General Manager of Investor Relations. We're coming to you today from 5 Martin Place in Sydney. Before we begin, I would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, traditional custodians of the land on which we're hosting this event today, and I pay my respect to the elders past, present, and emerging. Today's presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. You can ask a question either in person via the room, via the online portal, or the telephone. Today's presentation will be provided by our CEO, Nick Hamilton, Chief Financial Officer, Alex Bell. I'll now pass over to Nick, to get us underway.
Good morning, and thank you, Mark. So today, as Mark noted, I'm joined by our CFO, Alex Bell, to deliver the 2024 full year result. So Challenger recorded a very strong financial performance in the year, and I believe the result demonstrates that our strategy is delivering on the significant opportunity that we have as a business. Our focus on longer duration, high quality Life sales, is delivering a stronger financial performance. We're working with superannuation funds and wealth groups to develop retirement income partnerships. Funds Management has continued to expand its offering. The sale of the bank is now complete. The important investments in our technology platform that we announced in February will enable our growth plans, and our capital strength ensures the business's resilience and supports future growth.
We've delivered all of this in service of our purpose of providing customers with financial security for a better retirement. Today, Alex and I will cover the key drivers of our full year result, our outlook, and our strategy to drive long-term sustainable growth. Our purpose sets us apart in the Australian market and is at the core of our strategy. Over the past 12 months, and consistent with selling the bank and focusing on our two core businesses, we have simplified our strategic pillars. Retirement Leader reflects our focus on building a strong and trusted brand, expanding what we deliver, and who we partner with. We're able to deliver flexible solutions to meet the retirement needs across multiple customer channels, ensuring we play a role with more Australians saving for, entering, and through retirement. Investment Excellence.
Across our balance sheet investment program, we leverage decades of liability-driven investment expertise, balance sheet management, and asset origination capability. In our multi-affiliate platform, we're home to some of the city's most trusted investment brands across public and private markets. All of this will be underpinned by our talented and committed team, who have the skills and capability to meet the significant opportunity that we see ahead. In FY 2024, we made significant progress against these pillars. As we position Challenger as Australia's retirement income leader, we've developed partnerships with superannuation funds and some of Australia's leading wealth platforms. Our long-standing, successful reinsurance relationship with Mitsui Sumitomo Primary has extended for a further five years, a measure of their confidence in our expertise and capability.
Financial advice is core to how good retirement will be delivered, and this past year, we conducted over 230 roadshows, workshops, and webinars that support advisors in delivering their clients' needs in retirement. This is in addition to the ongoing thought leadership and advocacy programs. We were very pleased to launch our new brand and marketing strategy that will enhance our brand and allow us to engage with more Australians preparing for and in retirement. Investment Excellence is the engine of our business. We've continued to expand Funds Management, adding new investment strategies to meet growing client demand. We've also invested into our asset origination capability, building whole loan servicing and new asset origination flow partnerships, including our recent origination partnership with Apollo, which provides access to their global investment management capability to further support balance sheet returns and growth.
The foundation of Challenger is our people, and we've continued to invest in their growth and potential to deliver an environment that ensures great career opportunities and is an employer of choice for talent. Our technology partnership with Accenture is making good progress. The teams are focused on service delivery and the design and build of our new registry and customer technology for our retirement business. Our future state technology will enable us to integrate our retirement products and solutions across our key customer channels and deliver a more scalable and innovative platform, which will bring operational benefits. FY 2024 was undoubtedly a year of delivery for Challenger, demonstrated by the milestones we have achieved.... Challenger is a unique business with a compelling growth strategy. A few words on how we're executing the refresh strategy we laid out two and a half years ago.
We have invested to maintain our position as Australia's leading retirement income brand, including our brand sponsorship strategy, our engagement with financial advisors, and delivering simple solutions for complex problems with superannuation funds. In executing our strategy, we have further enhanced our sales and product mix, which is delivering more diversified revenue streams. Our focus on longer tenor, more valuable annuity sales, are delivering lower maturity rates and longer duration book growth. This also allows us to invest in longer duration assets that can generate an illiquidity premium, which is supporting both a higher COE margin and a sustainable return on equity. At the same time, we are deepening our investment capability. In Challenger Investment Management, we've continued to invest and grow our leading private credit asset origination capability to deliver yield for the Life Company, and more broadly, meet the growing demand for high-yielding income strategies.
