The Disposal Trigger That Wasn’t in the Q4 Review

Deloitte’s SEA CFO Agenda 2025 found that 58% of Southeast Asian CFOs now conduct formal portfolio reviews at least twice yearly, driven by strategic fit, return on capital and complexity cost. The Hormuz shock has introduced a fourth variable: differential oil price sensitivity across business units and whether that sensitivity is manageable or structural.

Nomura identified Thailand as carrying the highest net oil import exposure in ASEAN at 4.7% of GDP, with every 10% rise in oil prices worsening the current account balance by approximately 0.5 percentage points. In the Philippines, MUFG Bank confirmed 95% of crude imports transit Hormuz, with manufacturing, logistics and food production absorbing the primary indirect impact.

For any CFO managing both energy-intensive operations and asset-light businesses within the same portfolio, the Hormuz shock has completed the strategic differentiation that a scheduled review would have taken months to reach.

What Is Moving and Why

Energy-intensive manufacturing – petrochemicals, plastics, industrial chemicals – faces input cost increases and supply chain disruption simultaneously. Force majeure declarations from Singapore’s Aster Chemicals and Indonesia’s PT Chandra Asri Pacific confirm the disruption has moved beyond scenario modelling into current-quarter results. Logistics assets face the same asymmetry: freight costs have risen unilaterally while many customer contracts carry no equivalent pass-through clause.

The disposal rationale for these assets is not distress. It is strategic clarity – a recognition that the energy sensitivity now embedded in their cost structures is structural, and that a corporate owner without expertise in managing that exposure is not the natural long-term holder. That distinction matters enormously for how the deal process is framed and for who is positioned to buy.

Where the Buyers Are Positioned

The supply is meeting a PE market that spent 2025 repositioning for exactly this kind of transaction. EY’s Southeast Asia Private Equity Pulse 2025 recorded USD 4.4 billion in exits across 33 deals, with exit volume up 18% year-on-year as GPs prioritised operational improvement and exit readiness. KPMG’s Global M&A Outlook 2026 found that 55% of PE dealmakers are actively targeting carved-out assets in 2026.

Luke Pais, EY-Parthenon ASEAN Private Equity Leader, characterised the positioning: “PE firms that can bring such value to their current and upcoming portfolio companies will be greatly desired and will prove to be successful in securing both new deals and higher return on exits.”

Sellers who anchor the disposal to pre-shock financials and a credible strategic rationale are entering a market that is capitalised and ready. Those who wait for disruption to stabilise will be valued on a compressed EBITDA base. The window is open. It will not stay that way.

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When Brent crude closed above USD 100 per barrel on 12 March 2026 for the first time since August 2022, it arrived on the desk of every CFO in Southeast Asia simultaneously. The closure layered an acute geopolitical shock onto structural capital allocation pressures that were already reshaping where and how corporate money moves across the region.

The pre-shock baseline is well-documented. J.P. Morgan’s CFO View: Asia Pacific Outlook 2026, drawn from around 200 CFOs and treasurers across ten markets, found that 48% named revenue growth as their top priority for the year – ahead of digital transformation, cost optimisation and risk management combined.

Deloitte’s SEA CFO Agenda 2025, covering 190 CFOs across seven Southeast Asian markets, put that figure at 82% within the region specifically, with 46% expecting to increase M&A activity over the following three years. The ambition is consistent across every data set.

The discipline with which capital is being allocated to pursue it is what the headline figures do not show. The Hormuz closure has not reversed that calculus. It has complicated it considerably.

The Cash Imperative Behind the Deal Appetite

The M&A ambition in the survey data sits alongside a financing constraint that is reshaping how deals actually close. Deloitte’s broader APAC CFO Survey found that 49% of Southeast Asian CFOs plan to finance acquisitions entirely in cash – the highest proportion across the APAC markets surveyed and a significant departure from the leverage-driven structures that characterised the pre-2022 era.

The structural logic is not hard to identify. In markets where companies earn in ringgit, rupiah or peso but would traditionally service acquisition debt in US dollars, currency mismatch has become a risk that many boards are no longer willing to carry at the cost of financing.

All-cash deals eliminate that exposure and move faster, a decisive advantage in processes where PE funds, under pressure to return capital to limited partners, are motivated sellers.

