Welcome to the Litigation Capital Management full year 2022 results webinar. All attendees are in listen only mode, and at the end of the presentation, there will be the opportunity to ask questions. At any stage, please type your question by clicking on the Q&A button. This webinar is being recorded. I now hand over to Patrick Moloney, CEO, and Mary Gangemi, CFO. Patrick, over to you.
Good morning. This is Litigation Capital Management's full year results for the financial year ending 30 June 2022. Starting with a quick introduction to myself and Mary, the CFO. For those investors who don't know me, I have been involved with LCM for 20 years now. My first involvement was as a private investor, and then I got a position on the board as a non-exec, and in 2013 came over to manage the business on a full-time basis, as CEO. I'll just get Mary to introduce herself briefly before we go into the presentation.
Yes. Hi, my name is Mary, and I'm the CFO. I have been working in financial services and most recently, as well, asset and wealth management. I have a CPA and I am a qualified accountant.
Just moving into the highlights for this financial period. Two things that I'd like to focus upon here, and those are, first of all, the growth in our asset management business as LCM transitions to a new business model. Secondly, the financial performance, which is really strong, given that it was a period of disruption for us. Starting then with the funds management, as most investors will know, LCM and its business model is in a state of transition. We are moving from a business model which originally involved us investing permanent capital from LCM's balance sheet into dispute investments to an asset management or a funds management model. We're kind of midway in a point of transition between the two.
If we think about when we commenced that asset management or that funds management business, it was in March 2020. We started that business with a fund of $150 million. We committed that fund entirely within a 24-month period, and we finally committed that during the last financial period. We then moved or transitioned across into our second fund, targeting $300 million this time. We are over 2/3. We've placed over 2/3 of that $300 million fund, and we have an expectation that we will close that finally before the end of the calendar year. We've made tremendous progress during this last financial period with respect to building out that funds management business.
Turning to LCM's profitability, on a consolidated basis, we were up 23%, on the year prior, and on a standalone basis of LCM, we're up 27%, on the previous year. A really strong financial performance during a period which was still marred with considerable disruption. What I mean by that is was at least six months of the last financial period where most of the regions in which we operated were subjected to lockdowns for extended periods of time, and in particular, our Asian office in Singapore was in lockdown for that entire six-month period. Moving next to commitments as being one of the focuses we have in terms of measuring our growth.
They were consistent with the prior year at AUD 104 million, notwithstanding the fact that we had a decrease in the number of applications that we've received. Now, that's been important for a couple of reasons. The first of all, it demonstrates that what we are doing is attracting a better quality of application now. Secondly, that we're moving into a market with a larger capital base where we can invest in larger disputes. It's those two dynamics which enabled us to have consistent commitments year on year, notwithstanding a slight decrease in applications. The decrease in applications was really as a consequence of those lockdown periods. Moving next to overall assets under management.
Commitments by the end of the financial year were at AUD 414 million, and really encouragingly, in the first two months of this current financial year, we've increased assets under management to AUD 452 million. What that's really showing is that we are moving into a market where the demand for our capital is increasing, and I'll talk to that in a bit more detail as we move through this presentation. In terms of capital investment, that was at AUD 66 million compared to AUD 88 million the prior year. Now, that is a reflection of us changing our business model.
We are going from a business model which involved LCM investing only its balance sheet capital to a co-investment model together with our asset management business. The reduction in terms of the capital invested over the period is entirely in line with what our expectations are. Consistent performance. A really important metric for us is our ability to continue to perform at a really high level in terms of investment returns as we build the scale of this business. This is something that we track closely, and we're really, really disciplined about the way that we underwrite the risk associated with these investments, and that is directly reflective of the investment performance.
At the 11-year mark, we are generating an internal rate of return of 79% across every single investment which is completed in that 11-year period. A return on invested capital, which has increased from the 10-year mark to 163%. Those figures are all inclusive of losses during that period. Really, really strong and buoyant metrics have been generated by the strategy that we've implemented. Finally, market conditions. Now, as we move out of the disruption consequent upon COVID, we move into a market of high inflation. We're moving into a market where central banks globally are increasing interest rates in an effort to bring inflation under control. We've got spikes and significant increases in energy prices. We've got disruption across many market verticals. We've got geopolitical risk.