We have a balance sheet that has been significantly diversified and supports sustainable through the cycle ROE. The strength of our capital position also ensures that we retain balance sheet resilience and capital for growth. As we look forward, we are delivering a platform that enables us to manage liabilities at scale, at the same time as achieving greater efficiencies. I'm extremely pleased with our financial performance in FY 2024. Group normalized net profit before tax increased to AUD 608 million and was above the top end of our guidance range. Assets under management reached AUD 127 billion, as our leading active management capabilities delivered institutional net flows. Our Life business was the powerhouse of this result, with longer tenor term and lifetime annuity sales contributing to high-quality Life sales of AUD 9.1 billion.
88% of new business annuity sales were for terms of two years or more, compared to 50% two years ago when we started the sales remix strategy. A new business tenor reached 8.5 years. Challenger Life holds 1.67x the minimum regulatory capital requirement. Our regulatory capital position reflects the benefits of diversifying strategies. The higher capital position will significantly strengthen balance sheet resilience. We have continued to improve group ROE, which increased 290 basis points to 15.6%. In FY 2025, we are on track to achieve our ROE target. Reflecting confidence in our business, the board determined a fully franked full-year dividend of AUD 0.265 per share, an increase of 10% and in the upper half of our payout range.
Challenger's strong performance in 2024 demonstrates success of our strategy and the unique position we have across retirement and investment management. I will now pass to Alex, who will provide the detail on the full year result.
Thank you, Nick, and a very good morning, everyone. Today, I'm really pleased to be delivering a set of results that is showing the benefits of the execution of our refreshed strategy. There are three things that I'd like you to take away from today's presentation. Firstly, you will see the benefits of our sales remix strategy, supporting margin expansion. Secondly, the sales momentum, coupled with a relentless focus on expenses, you will see a clear pathway to our ROE target for the year ahead. And thirdly, you will see a positive step change in our PCA capital ratio, which provides a resilient balance sheet outlook. I'll now take you through our financial performance for the year in detail and provide insight on how we are positioned for the year ahead. Looking firstly at the group result.
Strong financial performance this year is attributed to growth in Life earnings and cost optimization, partially offset by lower earnings in Funds Management. Normalized net profit before tax increased 17% to AUD 608 million, and pleasingly, we finished above our guidance range. Normalized net profit after tax was AUD 417 million, an increase of 14%, slightly lower than the increase in pre-tax earnings due to a higher effective tax rate. Statutory net profit after tax decreased 24% to AUD 130 million. It does reflect the non-cash impacts from revaluing our property portfolio and the accounting mismatch impacts from applying actuarial assumption changes under AASB 17. A highlight for this period is that we have made significant progress towards achieving our normalized ROE target....
FY 2024, pre-tax ROE increased 290 basis points to 15.6%, with a very strong contribution from the Life business. Group assets under management increased 21% to AUD 127 billion, with growth across both Life and Funds Management. I'd like to spend a few minutes looking at our normalized return on equity progress. This slide will be familiar to many of you, as I presented a similar slide at the half. The difference is that we now have a clear pathway to achieving our normalized group ROE target in FY 2025. In FY 2024, normalized group ROE increased 290 basis points to 15.6%, benefiting from Life earnings and expense discipline.
The execution of our strategy is driving this improvement, and our exit ROE for the second half of the year is just 20 basis points short of hitting the target. As we move into the new financial year, I have confidence we can continue to improve ROE with the midpoint of our FY 2025 earnings guidance range, achieving that normalized ROE target. I expect the ROE expansion to be supported by continued momentum in Life earnings from executing our strategy, increasing the contribution from Funds Management, and capturing scale and efficiencies, including our technology partnership with Accenture. Looking now at expenses in more detail and the operating leverage in our business. I'm really pleased with the expense performance this year in the face of a challenging inflationary environment. We have been disciplined on costs and ensured that we invested back into the business in targeted areas.