The market consequence is visible in the exit data. EY’s Southeast Asia Private Equity Pulse 2025 Year-in-Review, published in February 2026, recorded a 43% year-on-year decline in PE deal value to USD 9.1 billion across 59 transactions. The collapse was concentrated: megadeals above USD 1 billion fell from eight to four.

Mid-market processes, by contrast, saw corporate strategic buyers – writing cheques from cash reserves – gaining competitive positioning that PE funds found increasingly difficult to match.

Luke Pais, EY-Parthenon ASEAN Private Equity Leader, noted that digital infrastructure alone accounted for 42% of PE investments in the region in 2025, reflecting both the AI infrastructure buildout and the shift toward managed-service delivery models that talent constraints are accelerating across the market.

Ho Kok Yong, CFO Program Leader at Deloitte Asia Pacific and Southeast Asia, characterised the broader strategic stance: “SEA CFOs have acclimatised and adapted to the new norm of ongoing economic and geopolitical volatilities – and this has, in turn, translated into a palpable focus on growth.”

The growth focus is genuine. The financing architecture behind it is more conservative than it has been in a decade.

Portfolio Rationalisation as a Supply Signal

The acceleration in portfolio review frequency – 58% of SEA CFOs now conduct formal reviews at least twice yearly, according to Deloitte – is generating an asset supply pipeline that deal advisers are only beginning to map.

This is not passive housekeeping. It reflects a deliberate shift to what Deloitte describes as an “always-on” portfolio mindset: continuous strategic assessment rather than reactive disposal when assets become obvious candidates for sale.

The global context amplifies the SEA dynamic. KPMG’s Global M&A Outlook 2026, based on a survey of 700 M&A decision-makers worldwide, found that 57% of corporate dealmakers and 71% of PE firms are open to or actively pursuing portfolio rationalisation in 2026.

Boards globally are simplifying under geopolitical strain and AI-driven disruption – shedding higher-risk assets and concentrating capital on core operations. SEA CFOs are navigating that same pressure with an additional variable: differential oil price sensitivity across their business units.

For a CFO managing operations across Thailand – where Nomura estimated net oil imports at 4.7% of GDP, the highest in ASEAN – and Singapore simultaneously, the Hormuz shock has made energy-intensive manufacturing a different asset class than it was in February.

Disposal decisions that were on a twelve-month horizon are moving forward. The carve-out supply this generates is real, and PE is positioning to absorb it: KPMG’s data shows 55% of PE dealmakers are actively considering acquisitions of carved-out assets in 2026.

In a global M&A market that reached USD 4.93 trillion in 2025 – the highest on record and up 37% year-on-year according to PitchBook – demand for quality assets is well-capitalised. The constraint has shifted to supply. Twice-yearly portfolio reviews are generating it.

The AI Constraint That Capital Cannot Solve

The third structural pressure sits in the AI investment pipeline, and its character is unusual: the binding constraint is not capital. Deloitte’s SEA CFO survey identified AI-related technical skills and fluency as the top concern for 78% of CFOs within the finance function – ahead of adoption risk at 55% and culture and trust at 45%.

J.P. Morgan’s CFO View confirms the regional pattern. Despite revenue growth and digital transformation ranking as the two highest priorities for APAC CFOs in 2026, the report identifies talent availability and data infrastructure as the primary execution bottlenecks, not investment appetite. The capital to invest in AI is present. The engineering capability to deploy it internally is not, at the scale required, in most Southeast Asian markets.

The practical consequence is a redirection of AI spending away from internal build programmes toward managed service providers and vendor partnerships – structurally different from how AI capital is being deployed in the US and Europe, where the engineering talent pipeline runs deeper.

For technology companies and managed service providers with regional infrastructure, the CFO’s talent constraint is a direct commercial opening. Digital infrastructure’s 42% share of regional PE deal value in 2025 is partly a reflection of exactly that dynamic.

Where the Pressures Converge

The convergence point is the balance sheet. Bain’s Global M&A Report 2026 identified the corporate share of capital allocated to M&A at a 30-year low globally in 2025, as AI infrastructure, supply chain resilience and R&D competed for the same discretionary pool.

Southeast Asia’s CFOs are navigating precisely that squeeze – with the additional dimension of currency risk, energy cost exposure and a J.P. Morgan survey finding that 44% of APAC CFOs anticipate a tougher economic climate in 2026 than the year before.