In some markets, we've got a real risk of recession. When you have those market conditions and that sort of uncertainty present in a market, it increases the demand for our capital. What it does is people who are managing their own disputes have a greater tendency to want to look to manage the risk associated with that and introduce an external source of capital. Market conditions are very conducive to LCM's growth. Just moving on to building the scale of LCM's business and the KPIs that we set for ourselves in terms of measuring that. As I mentioned in the previous slide, application numbers were slightly down, but really encouragingly, the capital committed during the period was commensurate with the prior year.
Capital invested down, but entirely consistent with what our expectations are in moving from direct investments where LCM's balance sheet bears 100% of the capital commitment across to a co-investment model together with our funds management or asset management business. Maintenance of our investment standards, really important if we are to continue to grow our asset management business, is to be able to perform not only at a high level, but on a consistent basis. At the 11-year mark, we are still performing with very similar metrics and performance metrics to what we were, you know, five and 10 years ago. Finally, increase in assets under management, as at the end of the financial period, up to AUD 414 billion.
Within the first two months of this current financial period, they've increased to AUD 452 million. Really, really encouraging growth in terms of overall assets under management. I next move to our financial reporting, and I'll hand over to Mary.
Thank you, Patrick. If we turn our attention to the performance of LCM, on a standalone basis, we are pleased to have delivered improved underlying performance with gross revenue from the resolution of investments increasing by 30% to AUD 47.2 million. That demonstrates year-on-year growth, despite the fact that we did have a delay in two matters which we had previously announced. Strong numbers there, which led to gross profit also improving by 18% to AUD 30.9 million versus the prior year. Adjusted profit before tax, it was AUD 20 million, up 27% on the prior year, with statutory profit before tax broadly in line with the prior year. Now, also being mindful of the fact that statutory profit before tax is after investment costs, interest costs of AUD 4.4 million.
Taking that into consideration, the company did perform quite well for the year. That capital facility, of course, is in place to ensure that we're in a position to continue investing in the portfolio for future periods. Cash at the year-end was AUD 29.3 million, down marginally on the prior year, 17%. Bearing in mind that we did have some resolutions which came through, towards the end of last year, and there is often a delay between the point at which that resolution does come through and the point which we receive cash, that's being held in solicitors' trust accounts or being held by the courts. That's led to that cash position being lower than expected. Investments at cost increased by 14% to AUD 101 million.
We do expect that on a standalone basis, this will stabilize over time as we transition to a co-investment model under our asset management business, transitioning from that 100% direct investment model where we basically supply all the capital for the entire investment to a 25% co-investment model alongside our third-party investors. Total capital invested was AUD 28.9 million at the year-end. Again, the same goes for that. We do expect that to stabilize over time. Capital invested is also representative of the cash flows that are deployed on the matters, but it really does depend on the stage that that particular investment is at, so it can fluctuate from time to time. Moving on to the next slide. We have touched on some of these points in the earlier slides.
As mentioned earlier, cash generation reflects the realizations during the year. However, we did experience a timing delay just purely because of the fact that some of those resolutions did come through towards the end of the period. Cash at the end of the year stood at AUD 29.3, but it still places us in a very strong position to continue to invest. We expect to see an increase in organic cash generation flowing through this year. As we've mentioned previously and as Patrick will touch upon in future slides, we do have a very mature portfolio of 100% direct investments, which we expect to crystallize in the short to medium term, and that will generate organic cash for further investment.
Cash is showing growth of borrowings, but there is further detail provided in the appendices on the balance sheet. Just turning our attention to the cash flow waterfall. As with previous years, the waterfall emphasizes that our working capital is predominantly centered around the deployment of capital and cash receipts from the resolution of matters. These are the two fundamental activities of our business, being capital deployed and those resolutions. Expenses remain broadly in line with the prior year, which is an indication of our disciplined cost management. Our cash position at the end of the year enables us to facilitate future growth and continue to invest in our growing portfolio of assets. I will hand you back to Patrick.