We have so focused on building a business that is scalable with high operating leverage. In FY 2024, group expenses decreased 1% to AUD 314 million. Year-on-year, expense reductions from the sale of the bank and our Australian real estate business were offset by investments in brand initiatives, higher staff costs, and investment administration inflation. With the operating leverage in our platform, the cost to income ratio improved 390 basis points to 33.8%, below our target range of 35%-37%. Reflecting our confidence in continuing to capture scale benefits and efficiencies from FY 2025, we are lowering the target range for our cost to income ratio to 32%-34%.
Over the last couple of years, we have had a strategy to diversify our balance sheet and improve the resilience of the business so that it can more easily navigate through different market cycles. This period, we have a positive step change in our PCA ratio, mainly as a result of a reduction in the amount of capital under APRA standards. The combined stress ratio is the component of APRA's capital adequacy standard, which is used to calculate the adjustment to the PCA when capital charges are aggregated. It is the magnitude of the combined stress scenario adjustment which has fallen because our investment diversification strategies have reduced downside risk on an aggregate basis. With a PCA ratio of 1.67x , we are near the top of our PCA ratio range of 1.3-1.7x .
This higher PCA ratio provides significant capital flexibility through different market cycles and will also support future growth. Looking now at the Life business performance in more detail. The Life business performance this year has been exceptional, with earnings before interest and tax increasing 17% to AUD 634 million. Normalized cash operating earnings grew 15%, with both book growth and margin expansion. Expenses were well managed, up only 3%. This result demonstrates the benefits of our strategy to prioritize longer-dated Life sales, which are supportive of achieving higher quality and more valuable returns. In the next few slides, I will now cover off in more detail the drivers of this outstanding financial performance. Firstly, sales and our remix strategy. You would be familiar with this slide, which shows our progress this year, shifting sales to longer durations.
Total Life sales were AUD 9.1 billion, and while down 6%, we deliberately prioritized longer dated sales over typically lower margin, short business. Annuity sales of AUD 5.2 billion were supported by lifetime annuity sales of AUD 1.5 billion, up 110%. Retail lifetime annuity sales increased 27% to AUD 901 million, and this included CarePlus sales of AUD 496 million, the highest annual volume achieved since launching in 2015.... Lifetime sales are benefiting from rising demand for guaranteed income, with a growing number of Australians in and entering retirement and aged care. Fixed term annuity sales were AUD 3 billion. This was AUD 1.1 billion lower than last year, as we maintained our disciplined approach to pricing.
The tenor of the fixed term business that we did write has increased to 3.5 years from 2.5 years a year ago. Japanese annuity sales of AUD 709 million exceeded the annual minimum target by approximately 36%. There was a material contribution from Japanese yen-denominated annuities, which we commenced reinsuring in November. Challenger Index Plus sales were AUD 3.9 billion and included a new AUD 500 million, 5-year investment from an insurance client, and this demonstrates our ability to also shift Index Plus to longer durations. These charts help show the benefit of remixing our sales and the impact that it's having on stronger shareholder outcomes. In the first chart, you can see that 3 years ago, 43% of sales were for durations of 3 years or longer, and this is now 60%.
The tenor of new business sales is now 8.5 years. This improves the sustainability of the Life book and supports the business to deliver both margin and ROE improvements. In the middle chart, you can see the impact this is having on the maturity rate and book growth. After peaking at 33% last year, the maturity rate next year is expected to be just 24%. The benefit of this is that we don't have to run so hard to grow the overall book from one year to the next. The chart on the right shows how longer duration sales allow us to invest in longer duration assets that can generate an illiquidity premium that supports improved margins and returns. Looking at the margin drivers in more detail.
We have now experienced 5 consecutive halves of margin expansion and finished the year up 30 basis points to 3.12%. On the investment side, we achieved higher yields across all asset classes, and although we passed on higher interest rates to customers, we still expanded the product margin by 18 basis points. The return on shareholder funds also increased 18 basis points, reflecting higher interest rates. This is a very strong margin outcome. Turning now to the Life investment portfolio. As already noted, we have been diversifying our balance sheet and increasing its resilience. This reduces downside risk and provides financial flexibility so we can navigate through different market cycles. Today, we have a well-diversified, high-quality investment portfolio. Fixed income represents 74% of the investment portfolio.