The CFOs best positioned to navigate what follows are those who stress-tested portfolio energy sensitivity before oil moved, locked in cash reserves before deal competition intensified, and routed AI delivery through vendor partnerships rather than waiting for an engineering talent base the region does not yet have.

For investors and deal advisers reading corporate strategic intent across Southeast Asia, the signal is in the structure of the decisions, not the growth ambitions behind them.

References:

• The CFO View: Asia Pacific Outlook 2026 — J.P. Morgan Global Corporate Banking
• SEA CFO Agenda 2025 — Deloitte Southeast Asia, February 2025
• APAC CFO 2025 Survey Report — Deloitte Insights
• Southeast Asia Private Equity Pulse 2025: Year in Review — EY, February 2026
• Global M&A Outlook 2026 — KPMG, February 2026
• Asia Pacific Private Equity Barometer 2026 — KPMG, February 2026
• 2025 Annual Global M&A Report — PitchBook, January 2026
• Global M&A Report 2026 — Bain & Company, January 2026

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How Secondary Markets and Strategic Buyers Create Liquidity

When Navis Capital Partners closed a $230 million continuation vehicle for its Southeast Asian K-12 school portfolio and ChrysCapital structured a $700 million Continuation Vehicle (CV) to retain its NSE stake, they weren’t signalling market dysfunction. They were engineering liquidity through mechanisms that preserve carry whilst addressing LP capital constraints.

Private equity portfolios across Southeast Asia hold $95 billion in unrealised value as traditional exit channels remain constricted. Yet between 2023 and 2024, the region witnessed $12 billion in General Partner (GP)-led secondary transactions, $8 billion migrating to continuation funds and $18 billion in strategic M&A exits. Understanding why these new channels emerged requires examining the capital now trapped in aging portfolios.

The Exit Overhang: Why $95 Billion Remains Trapped

Southeast Asia’s private equity assets under management reached $180 billion in 2024, with $95 billion in unrealised portfolio value – companies acquired between 2018 and 2022 that remain unsold as market conditions shifted, according to Bain & Company and Preqin data.

The pressure is structural. Limited Partners (LPs) facing capital calls whilst distributions lag historical norms are scrutinising GPs’ exit capabilities. Fund lifecycles approaching years 8-10 threaten GP economics and future fundraising. Portfolio companies acquired at 8-10x EBITDA now justify 10-12x EBITDA valuations through operational improvements. Yet, traditional exits remain blocked. Southeast Asian IPO activity sits 45% below 2021 levels, whilst strategic buyers have grown selective.

This mismatch between portfolio maturity and exit availability created demand for alternative liquidity mechanisms. GP-led secondaries emerged as the solution.

GP-Led Secondaries: From Distressed Tool to Strategic Exit

Asia-Pacific GP-led secondary transactions reached $35 billion in 2024, with Southeast Asia accounting for $12 billion, according to Evercore, Lazard and Campbell Lutyens data. Single-asset continuation vehicles accounted for $36 billion globally, nearly doubling from the prior year. What began as emergency liquidity mechanisms has evolved into deliberate portfolio management.

The commercial logic is compelling. A sponsor holding a Southeast Asian fintech platform acquired in 2019 at 9x EBITDA, now valued at 15x EBITDA with paths to 18-20x through regional expansion, faces constrained options. A strategic sale at 12-13x leaves upside on the table. An IPO remains uncertain. A continuation vehicle solves both: existing LPs receive immediate liquidity at fair value whilst the sponsor retains the asset with fresh capital to pursue full value creation.

Transaction structures have matured. Early Asian GP-led deals cleaned up legacy portfolios at steep discounts. Current transactions target “trophy” assets – market leaders with defendable positions. Pricing reflects this shift: transaction-weighted average discounts narrowed to 13.3% in H1 2025, with mega buyout funds trading at 9% discounts.

The most sophisticated form – ⁠the continuation vehicle – addresses the fundamental mismatch between fund duration and Southeast Asian value creation timelines.

Continuation Funds: Extending Duration Without Sacrificing Returns

Between 2023 and 2024, $8 billion in Southeast Asian PE assets transferred to continuation vehicles, according to Evercore, Campbell Lutyens and PJT Partners data. These are deliberate portfolio management tools aligning GP and LP incentives around long-term value creation whilst providing immediate liquidity.