Just in terms of looking at the various portfolios of dispute investments that we manage, the first one is direct investments, and this is investing LCM's direct balance sheet capital into dispute investments globally. Now, what we see there is AUD 103 million worth of direct investments, where LCM is responsible for 100% of that capital commitment, as against AUD 90 million of co-investments. Now over a period of time and into the near future, we should see that the majority of LCM's direct investments will fit into that category of co-investments, together with our asset management or funds management business. We should see that increase and the 100% direct investments start to tail off, which is in rundown.
If you think about that from a risk perspective, for every dollar of balance sheet capital that we invest through utilizing the co-investment mechanism, we're defraying risk. For every dollar invested, it's invested across a much wider portfolio of disputed investments through that co-investment mechanism, as opposed to what it would be if we were investing 100% of the capital commitment from balance sheet capital. As we always talk about when building a portfolio of direct investments, we ensure that that portfolio is not as tainted with concentration risk with respect to one single type of investment, that it's diversified across industry sector and across jurisdiction. You see that right across both our direct investments and our our asset management portfolios as well.
If we concentrate on the immediate right-hand side pie chart there, you'll see a couple of investments there which on their face look like they're disproportionately large compared to the balance. That is simply a reflection of the fact that we are running off our 100% capital commitment investment portfolio and moving into a co-investment portfolio. Now moving forward to fund number one. Fund number one, as you've heard, was fully committed during this last financial period, and we've now moved into commitments in respect of Fund II. This portfolio is traveling and is being built in exactly the way that we would expect, diversified across industry sector and jurisdiction, and not suffering, as I say, with concentration risk.
Now, the way that these both Fund I and Fund II are structured is that we have a period of 24 months to commit that fund into dispute investments globally. Then we have another four years thereafter for those investments to run through to a conclusion. Fund I is probably constructed in precisely the way that we would expect that we will commit Fund II, perhaps with one exception, which is the percentage of insolvency related disputes is probably going to increase as a consequence of the economic circumstances that we see present in the market. Then finally, sort of moving on to where we're at in respect of Fund II. In terms of commitments, early stage.
In terms of actually placing investors into Fund II, we are well above the 2/3 mark in terms of attracting investors into that fund. We have advanced discussions ongoing with a number of pension funds, which we expect will take up the balance of that capacity, we expect by the end of this calendar year. As most investors would be aware, we've been very particular about the style of investor that we have been permitted or allowed to invest in our funds management business, simply because we want those investors to come on the journey with us and participate in Fund III and IV and V.
Many of those investors who've done the work and the due diligence on LCM prior to investing have actually entrenched rights in respect of future funds, which is really, really important for us in terms of having an enduring source of capital to build out that asset management business. Now, if we look at fund two, we're only four investments into that. One might look at that and say, "Look, it might be sort of slightly heavily tilted towards class actions at this point in time." What's important to remember is, first of all, it's very early stages with four investments into an investment portfolio, which will probably comprise somewhere in the order of 45-50 investments by the time we close it.
Secondly, those class actions that we do have in fund two to date are in different jurisdictions. you know, in Australia and in the U.K., so entirely different profile in respect of those class actions. Early stages of fund two, we're somewhere between 16% and 17% committed, but very early in that cycle. Just moving on from there, we have endeavored to provide investors with a bit more sort of granular detail around what our direct investment portfolio looks like and when we might expect to see some commitments. A starting point to really think about that is historically, how long, what is the life of these investments and what has it been historically, which gives us some guidance as to what we might expect to experience going forward.
Now, over the last 11 years, the average time to completion of these investments has been 27 months. If you look then at the median time to resolution, it's 24 months. If you look at sort of the metrics that sit around that, you can see that there's kind of a tight band across the bottom of that graph, but then you've got some outliers there, which is entirely abnormal and consistent with the profile of these as an investment. What we've said to the market for the last sort of couple of years is that investors should expect that the investments that we are entering into now and perhaps have done over the last couple of years will probably take longer to mature than what they have historically.
