Michael Cyprys of Morgan Stanley.

Michael Cyprys

Maybe just on the management fee rate, we've seen some variability there over the last couple of quarters on a core basis, while fee-paying AUM continues to grow at a healthy pace. So, I was hoping you could speak to what's driving some of the volatility on the fee rate trend? How much is mix versus timing? I heard you reiterate the 103 core fee rate for the full year. It seems like that would imply quite a bit of a step-up in the fourth quarter to maybe even over 110 basis points. I want to make sure we're thinking about that right.

And then how should we be thinking about a normalized fee rate as we're looking into '27? Should we be thinking about that 103 as a good starting point? And how to think about some of the moving pieces from there?

Amanda Coussens

Michael, thank you for the question. Yes, we did experience more pronounced seasonality, specifically for fundraising and our tax credit business. We did have some fundraising that we expect that was pushed from the third quarter to the fourth quarter. Generally, we do still expect 103 basis points for the full year, which does imply a healthy step-up in the fourth quarter, as you mentioned. Our fundraising pipeline remains really strong heading into year-end. The primary driver, again, is the tax credit business that typically experiences its strongest activity in the fourth quarter as well as the fundraises that were pushed from the third quarter to the fourth quarter. In terms of our overall fee rate or core fee rate, it's still at 103 and that is generally the expectation as we go into next year as well.

Michael Cyprys

Okay. Great. And then just a follow-up question on the cross-sell. I think, Luke, you mentioned about half of the fundraising over the last couple of years was coming from cross-sell. I was hoping you could elaborate on that a bit. What sort of goals and aspirations do you have for the firm over the next couple of years with respect to cross-sell? Talk about some of the steps you're taking to drive further traction and acceleration there.

Luke A. Sarsfield

Great. So thank you for the question. Just to clarify on the math, we said 15%, one five percent of the capital we've raised since Investor Day has come from shared clients. So, that number, one five, 15% is up from less than 5% at the time of Investor Day. And so I just -- I wanted to make sure we were talking about the same numbers.

But more generally -- sure thing. You're on a very important topic, right? Cross-sell is something that from the very start, I've been here just over 3 years now. Sarita leading the GCS team has been here coming up on a little over 2 years. And one of the big opportunities, we saw among many other opportunities, was the opportunity to go more deeply and more broadly with our existing clients. And I think it's important to note that across, kind of, the full spectrum of Ridgepost Capital clients, we have over 5,000 clients that we're interacting with that have done business with us that have invested with us.

And I'm a big believer in the old saw that the easiest client to do more with is an existing client. It's much harder to create a new client. We're focused on it. We're doing it every day, by the way, but that is a harder yard than doing more with our existing clients. And so, when you look at kind of the composition of that client base, a couple of things stand out. One is they're generally clients that have been very happy given the robust investment performance that we've generated. So, a happy client is also more amenable to doing more with you.

The second thing is the disposition of those clients tend to very much match with the disposition of our platform. They're focused on alpha generation. They're focused on the middle and lower middle market. They're focused on our fundamental approach in many ways to the world. And so building that awareness, building that engagement and engaging them more broadly across the full spectrum of offerings is something that we've been laser-focused on doing. We spent a lot of time, kind of, building our technology architecture to enable us to do that in a more efficient and effective way. I think we can now say that we've accomplished that. And so, we have a much better insight into that client base and how we're doing. We continue to work every day with those clients. Many are very close to us and have been great supporters and advocates and are looking for ways to do more with us. And so that, I think, is very appealing from our perspective.

And then, I think the other thing that's really important is our ability to continue to engage with them with some of the new additions to the platform, right? And so, I think about Stellus, for instance, right? Historically, we might have had clients who are very interested in middle market direct lending, but it was just something that we couldn't offer them. And as we continue to round out the product suite, the opportunity that we -- the chance that we have something in our broader panoply of offerings that's going to match what our client is interested in only goes up.

And so, I think when you put that all together, we're really excited about where we are. Obviously, 15% is a lot better than less than 5%, but I don't think the work is done. And I think there's a lot of progress we can continue to make over the quarters and years ahead.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Benjamin Budish of Barclays.