Traditional PE funds operate on 10-year cycles. Southeast Asian companies often require longer; regulatory approvals take 18-24 months, market consolidation plays out over 5-7 years. Continuation vehicles provide this duration without violating fund mandates or forcing value-destroying premature sales.

A healthcare platform spanning Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, acquired in 2020 at $300 million, now generates $50 million EBITDA with paths to $100 million EBITDA through M&A rollup. A traditional exit at 10x yields $500 million. A continuation vehicle allows the sponsor to provide existing LPs immediate liquidity whilst pursuing higher EBITDA targets with fresh capital, potentially exiting at 11-12x in 2027-2028.

LP participation remains modest – approximately 10% roll into CVs, according to Campbell Lutyens data, creating opportunities for secondary buyers comfortable with concentrated positions.

Whilst GP-led secondaries provide sophisticated liquidity engineering, traditional strategic M&A remains the most reliable exit mechanism for sponsors seeking complete, certain exits.

Strategic M&A: Japanese, Korean and Chinese Buyers Create Liquidity

Strategic M&A exits totalled $18 billion in 2024, demonstrating that corporate acquirers still provide the clearest path to complete liquidity, according to Refinitiv and Mergermarket data. The buyer universe segments into three groups pursuing different strategic rationales.

Japanese corporates – ⁠trading houses (Mitsubishi, Mitsui) and industrials (Hitachi, Panasonic) – view PE-backed companies as regional expansion vehicles, targeting logistics platforms, renewable energy developers and B2B software. Korean chaebols (Samsung, LG, SK Group) focus on semiconductor supply chain companies and battery material processors to secure manufacturing capacity. Chinese buyers (Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance) target digital economy assets, though regulatory scrutiny around data sovereignty has narrowed opportunities.

Strategic buyers consistently pay 10-12x EBITDA for market-leading assets with clear synergies. Second-tier assets command 7-9x. The challenge isn’t pricing. It’s timing and certainty. M&A processes consume 6-12 months and face collapse risk. Sophisticated GPs run dual-track processes – negotiating strategic sales whilst preparing continuation vehicles as backstop options.

This exit activity functions efficiently because of infrastructure Singapore has deliberately constructed.

Singapore’s Infrastructure: Asia’s Secondary Market Hub

Singapore’s emergence as the regional hub reflects deliberate policy. The Variable Capital Company (VCC) structure provides flexibility unavailable elsewhere; umbrella structures with segregated sub-funds, tax transparency and simplified reorganisations critical for continuation vehicles. Leading secondaries houses – Coller Capital, Ares, Apollo – established Singapore offices to leverage this.

Secondary advisory capabilities matured in parallel. PJT Park Hill, Evercore, Jefferies and Morgan Stanley built dedicated Asia GP-led teams over 2023-2024, primarily in Singapore. This provides sophisticated advisory support – structuring CVs, negotiating LP terms, sourcing buyers – previously available only in London or New York. Southeast Asian GP-led deals now close in 4-6 months versus 9-12 months historically.

With infrastructure operational, sponsors face the practical question: which exit strategy matches which portfolio asset?

Decision Framework: Matching Exit Strategy to Portfolio Position

For Sponsors with Trophy Assets (Market Leaders, High Growth)

Continuation vehicles offer optimal economics. Assets valued at 12-15x EBITDA with credible plans to reach 15-18x justify extended hold periods. Target candidates: fintech platforms with 40%+ market share, healthcare rollups approaching consolidation end-states, logistics networks expanding into underserved geographies. Valuations typically command 8-10% discounts to NAV.

For Sponsors Seeking Immediate Liquidity (Fund Approaching End-of-Life)

Strategic M&A provides certainty. Japanese corporates, Korean chaebols and Chinese buyers consistently pay 10-12x EBITDA for quality assets with identifiable synergies. The process consumes 6-12 months but delivers complete exits. Critical success factors: quantifiable synergies, clean regulatory profiles, and management teams willing to integrate. Dual-track processes maximise optionality.

