Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the AMCIL Limited Shareholder Briefing. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star and then one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference may be recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star and then zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Rupert Myer, Chairman. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. It's Rupert Myer, Chair of AMCIL Limited, and welcome to the shareholder briefing, and thank you all for joining us. As many of you would appreciate, we have every March until the onset of COVID been having shareholder meetings around the state capital cities. We had planned to try and restart these this March, but given COVID still remains a strong presence in the community, we've opted once again to hold a webinar, which we've done now over the last two years. We'll hope that this might be the last time that we are able to get together physically in 12 months' time. We will resume a direct contact with you when that is possible.
At this point, we're certainly anticipating this to be in October, in association with the annual general meeting. In turning to the details of today's webinar, I have joining me today Mark Freeman, CEO and Managing Director, Kieran Kennedy, a Portfolio Manager from the investment team, Olga Kosciuczyk from the investment team, Matthew Rowe, our Company Secretary, and Geoffrey Driver, GM of Business Development. Before we start the presentation, a bit of housekeeping on the webinar. This briefing is based on the material available on the company's website. If you're using your computer to access the presentation via the webcast, the slides will change automatically. If you're accessing by phone only, the PDF of the slides with page numbers is available on the website.
Finally, please note, following the presentation, there will be time for questions and answers, and you can ask a question either via the webcast or through the operator. Here is the agenda for today's presentation. Mark Freeman's going to speak shortly on our purpose and approach. Jeff is going to deliver the financial results. Kieran and Olga are going to present the portfolio performance and equity market performance over the period. They will also then feature or provide some features of AMCIL's portfolio and recent investment activity, and Kieran will provide a portfolio outlook towards the conclusion of the meeting. Of course, we'll be open for questions.
Before I hand over to Mark and the rest of the team, I am just reminding participants that this disclaimer of the disclaimer that the presentation is providing general information on how the company is being managed for shareholders. It's not to be taken or intended as personal investment advice. With that disclaimer, Mark, over to you to start the presentation with a section on our purpose and approach. Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Rupert, and good afternoon, everyone. Just referring to the slide pack, we're now on slide number five. Just starting with our purpose. That's to deliver returns from the Australian and New Zealand equity markets, which exceed the market over the medium to long term. We wanna do that through strong capital growth and also paying out fully franked dividends. Our approach, we wanna steer towards quality companies that we think can grow above the market levels. We wanna invest with conviction. We wanna have a focused portfolio, but we also want one that's diversified and a good mix between large, medium, and smaller companies. On to slide six. We see the benefits of AMCIL is a combination of consistency of long-term returns and alignment of interests, comparatively low management costs, no performance fees.
We wanna have a bias towards being low turnover, which therefore will mean being tax effective. The basis for that is to be a long-term investor. Moving to slide seven. We've just highlighted the members of the investment team, and also to highlight the significant experience they have in markets. Onto slide eight, a bit on our investment approach. We do have a focus or bias on investing in quality companies that can grow. Some of the aspects we're seeking in terms of what quality means, those businesses that have a leadership position in their industry or a developing one, have a sustainable competitive advantage and/or a uniqueness to their assets. We like companies that reinvest to defend their position.
We like our companies to make a good return on invested capital, so that means above their own cost of capital, which means they create shareholder value for their investors. We like our companies to have conservative balance sheets. We don't like companies that carry high levels of debt. Importantly, we want our investments or our companies to be run by passionate management teams who are good stewards of capital. This often means owner-driver companies who have a deep understanding of the industry and their businesses. Of course, we want the companies to be able to grow. This often means businesses that have large market opportunities or an ability to take market share, and we have a preference for companies that have more consistent earnings growth or this,
Sometimes it's not always the case to find this in as purest form, but it's just our preference. To wrap all that up, it's quality companies that we think have the ability to grow. Just as importantly, we wanna invest when we see value in the share prices of those companies. The team is on the hunt to find value among the quality companies in the market. Onto slide nine, just one on ESG. We wanna highlight that ESG, we don't see that as a separate issue. It's actually integrated into our investment frameworks. Our approach. ESG is an important part of our process. One of the key factors we consider is the sustainability of a business, and that becomes a key input into our assessment of a company.
We want companies that have strong governance and risk management processes, and that includes any consideration of environmental and social risks. We regularly review our companies to ensure alignment with our frameworks. Engagement with companies we invest in is a very important part of our process. As part of that, voting on resolutions is a key function that shareholders have, and we take that responsibility seriously. We conduct our own evaluation of resolutions, but we do take input from a proxy advisor, but that's purely to supply us with information. As I stated, we vote on the resolutions, and we will engage actively with companies when we have concerns that those resolutions or any resolution is not aligned with shareholder interests. With that background, I'll pass over to Jeff to comment on the most recent financial results.
