Ridgepost Capital (RPC) 2026 年第三季財報電話會議：收費資產管理規模達 352 億美元

重點摘要

• 2026 年第三季調整後每股純益為 0.25 美元。手續費相關收益 (FRE) 年增 19% 至 4,300 萬美元，FRE 利潤率為 48%。
• 計費資產管理規模 (AUM) 達 352 億美元，季增 2.4%，年增 21%。若不含 Stellus，年增率為 11%。
• 本季毛募資與部署金額增加 13 億美元。前九個月累計創造近 45 億美元的計費 AUM，創下公司歷史新高。
• 管理層維持 2026 年及 2027 年合計 100 億美元的毛募資與部署目標，以及 2029 年底達 500 億美元計費 AUM 的目標。
• TrueBridge 的計費 AUM 年增 32% 至 87 億美元。其 Secondaries II 基金完成募集，規模超過 5 億美元，為 Secondaries I 的兩倍以上。
• Ridgepost Capital 預計 2026 全年核心費率約為 103 個基點 (bps)，意味著將比第三季的 99 個基點顯著提升。

核心財務數據

業務與營運表現

Ridgepost Capital 在 2026 年前九個月籌集並部署了近 45 億美元的計費 AUM，創下公司同期歷史新高。其中風險投資貢獻 20 億美元，私募股權增加 17 億美元，私募信用則產生約 7 億美元。

該公司在市場上有超過 15 支基金正在進行募集。目前的募資計畫包括 Bonaccord 的 GP 股權策略、TrueBridge 風險投資、Hark Capital 的 NAV 貸款策略、RCP 與 Qualitas 的中小型市場私募股權，以及 Enhanced 的專案融資與稅收抵免策略。Ridgepost 還計劃於 2027 年初推出 Stellus 的下期中小型市場直接貸款基金。

交叉銷售對募資的貢獻顯著成長。自 2024 年 6 月以來，全公司的交叉銷售總額約為 17 億美元，占募資總額約 15%，而 2024 年 9 月投資人日宣布的跨策略投資有限合夥人 (LP) 比例則不足 5%。管理層表示，公司服務超過 5,000 名客戶，並已投資於技術與客戶資料整合，以進一步支援交叉行銷。

TrueBridge 仍是主要成長引擎。自 2020 年第三季以來，其計費 AUM 以 17% 的年均有機成長率擴展，達到 87 億美元，年增 32%。成立五年以上的主基金創造了 19.8% 的平均淨內部報酬率 (Net IRR)，而 Secondaries I 和 Direct Fund III 則分別創造了 43% 和 23% 的淨 IRR。

TrueBridge 的 Secondaries II 完成募集，金額超過 5 億美元，為上一代基金規模的兩倍以上。其最新的旗艦主基金截至 9 月已籌集 8.51 億美元，管理層預計將於 2027 年初推出下一代基金。

管理層展望與指引

• 管理層繼續預期 2026 全年核心費率約為 103 個基點。指出基金關閉推遲以及第四季稅收抵免業務季增強勁，是驅動第四季費率提升的主因。
• 預計 2026 年直接與次級補繳費 (catch-up fees) 總額將達 600 萬至 800 萬美元，而前九個月確認的金額為 210 萬美元。
• 在年前九個月利潤率維持在 47% 後，管理層預計 2026 全年 FRE 利潤率將與去年同期保持相對穩定。
• 預期第四季不會有重大費率調降或到期。管理層繼續預測全年費率調降與到期的影響約為 5% 至 7%。
• 預計淨槓桿率將從季末的約 2.7 倍降至年底的 2.5 倍左右（2 倍中段）。
• 預計 2026 年現金稅率將落在高個位數至低雙位數區間，2027 年則落在大約 15% 左右（10% 中段）。
• Ridgepost Capital 維持其 2026 年及 2027 年合計 100 億美元的毛募資與部署目標，以及 2029 年底達 500 億美元計費 AUM 的目標。

風險與關注事項

管理層將總體經濟環境描述為變動不拘。受利率波動、軟體與 SaaS 及超大規模雲端業者相關疑慮，以及與戰爭相關的地緣政治不確定性影響，第三季的信貸部署相對清淡。

募資與稅收抵免業務在第三季經歷了更明顯的季節性影響，導致部分活動延至第四季，並將單季核心費率壓低至 99 個基點。預期全年的 103 個基點費率回升，部分取決於年底募資完成情況與季節性較強的稅收抵免活動。

Ridgepost 持續投資於通路、技術與基礎設施。管理層表示仍專注於獲利成長，並相信 FRE 利潤率已觸底，但未提供 2027 年的具體利潤率指引。

分析師問答焦點

• 第四季募資與 Stellus：管理層預期第四季約 15 支基金的募資管道表現強勁。管理層指出 Stellus 未受收購相關事宜延誤或中斷，並計劃於 2027 年攜其第五代系列基金及相關獨立帳戶重新進入市場。
• 管理費率：第三季下滑主要反映時程安排與業務組合的影響，包括基金關閉移至第四季及季節性稅收抵免活動。管理層表示，約 103 個基點仍是預期的 2027 年核心費率起跑點。
• 交叉銷售：自 2024 年投資人日以來，共享客戶占籌集資金的 15%，高於先前的不到 5%。管理層認為客戶資料整合以及新增 Stellus 直接貸款等產品將帶來更大潛力。
• 利潤率與投資支出：Ridgepost 計劃在控管成本的同時繼續投資平台。管理層預計 2026 年 FRE 利潤率將與 2025 年大致相當，並表示利潤率似乎已經觸底。
• WTI 創投債務：管理層目前專注於部署 WTI 的現有基金。後續基金將在適當時間進行募集，但未提供規模或推出時程。
• 資本回報：Ridgepost 在第三季以平均每股 8.36 美元的價格回購了近 180 萬股，總額約 1,500 萬美元。董事會批准了額外 3,000 萬美元的庫藏股授權額度，季度股利則維持每股 0.04 美元。

完整法說會逐字稿

完整財報電話會議逐字稿

管理層陳述

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.

分析師問答

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.