For Sponsors with Mid-Tier Assets (Solid But Not Trophy)

LP-led secondaries create portfolio liquidity. Rather than selling companies directly, sponsors facilitate LP portfolio sales at 85%-90% NAV, providing investors exits whilst retaining GP upside. Transaction volumes reached $121.5 billion globally in 2025, according to Jefferies data. This works particularly well for diversified portfolios where 2-3 assets drive most value but smaller positions create drag.

Looking Forward: Secondaries as Permanent Infrastructure

Global secondary transaction volume reached $225 billion in 2025, up 45% from 2024, according to Campbell Lutyens. This is permanent infrastructure addressing the mismatch between PE fund durations and value creation timelines.

Three catalysts will drive Southeast Asian secondary growth through 2026-2028: 2020-2022 vintage funds reaching years 3-5 (the optimal CV window), persistent LP capital constraints despite ongoing calls for new funds and strategic buyers increasingly viewing PE-backed companies as viable acquisition targets.

The critical question for Southeast Asian GPs isn’t whether secondary markets create liquidity – the $12 billion in GP-led transactions and $8 billion in continuation funds demonstrate this. The question is whether sponsors engineer portfolios with secondary optionality from acquisition, structure governance to support eventual CVs and build relationships with buyers capable of executing complex transactions.

The $95 billion in unrealised Southeast Asian PE value won’t monetise through IPOs alone. It will exit through strategic M&A for certain liquidity, GP-led secondaries for value preservation, and continuation vehicles for duration extension; engineered by sponsors who recognise that exit optionality now determines IRR outcomes as much as operational value creation.

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Risk-Adjusted ROI Framework for 2026-2028

When Samsung, Nike and BYD shifted production lines from Guangdong to Southeast Asia, they weren’t chasing headlines. They were recalculating weighted-average cost of capital against a backdrop of US tariffs, export controls and geopolitical turbulence. The calculus has changed.

McKinsey calculates that diversifying into the region can unlock billions in resilient capacity. Yet the decision matrix facing CEOs evaluating Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines isn’t simply about finding the lowest hourly wage. It’s about engineering a risk-return profile that survives both two-year opportunistic plays and seven-year patient capital strategies.

The Shifting Economics of Asian Manufacturing

Manufacturing’s centre of gravity is moving but not moving away from China entirely. Rather than wholesale exits, leading multinationals are pursuing what industry insiders call the “China Plus One” model – maintaining sophisticated production in Shenzhen whilst building parallel capacity across Southeast Asia.

Recent McKinsey analysis tracking trade flows shows Vietnam’s imports from China doubled between 2017 and 2023 – an additional $50 billion – whilst its exports to the United States jumped $60 billion over the same period. This isn’t substitution; it’s integration.

Country-by-Country Analysis: Five Distinct Propositions

Vietnam: The Labour Arbitrage with Logistics Friction

The numbers explain Vietnam’s magnetic pull. Updated 2025 data shows factory workers in manufacturing earning between 7.7 million and 8.4 million VND monthly (US$294-US$321) – roughly 40%-50% less than China. Manufacturing grew 10.5% in the first 10 months of 2025, contributing 8.5 percentage points to overall economic expansion. Vietnam attracted substantial electronics investment, with manufacturing accounting for over 20% of GDP.

Yet cost advantages carry operational trade-offs. Supplier networks remain relatively shallow compared to China’s decades-old clusters. McKinsey’s research notes that whilst Vietnam excels at final assembly, complex component sourcing still often requires Chinese inputs, adding logistics complexity and lead times.

Thailand: The Reliability Premium

Thailand trades lower wages for higher predictability. Established automotive and electronics ecosystems mean Tier 1 suppliers sit within the same industrial corridor as assembly plants. The Eastern Economic Corridor offers eight-year corporate tax holidays for EV and smart electronics projects, plus co-funded R&D centres.

The Board of Investment reported investment applications nearly doubled in the first nine months of 2025, reaching 1.37 trillion baht (US$42.2 billion) across 2,622 projects. The digital sector alone attracted 119 projects worth 612.8 billion baht, whilst electronics and electrical manufacturing drew 382 projects valued at 184.1 billion baht. Labour costs run higher—manufacturing wages average 14,530 baht monthly (approximately US$424)—but productivity and automation integration often offset the premium.