Thanks, Mark, and I'll move to slide 11, which is the highlights for the half year to 31st December 2021. It's a little bit of ancient history, so it's only a couple of pieces of information I'll highlight here. One was obviously the half year profit was up very strongly. This was a result of a increase in revenue from investments as in companies increased or reinstated dividend payments because of the improved trading conditions despite the ongoing disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic. The other point I wanted to highlight here, which is really a first for AMCIL in some ways, is the payment of an interim, fully franked interim dividend. As shareholders maybe remember, with the full results of the financial year ending 2021, the board announced a change in dividend policy.
In summary, that change meant that AMCIL will no longer be paying out all available franking credits at the end of each financial year, as was the case under the previous policy. Dividends will now be assessed at each result and will be the outcome of the income received, the amount of realized capital gains we generate, and the level of franking credits generated and investment decisions at a particular point of time. Now importantly, this change in policy also provides greater flexibility in paying interim dividends. As I said, as a result, the board declared interim dividend of AUD 0.01 per share, fully franked, which we're very pleased about. Going forward, it's expected, subject to financial performance at the time, the company will continue to provide an interim dividend to shareholders.
This is quite a significant change from where we've been probably since the company was first recapitalized back in 2004. The other point I wanted to make here is with the management expense ratio. For a portfolio that's managed in the way that it's done, a very focused portfolio of best ideas, an MER of 0.46, we're very pleased that that still remains very, very low. The next slide 12, talks about the results of the share purchase plan. We were pleased with the results of the share purchase plan. It didn't raise quite as much as we had done the previous year. We obviously had the issues around market volatility and concern with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Again, pleased that 16% of shareholders participated in the share purchase plan. Importantly, the shares were issued pretty close to NTA, AUD 1.15 per share. That was fair for all shareholders, those who participated and those who didn't. The only other comment I'd make here is that over the last two and a bit years, we've actually raised close to AUD 28 million. We've actually increased the size of the amount of capital that the team has to invest. This is obviously important both in terms of the investment approach, but also reducing the management expense ratio over time. The final slide that I'll speak about is on slide 13, which is the share price premium discount to net asset backing. You can see there that we actually had been.
We are trading, or at the end of February, well, at least anyway, we're trading quite a significant premium, a AUD 0.05 premium for AMCIL. This can occur quite often when markets move quite dramatically as they did through February, that the share price relative to NTA can get a little bit out of kilter. I think, importantly from our perspective, we had been trading at a discount for quite some period of time. It's nice to see all other things being equal, we're trading relatively close to net asset backing at this point in time, and hopefully, that remains the case going forward. With that, I'll hand over to Kieran and Olga to talk about portfolio performance and equity market conditions.
Thanks, Jeff, and good afternoon all. This is Kieran Kennedy speaking. I'm starting on slide 15 on our portfolio performance updated to the end of February. Starting from the long term.
Our 10-year return of approximately 11% per annum, assuming the reinvestment of dividends and associated franking credits, is consistent with the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 return on the same basis. Figures for three and five years show both healthy outperformance and attractive double-digit returns per annum. On a one-year basis, the AMCIL portfolio returned 8.3% versus 11.8% for the S&P/ASX 200. This underperformance reflects both the market rotation that has occurred in equity markets in recent months, which has effectively seen quality companies that are in the AMCIL portfolio experience a valuation reduction at the same time as we've seen commodity and other cyclical companies benefit from some short-term gains.
We've also experienced the drag from capital gains tax of approximately 2%, as AMCIL's return only includes the benefit of franking credits when we actually distribute them to the shareholders as a dividend. Share market index returns don't incur any tax, even though investors would if they were looking to replicate those returns. Onto slide 16, and taking our focus back to the long term. This chart plots the 10-year return of both AMCIL and the S&P/ASX 200 benchmark for every month-end since the 10-year anniversary of AMCIL's recapitalization back in 2004. We focus on a long-term 10-year view, as for those in a position to look out beyond shorter term horizons, the benefits from compound investment returns are particularly valuable, and volatility in market returns is significantly reduced.
The gray section on the chart represents the 10-year returns from investment in the ASX 200, including the reinvestment of dividends and associated franking credits. AMCIL has consistently added to this index return through our performance, as shown in blue. The return to the AMCIL investor is expressed on the chart as the combination of gray and blue, a range of approximately 8%-15% per annum when measured over 10 years. In today's volatile world, this perspective provides some reassurance on the ability of a portfolio of quality companies to consistently grow and prosper. On slide 17 and 18, we reflect on the dynamic economic environment seen over the past three years.