That we have given some guidance and suggested that we expect the current investments to probably take somewhere between 36-42 months to mature. There's two particular reasons for that. The first one is that any investment which we have entered into within the sort of a period of about 18 months prior to COVID, ranging through to probably any investment that we enter into up until the end of this calendar year, will be affected as a consequence of delays occasioned by COVID. At its most basic level, you had periods in which the court system was simply shut down at different intervals during that two-year period, where globally we're affected by COVID. That occurred not only through the court system but the arbitral process. That will cause delays, and that will elongate the time.
The second dynamic, which will have a tendency to increase the life of these investments is the fact that we are now moving into a part of the market which has not been available to us, historically, which is larger disputes. While LCM has always had the skill set to be able to underwrite the risk and undertake a really rigorous, due diligence process associated with those, because of the size of the capital pool that we've been managing, those larger disputes have represented concentration risks. They've been beyond our reach in terms of the investment profile. Now that we're managing larger pools of capital, we've been able to move into that part of the market which has been unavailable to us.
If you think about that in a really practical way, the difference between a dispute where the amount which is being fought about is perhaps AUD 50 million, when you're going into AUD 500 million, AUD 600 million,AUD 700 million, people tend to fight longer and harder about larger sums of money. That will also contribute towards the elongation of these investments moving forward. Importantly, the way we structure these investments between us and the funded party contractually is a rising multiple over time or a rising percentage over time. Therefore, time risk is really borne by the litigant as opposed to the litigation financier. What we're seeing is, you know, probably better return metrics in respect of some of these investments which go longer than the average 27 months to this point. Just moving on to the next slide.
This is really trying to give investors a bit of a better insight into what our portfolio looks like in terms of maturity and secondly, how much of the capital we have invested in those particular vintages or to that point in time. That will allow investors really to make their own assessment by using our historic performance metrics as to what they might expect us to have in terms of revenue events in the next financial period and sort of moving slightly beyond that.
What we've endeavored to do here with this slide is give an insight into what the profile of those very mature investments look like, and then you can sort of couple that together with the time to completion data on the previous slide and make some of your own assessments as to, you know, the types of liquidity events that we are going to experience in the immediate future. Moving forward from there. This is showing our performance metrics broken down into three-year cycles. We've talked about an 11-year track record in terms of performance with an IRR of 79% and a return on invested capital of 163%. This is breaking it down into three-year rolling cycles.
The reason we've picked three years is because we expect these investments probably to take three years, 36 months to 42 months moving forward. What you can see there is LCM's been very consistent in terms of the metrics that it's been able to generate over that period. Indeed, those metrics have increased in the last three-year rolling period. Now, that is a direct reflection of some of the dynamics that I spoke about in terms of the quality of some of these larger investments that we have had crystallize in the last sort of, you know, couple of year periods. That really gives investors a better insight into what this looks like in terms of performance on a three-year rolling cycle.
This is LCM's business fundamentals in terms of building growth and scale into this business. There's really three essential elements to a successful litigation finance business, whether it be LCM's business or whether it be any of our competitors' business. Those three elements are absolutely fundamental to the success of the business. The first one is being able to underwrite the risk or undertake a really rigorous due diligence process to work out whether a particular dispute is a good investment or something that we really should pass upon. Now, LCM is fortunate to have been in this business since its very inception. We're a pioneer in the litigation funding industry.
We have experience that goes right back to 24 years to draw upon in terms of developing and enhancing that underwriting skill that we possess. Now, if we think about the return metrics, which we've just described in this presentation, they are really a direct reflection of our ability to underwrite the risk of these investments, which at its essence is taking a given set of facts, applying the law to that, and predicting the outcome. Now, this is a skill set that really can't be acquired or purchased in an industry which is very young. So this is something you really need to build up over a period of time through bitter experience. Our track record suggests that, you know, we are very good at that.