Benjamin Budish

Maybe following up a little bit there and tying that into the margin question. I think earlier in the year or maybe it was the end of last year, you kind of, guided like a mid-40s target. You called out some higher comp from marketing, platform and placement fees. So Luke, maybe just following up on your comments in terms of how much more work there is to do. And as we think about the margin trajectory on the way to your 2029 target, is there a lot more spend in the near term? Should we start seeing more of a margin inflection next year? Or does it sort of remain the expectation that things will sort of be more evenly paced on the way there?

Luke A. Sarsfield

So I'll say a couple of things. One is, to your question, we're going to continue to, in a thoughtful way, invest in our platform because we see real opportunities to do that to obviously accelerate what we're delivering for clients to accelerate our opportunities to do more with clients, and to continue to grow and scale and raise more capital. Having said that, I want to be clear on this. We are laser, laser-focused on the margin. The margin is very important to us, and we understand that delivering profitable growth is absolutely critical from a shareholder perspective, and that is, we are all big shareholders here. And so, we are very, very focused on that.

And so, what I think you've seen, right, is over the last few years, we've taken some margin points and made some, kind of, fundamental investments in things like our distribution capabilities and our technology capabilities and our broader infrastructure capabilities so that we can continue to grow and scale the platform and we can continue to engage our clients in broader ways. I think what -- in Amanda's commentary, hopefully, you heard on the call, is for the first time in a long time over the first 9 months, the margin is effectively flat with last year's margin through the 9 months of 2025. And I think we expect for the full year, you'll see a similar trend, i.e., the margin this year will be relatively, kind of, flat to the margin last year. That doesn't mean we're not making investments. We're going to continue to make investments, but we're going to make them in a prudent balanced way. We're going to make them in a smart and margin-conscious way.

And we think we can do both of those things at the same time. We don't view them as mutually exclusive. And so we're very focused on that. I don't want to get into '27 at this point. We'll give '27 guidance, but I think it's a reasonable expectation that we think we've, kind of, troughed and the margins here this year will be relatively equivalent to the margins last year from an FRE basis.

Benjamin Budish

Okay. Very helpful. And then maybe just a couple of strategy-specific questions. So, I think TrueBridge, you didn't quite say it, but it, kind of, led us there, maybe a 20% uplift versus the predecessor fund and I think fair to assume something similar for, I think, Fund X, which should be back with next year. Maybe just on WTI, that's one I think we expected to be back with next year that's been pretty consistently every 3 years. How should we think about the potential sizing there? When we look at Fund XI, the cadence of sort of called capital, is that sort of on track with what you would typically expect? Should we see more of like a rebound to where Fund IX and X were in terms of overall fund size? Any other color there would be helpful.

Luke A. Sarsfield

Great. I'd say a few things. So I would say, first of all, on TrueBridge, I don't want to call any specific fund size, but I think generally, you've identified the trend and the trajectory we've seen in the business, particularly in the primary funds. And then, I'd also note the acceleration in the related strategies, particularly Secondaries, as we commented on. And so, we think there is a lot of general momentum in that venture equity ecosystem. I would say, as it relates to WTI and venture debt, number one, we raised that fund, and I think we're very, very focused on successfully and appropriately deploying that fund. And so right now, I would say at WTI, we are focused from a deployment perspective. We are seeing, I think, some very interesting opportunities in the venture debt ecosystem.

Remember that there's probably a little bit of a differential in terms of where TrueBridge plays in the Venture ecosystem relative to where WTI plays in the Venture ecosystem. And so, while that dynamics may be similar, they are not the same. But I think we're seeing some very interesting deployment opportunities in WTI. Obviously, when it's appropriate, we'll be back out to raise a successor fund. We think there's a lot of momentum in that business. We think there's a lot of things we can do in that business more broadly. And so, we're excited about the WTI franchise. But as we sit here right now, we are focused on deployment.

Operator

I would now like to turn the conference back to Luke Sarsfield for closing remarks. Sir?

Luke A. Sarsfield

Thank you, Latif, and thank you, everybody, for your time today and your continued support of the Ridgepost Capital story. Please reach out to our team with any additional follow-up questions, and we very much look forward to updating you on the fourth quarter results in February. Thank you for joining us this morning.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.