The backdrop for our investing in the year immediately preceding the COVID pandemic, mark 1 on the slide, saw broadly supportive economic conditions with the uncertainty surrounding the next Trump tweet, the most significant external factor. Period 2 reflected the collapse in business activity and sentiment as the world began to appreciate the full magnitude of COVID-19. Period 3 reflects the stunning subsequent market recovery as the unprecedented injection of both fiscal and monetary stimulus proved extremely effective. Period 4 on the chart marks the shift that we've seen in calendar 2022. Late 2021 saw stimulus-supported economic demand begin to overwhelm the supply challenges of a still COVID-disrupted global economy.
This has seen inflation quickly escalate to levels not seen in decades, which in turn has seen central banks first slowly, but lately abruptly, realize that interest rates and other settings are far too stimulative for the current economic conditions. The addition of Russia's recent invasion into Ukraine has only added to these inflationary pressures and the complexity of the policy pathway forward for central banks. Onto slide 18, what impact has this volatile world had on our portfolio performance? In the pre-pandemic year, mark 1, the portfolio returns are strong and outperforming 24%, as our businesses were broadly performing well and were well-supported in the market. The COVID-induced correction, period two, saw a very sharp decline of approximately 25% over two months. From the low point, period 3 shows the magnitude of the recovery.
With our portfolio returning an exceptional 76% over 21 months, strongly outperforming a still very strong 57% for the S&P/ASX 200. This period of stimulus saw a double benefit as earnings rebounded very quickly and high valuations were applied to these earnings. As financial conditions have commenced tightening in 2022, we have seen equity markets become much tougher. Our portfolio fell 13% over the months of January and February, compared to 4% for our benchmark. Again, to cover these, the factors driving this, they've been twofold and are described typically as the market rotating. Where we've seen an adjustment down of the appropriate valuation for the sorts of quality companies that we own, and commodity prices have been spiking to the benefit of many cyclical companies that we don't own.
In isolation, this underperformance is significant, but the experience of the last three years provides valuable context. Importantly, even after including these challenging last few months, our three-year total return of 45% versus the benchmark at 32% remains very strong. I'm now on slide 19, and will pass to my colleague, Olga, who will commence a discussion on the current state of the portfolio from slide 20.
Thank you, Kieran, and good afternoon, everyone. On this slide, we demonstrate how our investment approach, as outlined by Mark earlier, translates to our portfolio's quality and diversification. On the left side of the slide, we show some of our portfolio's key quality indicators. Over 30% of AMCIL companies are run by owner-drivers who have deep understanding of their business and industry they operate in. They often have a multi-generational vision for their business, which aligns well with our long-term investment horizon. Most of the companies in AMCIL grow faster than the index. This is an outcome of our focus on investing in current and emerging market leaders who grow ahead of the market. We also look to invest in companies who have conservative balance sheets, and over a quarter of our portfolio has a net cash position.
Our companies deliver excellent returns over long-term, demonstrated by AMCIL's higher return on equity than our benchmarks. The pie chart on the left shows that AMCIL's sector exposure is almost evenly spread across technology, industrial, consumer, financial, and healthcare companies. This diversification allows us to maintain long-term focus and for our portfolio to outperform in a variety of market conditions. Our portfolio is also well diversified in terms of the size of the companies we invest in, as shown on the pie chart on the right side of the slide. The market capitalization of our companies ranges from AUD 83 million- AUD 250 billion. This spread gives our shareholders exposure to large companies with already established leadership positions, as well as to smaller companies with long growth runway who are future leaders.
On the next two slides, we will talk about companies we invest in that have or are developing a leadership position in their respective industries. These high-quality businesses represent 85% of our portfolio. Starting on slide 21. 16% of AMCIL is invested in world-leading healthcare companies, CSL, Cochlear, Fisher & Paykel, and ResMed, which provide people globally with life-saving therapies and life-altering devices. These companies have established leadership positions and generate excellent shareholder returns and earnings growth. We think this can be sustained for years to come as there is plenty of unmet demand for their unique offerings, and they continue to invest in research and development well ahead of their competitors. In financial year 2021 alone, these four companies spent between 7%-12% of their total revenue on R&D to enhance their competitive position, which was over AUD 1.5 billion.