The systems and the methodologies that we have developed over those years really do work, and they do really enhance our performance. We'll only get better at that over time. In terms of the underwriting skill set, we've acquired that and will only get better. The second essential element is having a proper and large enough source of capital to be able to really put those underwriting skills to work. As we've spoken about previously, it's very important to build a large portfolio of dispute investments, which is not attended with concentration risk, which has got diversity. The only way you can do that is to have you know larger sources of capital. If we think about what LCM has achieved in about the last sort of three and a half years, it's really to diversify that capital structure.
We've gone from a business model which relied upon LCM investing purely its balance sheet capital into a situation where we reap the benefits of a small and conservative amount of leverage, and then into in 2020 the establishment of our asset management or our funds management business. That's been a really significant turning point in the evolution of LCM's business and given us access to sufficient capital so that we can build scale and that we can build larger portfolios which are not attended with concentration risk. If you just think about those first two key fundamentals to the business, the underwriting capacity and the capital capacity, they've got to be achieved in that order.
You're not gonna attract the types of quality investors that we've got in our asset management business unless you can demonstrate a really strong track record. Moving forward to the final element, essential element of a successful litigation finance business, it's the ability to originate or get access to the best quality disputes globally so that you can really put the capital to work and utilize that underwriting skill that we've developed over a period of time. Now, LCM has always been very, very good at the origination component, but we are in the process now of really enhancing and developing our global platform in respect of origination, so that as we build our asset management business and get access to greater and greater sums of capital, we can feed that with really top quality disputes globally for the purposes of investment.
That's where we sit in our current profile or the evolution of this business, is really building out and systemizing that origination function of the business. The next slide really provides a snapshot of the ability to compound the returns which LCM has the capacity to generate. The business model that we have and the performance metrics that we have been able to generate over an enduring period really have a tremendous ability to generate organic capital very quickly.
What this slide does is it demonstrates two things, both the compounding effect of reinvesting that organically generated capital together with the introduction of third-party capital through the asset management business, and for illustrative purposes, really demonstrates, you know, what this business model has the capacity to generate over a short period of time. We're obviously into that journey now, and we're building the asset management business, you know, strongly and quickly, and we're still maintaining the performance of those investments. This is not really designed as a forecasting mechanism and giving forward forecasting to investors on LCM's performance in future years. It's really illustrative of what we think this business has the capacity to generate if you keep reinvesting the capital that we've already got available to us.
The next thing I wanna move forward to is really giving you a bit of a more of a granular snapshot as to where we're at in terms of investments. If we look at the last financial period, we had six direct investments complete during the period, generating AUD 47.2 million gross. Including a class action and an arbitral award from the London Court of International Arbitration. Really sort of strong and buoyant returns generated from those resolutions during the financial period. In addition to that, we had four direct investments which were heard during the period, and we're waiting judgments or awards. Now, historically, those awards or judgments get delivered any time from sort of threee to six months beyond the completion of that hearing.
You can see, you know, with some granular particularity that we are expecting resolutions pretty much at any time in respect of those four disputes. Moving now to the asset management business in respect of Fund I, that fund has been committed across 26 separate investments, one of which resolved in a prior period, very early. Two investments in Fund I have had their final hearings and are awaiting judgments or awards, and six further investments have final hearing dates scheduled within the next six months. This is, again, more granular detail around the maturity of the investment portfolios, both direct and in respect to Fund I. Just turning to Fund II, obviously very early stage. We have four committed investments into Fund II.
We have a series of other investments which are expected to go in imminently, we're somewhere between 16% and 17% committed in respect to that fund, so off to a really, really strong start. Now just turning to outlook. The first thing to observe in terms of outlook, and this is kind of really topical and important in terms of the current economic circumstances faced in mature markets across the world, is that investing in disputes generates uncorrelated returns. What I mean by that is they're not otherwise, the returns in respect to these investments are not otherwise affected by what's going on in other markets or politically or with geopolitical risk or what have you. If you think of this at its most basic level, you.