Malaysia: Infrastructure Excellence at a Price

Dezan Shira & Associates’ 2026 Asia Manufacturing Index ranks Malaysia second overall amongst 11 Asian economies, with infrastructure scoring highest. Port Klang and Tanjung Pelepas offer world-class logistics, whilst utilities reliability and telecommunications surpass most regional peers.

The National Semiconductor Strategy targets MYR 500 billion (US$118 billion) in cumulative investment, with MYR 25 billion in public support. The Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone offers a 5% corporate tax rate for qualifying activities for up to 15 years. Manufacturing wages average 3,492 MYR monthly (approximately US$760), reflecting a quality premium over Vietnam and Philippines, though this comes alongside higher base labour costs and a more selective investment approval process.

Indonesia: Market Scale with Regulatory Complexity

Indonesia’s 280 million population makes it ASEAN’s largest domestic market, attracting investment focused on local consumption rather than export processing. Foreign direct investment reached IDR 900.2 trillion (approximately US$55 billion) in 2024, with basic metal industries – particularly nickel smelting – drawing IDR 153.2 trillion and EV battery projects attracting IDR 8.4 trillion.

The Omnibus Law streamlined business licensing, yet coordination between central and provincial governments remains uneven. An OECD analysis identifies regulatory fragmentation and infrastructure gaps – particularly beyond Java – as persistent challenges. Manufacturing wages average 3.27 million IDR monthly (approximately US$200), making it cost-competitive for domestic market-oriented production.

The Philippines: Digital Services with Infrastructure Constraints

Whilst manufacturing growth has been modest, the Philippines has carved a niche in electronics and digital services. Electronics exports reached US$3.68 billion in January 2025, with Texas Instruments, Analog Devices and NXP Semiconductors maintaining operations leveraging the country’s English-proficient, technically skilled workforce.

The “Build Better More” programme allocated $26 billion to infrastructure in 2025 – over 5% of GDP – yet transportation bottlenecks remain acute outside Metro Manila. Factory wages average PHP 233,594 annually (approximately PHP 19,500 monthly or US$342), competitive for electronics assembly and business process operations.

Decision Framework: Matching Strategy to Timeline

The choice isn’t binary. Leading manufacturers now operate on a “China Plus Vietnam” or “China Plus Thailand” model, using Chinese suppliers for complex components whilst leveraging ASEAN for labour-intensive assembly and tariff mitigation.

For Opportunistic Capital (2-3 Year Horizon):

Vietnam and the Philippines offer rapid deployment for export-oriented, labour-intensive production. Existing industrial parks provide ready infrastructure, and governments fast-track approvals for projects exceeding $10 million. However, expect to invest heavily in supplier development and accept logistics friction.

For Patient Capital (5-7 Year Horizon):

Malaysia and Thailand provide stable regulatory environments and mature ecosystems suited to complex, high-value manufacturing. Indonesia offers unparalleled domestic market access for companies willing to navigate regulatory complexity. These markets reward long-term commitment with operational reliability and embedded supplier networks.

Looking Forward: The 2026-2028 Opportunity Window

Southeast Asia’s manufacturing trajectory points toward continued growth, supported by several converging factors that create genuine opportunity rather than mere speculation.

First, infrastructure improvements are accelerating. Thailand’s Laem Chabang expansion, Malaysia’s semiconductor corridors and Vietnam’s Long Thành Airport (opening 2026) will materially reduce logistics friction. Second, FTA networks – CPTPP, EVFTA, RCEP – provide manufacturers with duty-free access to markets representing billions of consumers.

Third, the region’s demographic dividend remains compelling. Whilst China ages rapidly, ASEAN’s workforce continues expanding with increasingly sophisticated technical skills. Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam are investing heavily in vocational training tailored to advanced manufacturing.

Most importantly, governments across the region are learning from each other’s regulatory successes. Malaysia’s streamlined approvals, Thailand’s EEC model and Vietnam’s industrial park infrastructure are being studied and adapted regionwide. This competitive dynamic amongst ASEAN members creates pressure to maintain investor-friendly environments.

The window for advantageous positioning is now. Early movers establishing supplier relationships, training local workforces, and securing industrial land will command structural advantages as competition for prime locations intensifies. The question isn’t whether to engage with Southeast Asian manufacturing – it’s how quickly you can execute a well-calibrated strategy that matches your risk appetite to the right market configuration.

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