4% of our portfolio is invested across two dominant online classified businesses in Australia, REA Group and Carsales. These marketplaces are go-to destinations for consumers to buy and sell their largest and most valuable assets. In FY 2021, these two companies had over 500 million visits on their platforms each month, multiple times more than their nearest competitors. REA and Carsales continue to extract value and leverage their large, unique, and engaged audiences, which translates to solid and consistent profit growth in their core Australian businesses. Longer term, both companies have been investing in international opportunities for their next leg of growth. Some of Australia's most trusted and well-recognized consumer brands make up 22% of AMCIL.
Our investment in this space ranges from smaller companies that are developing their leadership positions in Australia, like Temple & Webster and Breville, to ASX top 20 companies with established dominant positions like Woolworths and Wesfarmers. Some of our investments are replicating their winning domestic strategies in much larger offshore markets, which provide them with exceptionally long growth runways. ARB is a great example. This owner-driver business is Australia's largest manufacturer and distributor of high-quality four-wheel drive products. They also have a growing international presence and brand recognition. ARB's recent partnership with Ford in the U.S. to accessorize a range of their vehicles is a testament to management's offshore efforts bearing fruit. Moving to slide 22. 17% of AMCIL is invested in infrastructure and unique assets that play a critical role in supporting a growing economy.
Their dominant market positions give us confidence in their ability to sustain solid returns on invested capital. Given the capital intensity of the real asset sector. 10% of our portfolio is invested in two high-quality owner-driver businesses, Goodman Group and Mainfreight, that are key logistics partners for their customers across global markets. Both companies have exceptional track records in delivering shareholder returns and profit growth. Hence, they have been mainstays of our portfolio. Finally, we list our emerging companies. These companies drive productivity and automation for their customers in healthcare, insurance, financial, and public sector. All these businesses are deeply embedded into the day-to-day practices of their customers, which translates to reliable revenue stream and low customer churn. With that, I will now hand back to Kieran.
Thanks, Olga. We were becoming increasingly cautious on valuations of some of our holdings throughout 2021. This saw more of our investment activity than usual involve trimming some of our long-standing successful investments to deal with the heightened investment risk of stretched valuations. On slide 23, we can see that the subsequent drawdown in several of these holdings has been quite significant and much larger than the correction in the broader market. On slide 24, we show that proceeds from this portfolio trimming have been reinvested into quality businesses as market volatility has thrown up opportunities. I will cover several of these before handing you back to Olga. Auckland Airport is an asset that we have long admired due to its monopoly characteristics and very long life surrounding land assets.
While the depths of the COVID crisis in 2020 provided a compelling opportunity to purchase this stock for our portfolio, lingering uncertainty about the medium-term path to passenger recovery provided an attractive opportunity to add to the holding in recent months. CAR Group has yet again proven the resilience in its business model in recent times. Growth prospects are strengthening from international expansion and the evolution of its business model to reduce friction around fully completing car transactions online. The recent rotation in the market has provided an opportunity to add to our holding. James Hardie has been very successfully adding to its market share of U.S. house siding for many years. Reinvestment in innovative product is providing the opportunity to grow their addressable market as they broaden from products that compete with wood and vinyl to competing with other materials like stucco and brick.
We see the recent share price performance of James Hardie as overly focused on the near-term fortunes of the US housing market and not enough on the long-term significance of this evolving strategy. ResMed also has a very impressive track record of growth in the US market, in their case, in the treatment of sleep apnea. While they are currently benefiting from product recalls at their largest competitor, Philips, which will likely fade at some point, we see ResMed's market leadership position strengthen in an attractive market as the prevalence of sleep apnea continues to grow. I'll now pass you back to Olga.
Thank you, Kieran. We have also added to our Cochlear holding. The company has been a global leader in implantable hearing solutions for over 40 years. Despite this, their growth runway remains long as there is considerable unmet demand for Cochlear's implants. Hearing loss is still significantly undertreated, and they continue to invest in R&D ahead of their competitors. The company's recent share price underperformance was a bump in the road in their otherwise excellent track record over the past 15 years. We use this as an opportunity to add to our position, and the share price has since recovered strongly. We also added to our CSL position. CSL is a global leader in the development of therapies to treat rare diseases. The company's recent share price has underperformed significantly when COVID-19 impacted plasma collection volumes, putting pressure on the company's revenue and margins.