Disputes that we invest in either get resolved through a commercial negotiation between the parties. Alternatively, an award or a judgment is imposed upon the parties by a judge or an arbitrator. Now, that judge or arbitrator does not apply different legal principles towards the resolution of the dispute because you have a conservative government in power or a Labor government in power, or because whether there's geopolitical risk somewhere in Europe, or whether we are moving into a recessionary cycle, or whether we're in a buoyant cycle, or whether energy prices are up or down. We are very much in an uncorrelated investment class, which is really important in the current economic circumstances. Secondly, litigation finance, and in particular LCM's business, tends to operate very buoyantly in a countercyclical way to the markets more widely.
I touched upon this, in the snapshot in the opening, but you know, we have come out of a really disrupted period of COVID. We've come out of that period with incredibly high inflation across most global markets. We've got central banks increasing interest rates in an effort to sort of bring inflation under control. You've got energy prices fluctuating and increasing really significantly. You've got absolute disruption to a number of verticals across economies. If one just thinks about food production, right from, you know, diesel and energy prices, right through to the availability of fertilizer, through to the availability of labor, through to distribution, through logistics, right through to available markets. You can see just through that one vertical, there's more disruption than we've seen probably in the last hundred years in respect of uncertainty.
You look at geopolitical risk and the consequences, which I don't think the markets yet fully understand from the war in the Ukraine. All of these things add to uncertainty in the markets more generally. In uncertain markets which are dominated by volatility, what you tend to see across the entire spectrum of opportunities that we see is a much greater demand for our capital. In other words, if you're at one end of the spectrum, a large and sophisticated corporate user of litigation finance, in a market such as this, where you really cannot predict what's gonna happen in a month or six months or in a year, you're much more likely to want to manage the risk of litigation using a third-party source of capital and generally get assistance from that.
If you go right to the other end of the market, which is insolvency and restructuring, we are already seeing a significant increase in the number of applications we're seeing out of that market. That is a number of factors which are contributing to that. One is that there was a moratorium in all of the markets in which we operate, where insolvent companies weren't permitted to be wound up, during COVID. What we're seeing now is that restriction being relaxed, and we're seeing very increased numbers. In the United Kingdom, for example, you're at a sort of 45-year high in the number of voluntary liquidations of companies. You're seeing similar dynamics in other marketplaces.
If you just pause and think about LCM's history in this industry, because we were there at the very beginning of this industry, we have a significant amount of experience in insolvency and restructuring related disputes. Moving on. We're in a market where there's very low market penetration across the board. We're seeing an increased demand more generally, not even in circumstances of uncertainty. We've got growing markets globally. Really really favorable market dynamics for LCM and its business. Finally, sort of moving to outlook. Really three things that I wanna focus upon here on, in terms of the outlook, and the first one is a very mature portfolio of high-yielding investments.
Those most mature investments are ones where LCM has funded 100% of the capital commitment from its balance sheet, and therefore we and through LCM, its equity investors will enjoy all the economic upside in respect of those investments. As they mature in the near future, that is going to grow LCM's balance sheet capital through organic capital generation. Secondly, I wanna focus upon our growing asset management or funds management business. If we think about once we close this second fund or fully commit this second fund with investors, we'll have generated business with, you know, $450 million under management in a period of just over sort of two years, two and a half years. A really significant achievement.
Really importantly, what that does is it gets us access to a significant pool of capital moving into the final point I wanna make is market conditions, which are very conducive to driving demand for LCM's capital. For all the reasons which I spoke about previously, coupled with the fact that LCM's experience lies in many of those areas, we have really conducive market conditions for growth. Just in closing, for those reasons, we're feeling incredibly positive about the year ahead and then sort of beyond.
Thank you, Patrick. We have lots of questions. I think we're going to run out of time because management have a call at 12:00 P.M. Can you talk more about the rationale behind the move away from direct investment in disputes to a co-investment model? Generally speaking, by taking the risk on your own balance sheet, you would expect to be able to book a higher percentage of profits arising than would fall to you under a co-investment model. Is this not the case?
Yes. That's certainly the case, but this sort of feeds into a number of concepts, which I think we need to focus upon, and the first one is building the scale of this business. Getting access to third-party pools of capital allows us to build the scale of this business really importantly. Secondly, through the co-investment model, it allows us to diversify risk. For every dollar of balance sheet capital that we would otherwise invest in a single dispute, we can defray that across a number of co-investments, thus reducing the risk. Thirdly, we can really leverage the use of an external source of capital, and using you know, our funds management business really to leverage the returns that we are generating for the benefit of equity investors, such that we have this.
We've struck this balance between a co-investment model, where 25% of every investment, we enjoy 100% of the economic upside, and then we get to leverage that through performance fees in respect of the balance. I think it's a combination of those factors which make it very desirable that we shift across towards a blend between investing LCM's balance sheet capital on a co-investment basis and developing an asset management business.
Thank you. Now, you state you have a right to jointly invest in the funds. Is this a right or an obligation? Surely, investors in the funds expect you to be a co-investor.
It's certainly both. It was born out of a desire by management to expose equity investors in LCM's balance sheet to some of the direct investment. It also gives our fund investors some comfort that LCM is prepared to co-invest and put some of its own capital to work alongside their fund. I think it's a combination of both of those factors, and it's striking a balance between enhancing returns on behalf of equity investors through direct investment and also building a portfolio of fund investments and asset management.
Thank you very much. Can you elaborate on why capital invested reduces as the business model changes?
Yeah. As we're not investing 100% of the capital commitment ourselves from balance sheet capital, and we're moving to a model whereby we're only investing a percentage of that, what we're seeing is a shift between a much larger capital commitment to a co-funding commitment. Naturally, what we'll see as we transition is a decrease in the capital commitments to our 100% investments and an increase in the amount of capital that we are doing on a co-funding basis. Now, over a period of time, that will balance itself out. During this transition period, what you're seeing is a very heavy demand for LCM's balance sheet capital, where we're funding 100% of the capital commitment across to a co-funding model.
Tremendous. Thank you very much. Do management have a view on what the crystallization of the directly funded matters is worth to LCM, if, say, they are all resolved in the next 12-18 months? For example, the AUD 103 million, if all resolved and mature in the next 12 months, would be worth a multiple of this to LCM in cash.
I think that the best indication that we can give, and the safest indication we can give, is to apply a historical metrics with respect to return on invested capital. Now, what that is that's drawing upon the performance, every single investment that we have made over the last 11 years, and you're crystallizing that. That is your best indication moving forward as to what those investments are likely to yield. So if you apply 163% as a return on invested capital, that gives you probably, you know, your best, and most accurate estimate of what those investments are likely to yield in the immediate future.
Thank you. With regards to the likely increase in time to completion of an investment, will this be mitigated to some extent by the increase in insolvency cases which have a shorter timeframe?
I think there's two answers to that. Certainly, if we see, as we expect, an increase in insolvency and restructuring related disputes globally, they do have a tendency to have a shorter duration than something like class action, or something like, an anti-competitive behavior, type dispute. So that dynamic will certainly be at play. But secondly, I think that we are seeing a fair bit of disruption coming out of the market generally as a consequence of COVID, and that will affect across the board, generally, these disputes. Now, one important thing to remember is the way we structure and contract with the funded party is an increased multiple invested capital over time, or an increased percentage of the outcome over time.
Through that mechanism, the time risk is generally borne by the funded party as opposed to the litigation financier. What we've seen, and if you look at the three-year running metric slide, we're seeing increased performance in the last three years. One of the dynamics in respect of that is the delay as a consequence of COVID, but also the larger investments. I don't think that, and certainly from a management perspective, we are not the least bit concerned about the fact that some of these investments may elongate over time, simply because we build in a structure and a pricing structure which probably accommodates that.
Thank you. With regard to the cases resolved late in full year 2022, has any cash been received in the first three months of the new financial year?