This is a short-term headwind, and we are already seeing promising signs of recovery. The market was also concerned about CSL's recent acquisition of Vifor Pharma. Vifor is a leader in treatments of, for kidney diseases and iron deficiency, conditions that are expected to continue to grow. While the true value of the acquisition remains to be seen, it is a step away from the core business. We are highly encouraged by CSL's strong track record in allocating capital over a long period of time. Transurban owns a high-quality, diversified toll road portfolio that has strong pricing power, inflation-resilient earnings, and long-term optionality. The company is very well-positioned to deliver strong free cash flow and dividend growth over the next five years as traffic recovers post-COVID. We saw recent underperformance as an attractive opportunity to add to this high-quality company. I'll now hand back to Kieran.
Thanks, Olga. On slide 25, we cover the balance of our transaction activity with stocks that have been introduced and exited from the portfolio during this financial year. Sydney Airport was sold due to a takeover offer. SEEK, NEXTDC, InvoCare and Ramsay Health Care were all exited due to our investment conviction moderating somewhat to see them ranked below other opportunities. All remain good quality companies. We also recalibrated the banking exposure in the portfolio, exiting NAB and buying Westpac. While the NAB is currently operating their bank more effectively than Westpac, we saw a value opportunity opening up in Westpac as they passed through their current period of dealing with legacy regulatory issues. Our assessment is that the underlying franchise value of Westpac remains strong, and this is not being reflected in the current share price.
Other new stocks introduced are businesses that we have been tracking for some time. Netwealth is building a leading position as an independent wealth management platform. They are winning a significantly larger share of flows of funds than their current platform market share, which gives excellent long-term visibility to continued earnings growth. As these qualities have long been recognized by others in the market, we've been waiting for an opportunity to buy the stock at fair value or better. Equity market concerns on the path of near-term profit margins has provided this opening. We are confident in the founding Heine family balancing the need for reinvestment and growth, given their excellent track record. Domino's Pizza also has an excellent growth track record under CEO Don Meij. In the long term, we are confident in the store rollout potential in relatively underpenetrated large markets like Germany and Japan.
Return metrics in the business are excellent, and their scale provides for a strong competitive position. Nanosonics is a business we've admired for both the global standard of care status they have been establishing in disinfecting ultrasound probes, as well as the business model, which carries a high margin consumable revenue stream. Difficulties in accessing new hospital customers who have been prioritizing dealing with COVID pressures and conjecture in a change around the distribution model with GE has provided an attractive share price opportunity recently. For those who follow our releases more closely, they will note there is a stock not appearing on this slide, Lark, the whisky business, which we did disclose was a purchase we'd made in our half-yearly release in February. We have since exited this position following a well-documented CEO departure.
Without getting into the personal details of that situation, we felt that our conviction around the strong execution this company needed to pull off to monetize the valuable whiskey bank that they've been building up had diminished to the extent where it was prudent to move on from that position decisively. On to the outlook on slide 27, a challenging task in such an unpredictable world. We try to limit our outlook to areas that we think we can bring some insight to, which is really to consider the value on offer in the market currently, as this forms a critical element in future returns. The recent market setback, particularly in the quality companies that we focus on, provides a more constructive base level for future returns and better opportunities for us to further invest in our preferred businesses.
This was the thinking behind our recent share purchase plan. While the recent market rotation could well have further to play out, on a one or two-year horizon, we'd expect to return to an environment where the earnings of our holdings becomes a key driver of their share price performance again. In a longer term sense, while valuations remain somewhat elevated even after recent falls, we struggle to identify an asset class that provides a better prospect for returns than a portfolio of high-quality equities like we have assembled in AMCIL. With that, I'll hand the presentation back to Jeff to answer questions.
Thank you, Kieran. Just to remind participants, you can ask the question through the webcast or by pressing star one on the telephone to ask a question. The first question I'll take here, Kieran, is about Santos. Do we contain Santos in the portfolio? And more broadly, do we have any exposure to the energy sector?
That's right. Thanks, Jeff. Yes, look, we do have Santos. It's a position that we have effectively inherited. We were owners of Oil Search, leading into the takeover by Santos. Look, it's a position that given the price-taking nature of that industry, the cyclical nature of that industry, it's not what we'd call a long-term mainstay in a quality portfolio such as this. We really felt that that Oil Search PNG asset base was globally unique and therefore a sufficient quality to get into this portfolio. Having said that, as an owner of the business, we're keen to ensure we maximize the value of that position. Given the cyclical benefit that company's receiving at the moment from buoyant energy market conditions, we're managing that position.
We have been reducing it, but we're not in any great rush to do so.
Thank you, Kieran. A question regarding the final dividend. Given that an interim dividend has been paid, is it expected that you'll be able to pay a dividend of AUD 0.02 or AUD 0.025 in August as usual? What is the estimate of the August dividend that you would expect to make at this time? Rupert Myer or Mark Freeman, do you want to comment on that?
Oh, well, look, I'll just jump in. It's Mark Freeman here. Look, we paid an interim. You know, my interpretation of that is that we wouldn't pay it unless it wasn't an intention to try and maintain that interim going forward. Obviously, we're at the mercy of markets and the profits we receive from our companies. Ultimately, that's the key determinant. Having said that, we have paid the interim. A final dividend is obviously a key part of our returns to shareholders. The dividend policy is really set by the board after seeing the final accounts and results for the full year. We can't really make any comment on it at this point.
Okay. Thank you, Mark. Operator, just checking, are there any questions on the phone at this point in time?
Thank you. I'm showing no questions from our phone line.
Okay, just a reminder to ask a question dial star one. Another question here, because the portfolio is overweight technology and healthcare and the recent trends for growth stocks is downward, the NTA has fallen 40% in the first two months of the year. Due to the company's concentrated focus on growth stocks, the company is now highly risky. Any comments from perhaps the investment team?
Yeah. Thanks, Jeff. It's Kieran here. I'll take that one. Look, I guess that's really the question we were looking to address in the slide presentation to really provide that perspective around time horizon effectively. You know, we think, you know, markets can be volatile in short-term periods. You know, the more powerful driver of share price performance over short-term periods can be the ratings around stocks, which is sentiment driven. In the long run, which is really our focus as investors, it is the earnings and the delivery of performance of the underlying companies that determine, you know, where share prices go over long-term periods.
While in isolation, you look at that two months and see risk. I guess we would also comment, we haven't seen any real deterioration in the fundamental performance of the businesses underlying in the portfolio. It's really been around valuation and sentiment. We think that will settle down at a point in time. Over the longer term, we think it's less risky to be involved with the best companies in the market because they can control their own fortunes better and deliver the best fundamental performance and growth.
I think the other thing too is that if you look at the movement, I mean, given some of our stocks have come off what were some lofty peaks. You have to remember, if you put into context, the first six months of the financial year, our stocks went up a lot, and now they're giving some of that back. Some of the areas of the market we're not in, say, look at some of the commodity stocks, those companies have been very strong, and they've gone up a lot. To me, they're starting to look riskier to me because they're trading at very high prices and at the whims of commodity prices. If you look at, say, the oil price, during the last 30 or 40 years, there's really been five key oil spikes. This is one of them.
From that point onwards, it certainly historically, the movement's only been one way. Now, it's not to say that the oil price won't go up higher in the short term. Mind you, I can't make that prediction, but at $120, this is a pretty large peak. It doesn't look like a time to sort of buy into that sector to me. Yeah, just really highlighting that the areas that we're not in have also run very hard. Those areas of the market are very exposed to the cyclicality of those sectors.
Thank you, Mark.
I'd point out, businesses we're in are legitimate areas that the companies can grow and develop their business over the time without relying on an external input, such as a commodity price, to drive earnings.
Thanks, Mark. While we're talking about petrol prices, Mainfreight has been a mainstay for a while in the portfolio. How do we think they're currently traveling with the rise in fuel prices and I guess also some of the logistics issues that many companies are having at this point in time?
Yeah. Thanks, Jeff. It's Kieran here. Look, it's a good question. I guess ordinarily you'd think about a transport company and think about the inflationary pressures building and I guess the very competitive nature of that industry and you could see some prospects of margin pressure. I think in our view with Mainfreight, this will be a testament to the way they run the business. I guess the first principle of their business is to only really engage with customers that value their service. What they're looking for is people that are not looking to pay the lowest rate in market, but are looking to have the best certainty they can with a provider that they can get goods delivered on time to the right place.
That service element that Mainfreight pushes means that in times such as this, they have better ability to pass through cost pressures through to customers because, you know, they're not a price-led offering to that customer base. The other point is that there are a number of actual tailwinds effectively for the business. You know, this struggle for customers to just get goods to where they need to be to service customer demand means that, you know, in a world with so many problems, a problem-solving sort of company like Mainfreight can sniff out opportunities and effectively charge more for some of their services, and we've seen that through recent results. From a financial aspect, I think the company's been doing really well.
I'm sure within the business they've got a lot of challenges to deal with day to day, but I guess that's what they pride themselves on doing for their customer base.