Not as yet. The way that a class action typically works in Australia is the money will be paid into court, and the court then goes through a process of approving the negotiated settlement, and our experience that takes sort of three to four months with respect to that process. That's our expectation is that the money will start to flow during that period. We have absolute confidence in respect of recovery, in respect of these, not only because of the counterparty that we are dealing with, but also we get significant comfort by the fact that the funds are held by the court.
Thank you. With the co-investment model, how do the IRR and ROC metrics change?
We're not expecting the metrics to change at all. The way the co-investment arrangement works is of the 25% capital commitment, which is a direct investment from balance sheet, LCM enjoys the full economic upside in respect of that. In respect to that 25%, whatever the performance metrics are, LCM automatically receives 25% of that, reflective of its 25% direct co-investment. In respect to the other 75%, we enjoy performance fees, which I think, as investors will know, are 25% of the profit up to an IRR of 20%, and then an outperformance of 35% thereafter.
Thank you. Who pays you when you win, and what are the risks of non-payment?
Starting with the risks of non-payment, this is something that we look long and hard at, and it's part of the really sort of rigorous due diligence exercise that we undertake before we enter into an investment. Many investors will know that unless we can see a clear pathway to recovery, we simply will not embark upon an investment. What that tends to do is in an insolvency situation, for example, it'll tend to drive us towards investments which are backed by an insurance policy, whether it be directors and officers or professional indemnity. That sort of feeds probably into the first part of the question, who pays you? In circumstances where there's an insurance company sitting behind the defendant or the respondent to the litigation, it'll be the insurance company.
Alternatively, it'll be the defendant or respondent themselves, and we will have made the assessment with respect to recoverability before we enter into the investment, and we'll monitor that through the life of the investment.
Thank you. Does your slide on the potential returns through compound investment imply that you'll not return cash to ordinary shareholders?
It shouldn't imply that at all. It's really just illustrative of the fact that this business, because of the capacity to generate organic capital, can build in scale from a capital perspective very quickly. Now, when we think as a company about dividends, we are highly motivated to put ourselves in a situation where we can start paying dividends to investors and utilizing a third party capital through our asset management business as that develops, is one way that we're positioning ourselves such that the board can responsibly declare dividends and return capital to investors. It's very much part of our strategy in thinking in terms of asset management and funds management.
Thank you. I noted the Australian government proposal to exempt class action funders from the AFSL license requirements and from managed investment scheme requirements. What's your opinion on the impact to LCM?
There won't be an impact on LCM. In respect to that, we were very active in the class action space in Australia prior to regulation. We anticipated regulation. We had an Australian Financial Services Licence in place before the regulation was brought in. We made ourselves compliant in terms of managed investment schemes very quickly. The managed investment scheme, part of that regulation was cumbersome, not really fit for purpose and a significant administrative burden. Nonetheless, we were compliant, and we would have dealt with that. We were able to operate very effectively in that market. Prior to regulation, we were able to operate during the short period that regulation was in place.
If indeed the elected Labor government in Australia abolishes the requirement for financial services licenses, we will go back into being operating again very comfortably and competitively in that marketplace. It's important to note here that the reason that the managed investment scheme system in Australia was knocked out is because LCM took a claim all the way to the Full Federal Court, and we were responsible for knocking out that very inappropriate part of the regulation. We were very intimately involved in the thinking and the molding of regulation in Australia.
Thank you very much. We do have more questions, but I'm afraid we've run out of time. Patrick, do you have any closing remarks?
Only that for the reasons that I talked about in terms of market conditions being incredibly conducive to increasing the demand for litigation finance capital together with our access to increased capital through our asset management business places really well for what we expect to see is increased growth and demand for capital moving forward, not only in the current financial period, but moving on beyond that. We're feeling very positive about the opportunities which lie ahead.
Many thanks, Patrick and Mary. To all listeners, you'll now be taken to a webpage to give feedback on today's presentation. If you can't complete at this time, you'll receive a follow-up email. We'd be really, really grateful if you could take a few minutes to complete. Many thanks for joining. This is the end of the webinar.