You noticed that, I mean, the stock's just drifted off what was quite a very good run it had in the market. But we did notice a month or so ago, the CEO was buying stock, for what it's worth. I mean, we can't, I mean, we don't know what's going on in the company in terms of until we see the next result. But it is interesting that someone who's already a large shareholder is willing to go in and buy more stock. We hope you-
Thanks, Mark. Oh, sorry, Kieran. Thanks, Mark and Kieran. Back to Lark. The question is, how did Lark make it through our screening, quality screening process?
Yes, thanks. It's Kieran again. Thanks for the question, Jeff. Look, I guess as Olga pointed out through the presentation, part of what we're trying to feature in AMCIL is a spread of companies. You want some small businesses that are emerging. You want very well-established leading businesses as well. We think that's been a feature of AMCIL that's delivered really good results through its history, with some great emerging companies delivering exceptional results for the portfolio. Lark was certainly in that emerging category, quite a small business. I guess we were looking at that at first, the popularity of Tasmanian whiskey growing. You know, they were getting their hands on good supply with good reviews for their product and really starting to open up that premium market within Australia.
We've seen this playbook before in other companies where if you do that well, you achieve that premium price. You know, the world is receptive to quality Australian food and beverage. We've seen that in a number of instances. That was, I guess, the vision we had in mind for this business. When you're investing in smaller, emerging companies, your quality assessment needs to be with an eye to the future and not just based on what we're seeing today. Because if you are doing that, you will miss some opportunities because the price will have effectively gone up by the time, you know, it's ticking all your boxes. That was the way we were assessing it.
I guess the other thing, you know, the managing director was very effective in his time in the company. He came into the business when it was going nowhere really, had really unlocked a lot of the value. As I mentioned, you know, not here to comment on the personal situation of that individual, but as it related to the business, had been achieving very well. As you can imagine, with the media disclosure of the situation with the CEO, we had to do some quick, decisive thinking on how our conviction stood. Really, it was a decision then to move away from that, and move on to other opportunities.
Thanks, Kieran. With the proceeds from the Sydney Airport takeover, how has that been reinvested yet? I guess the question becomes sort of what level of cash are we currently carrying at this point in time?
Yeah. I guess the simple way to answer that, Jeff, sorry, it's Kieran again, is through the presentation, the slide that disclosed the stocks that we've added to the portfolio and those that we've taken out are roughly equal. That Sydney Airport disposal, while it was through a takeover, you know, that helps to fund things like the Netwealth and Nanosonics and those other stocks that we've introduced into the portfolio. When we did the share purchase plan, through that period, we had seen some volatility, so we did dip into some of our debt facilities, which is what they're there for. We're really pretty much fully invested as those funds started to come into the portfolio. Now we're effectively. The money we raised from the SPP is effectively our cash balance.
We're taking a view that it's a volatile world. We've got a good portfolio of stocks, but we're open-minded as to how far this rotation could go, you know, what outcomes we could see in the portfolio and in the market as opportunities. We wanna be reasonably patient with that money, you know, going forward. We are in a debt-free position, following the SPP as well.
Thanks, Kieran. Comment, there's a comment here coming back to performance, the graph showing the comparison of the AMCIL margin against the ASX over time has declined, sorry, more recently. I think you've explained this, but perhaps you just might reiterate the reasons behind this.
Yeah. I think to be clear, my interpretation of that question is that 10-year return chart we're looking at with the blue and gray.
Yeah.
You might just get me the slide number there, Matthew, if that's okay. Effectively, yeah, that's showing that. 16. Slide 16. Thanks, Matthew. That's showing the, at each month end, the relative return of AMCIL versus the ASX 200, and that's correct. On a 10-year basis to the end of February, you know, we're pretty much in line with the ASX 200, which is a decline compared to, you know, past measures, going back in time. I guess we'd look at that and say, "You know, that's really part of the cycle." It's you know, the experience we've got after two months where we did underperform by quite, you know, an amount. With those two months in the numbers on a 10-year basis, you know, we're still achieving a return equivalent to the ASX 200.
Again, you know, with some of the way we measure our performance, you know, some of the tax implications, the franking that we do have that's not recognized until it's paid out, the fact that an index doesn't pay tax, you know, we think, you know, that that's still not a bad outcome. Obviously, we pride ourselves on delivering outperformance on the long term. That's what we'll keep working hard to do.
Thanks, Kieran. A question here about PEXA. PEXA looks to be an exciting monopoly player. Is it the next realestate.com?
Yeah. It's Kieran again on that one. Look, it certainly has some very strong market share characteristics. I don't think they'd like the word monopoly being thrown around. That's always something that a management team can do without, and it is a space in the market that is fairly scrutinized by the regulator because they have such a strong position. There is an emerging player, part-owned by the ASX called Sympli, that are looking to establish a position in the market. But there needs to be mechanisms worked through to see how that will work because, for PEXA, where they're actually dealing with the digital settlement of residential property when it's bought and sold. You know, the prospects for fraud in that instance are high, and there's a lot of value at stake.
It's really important to have a very robust system, which PEXA effectively have been running themselves to date. One of the differences to something like an REA is it doesn't have anything like the pricing power. This is a business that was created by, you know, governments getting together and seeing that this is something that the country needed. In return for that, they didn't want a monopoly provider who could, you know, extract more and more price each year. We don't think it'll be a price-led growth story within Australia. Where we think the growth of this business is exciting is to take what's happened in Australia and use that experience and take it to offshore markets in similar Westminster countries.
They're at the early stages at the moment of working in the UK market to bring similar innovation to bear there, and that's a much larger market. Work to be done, but, you know, given the excellent cash flow it generates, the experience they've got and the reference-ability they've got, and the need for this technology to deliver the efficiencies in these other countries, we think on a 10-year view, there's definitely some really interesting paths they can open up in different markets.
Thank you, Kieran. Question about another one of our sort of more innovative stocks is Carsales. It sounds like they're now competing with their car dealer customers. How do they do this without upsetting, I should say, existing customers?
Yeah. Look, that's actually a really astute question because that's exactly what's on Carsales' mind and exactly what they don't want to do. Really what they're about is saying for a car dealer, rather than just being a listing service and referring a lead, which is obviously extremely valuable. If they can think through how they can achieve a full sale online for those dealers, with all the friction points in place from that, then effectively the dealer will be prepared to pay them more if they can prove up that value. You can think through, you know, how do you do test drives when you're doing it online? You know, car inspections, how does that work? You know, is there a cooling off period? You know, the delivery of the vehicle.
You know, a number of those items, you know, alongside the finance and other things that Carsales are already providing because there's clearly a, you know, a shift in the mindset, particularly of younger customers coming through. There's not the same reluctance and hesitancy as there might have once been. I think COVID's been a real trigger for that. We're seeing in offshore markets that there is a developing market here. One of the things we really like about these businesses, it goes back to their own history, is they were the disruptors, and you've got a lot of extremely smart people thinking about how they can be disrupted and evolving their business model rather than standing still and, you know, just extracting full margin and patting themselves on the back for how much money they can make.
They're really thinking through what should this business look like in 10 years' time, and this is another iteration for Carsales on that front.
Okay. Thanks, Kieran. A question about how does the investment team work together to provide the ideas for a portfolio such as AMCIL, which is really our sort of best ideas portfolio?
Yeah. Thanks, Jeff. Kieran again. Look, it is a best ideas portfolio, and it sits alongside the other three portfolios we manage in this team, AFIC, Mirrabooka and Djerriwarrh. Really, by its nature being best ideas, it's more collaborative. You know, we really need to have everyone on the team thinking about the stocks that they're responsible for on a day-to-day basis, and really separating the ones that they think are their best ideas for the long term. Really making sure they're putting those forward and really seeking out the opportunity to buy more of those in AMCIL. We do draw on the team more here on a day-to-day basis than we may do in some of our other funds.
Thankfully, as shown on the earlier slide, we've got really good experience, a really committed team that, you know their stocks very well, so we can cover a lot of ground. We think, you know, for the management expense ratio of less than 50 basis points, no performance fees, to be able to draw on that experience across a team that's covering a lot of ground, we think it's a good proposition.
Okay. Thank you, Kieran. Rupert, we don't appear to have any more questions either on the phone or via the webcast that we haven't already addressed. I might hand it back to you now to conclude the meeting.
Well, look, thank you, Jeff, and thank you everyone for being on the call, for your interest and your questions and comments through the feedback channels. They are all noted. The board's certainly very conscious that, with the rotation that's taken place in the market, that the start of calendar 2022 has been a bit disappointing. We're also very mindful of the actual underlying investment performance or individual company performance and some of the very good reporting that's come through the portfolio positions. I'd like to acknowledge the investment team and indeed the whole team at AMCIL and the support that's been given. I reiterate my earlier remarks.
I look forward, as the board does as well, to seeing shareholders at the AGM this year. We hope it's gonna be one of those sorts of meetings, and it'll be terrific to have an opportunity to meet firsthand. In the meantime, of course, if there are any queries or questions or commentary to share with us, please don't hesitate connecting with us through the normal channels. I thank you all for being on the call today, and look forward to the occasion of getting together later in the year. Thank you.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect. Everyone, have a wonderful day.