The credit experience of the portfolio continues to be very strong, with 19 basis points of default experience for the year, well inside our 35 basis point normalized growth assumption. Alternatives represent 13% of the investment portfolio and comprise a group of diversified absolute return funds and insurance exposures. These investments are less correlated to both credit and equity markets and are more defensive during periods of market stress. Critically, they also provide a source of liquid capital. Property now represents just 11% of the portfolio, down two percentage points, reflecting higher investment assets and lower valuations, which I will cover in a moment. Looking forward to FY 2025, we do not expect any material change to our asset allocation. Turning now to our FY 2024 asset experience.
Commencing this year, and in an effort to improve disclosure, we have split investment experience into asset experience and liability experience, as they have very different drivers. Asset experience represents the fair value movements in asset valuations during the year and was a pre-tax loss of AUD 119 million. We have independently revalued our entire property portfolio this year, with valuations impacted by wider cap rates, especially in our office portfolio. As shown on the chart on the right, since 2022, when interest rates started to rise and cap rates started to widen, we have written down our Australian office portfolio by 21%, with 15% this year. Over the same two-year period, the office cap rate has softened by 34%. Pleasingly, occupancy remains high at 91%, and we are seeing positive re-leasing activity.
The impact of lower property valuations was partially offset by gains in the fixed income portfolio from tighter credit spreads and strong credit performance. Turning now to liability experience. Liability experience includes policy liability valuation movements, including accounting mismatches from AASB 17 and non-cash new business strain, which unwinds over time. In FY 2024, total liability experience was a pre-tax loss of AUD 276 million. The net new business strain component of AUD 105 million reflects book growth and includes the large Aware Super defined benefit de-risking transaction. We have also experienced a non-cash loss of AUD 150 million as a result of how the new accounting standard, AASB 17, affects the valuation of our Life risk business. The valuation of the Life risk business is sensitive to changes in UK interest rates, FX, and assumptions around UK mortality.
AASB 17 introduces volatility to the valuation of the Life risk business due to a mismatch between the discount rate used to value the contractual service margin and the discount rate used to determine the present value of future cash flows. In the year, there was a reduction in UK mortality improvements, which is an economically positive thing for Challenger. The present value of the Life risk portfolio, which is not captured in our net assets, goes up. This is supportive of higher future normalized cash operating earnings as the present value unwinds. The FY 2024 loss arises because the increase in the contractual service margin from this mortality change is higher than the increase in the present value of future cash flows as a result of the discount rate mismatch. Importantly, these policy liability movements have no impact on CLC's capital position other than through second-order tax benefits.
Turning now to the Funds Management business. Funds Management EBIT was down 11% to AUD 55 million due to ongoing changes in business mix. Over the last two years, Fidante has experienced large retail outflows, which have a meaningful impact on both the margin and headline revenue of the business. This year, large inflows received from lower margin institutional mandates have not been sufficient to offset this impact, and this will be a key focus for management in FY 2025. Closing FUM grew by more than 19% to AUD 117 billion, reflecting positive market movements and strong institutional net inflows in Fidante across equity and fixed income affiliate managers. Reflecting ongoing changes in business mix, the net income margin fell by 240 basis point to 16.4%. Expenses were impacted by the cost of data and rising investment administration costs.
In FY 2025, we expect the Funds Management performance to improve, largely driven by revenue opportunities from both equity and alternative investment strategies, and the expansion of our asset origination capabilities, including whole loans. Now, looking more closely at Funds Management net flows. We closed the year strongly with AUD 10 billion of net flows and AUD 10 billion of positive market movements. We continue to see solid flows into our affiliate managers that are underpinned by strong investment performance, with 93% of FUM outperforming over five years. Institutional inflows, excluding the Elanor derecognition, were AUD 14.5 billion across both equity and fixed income strategies, while retail outflows were AUD 1.2 billion. I will now provide an update on our FY 2025 guidance and the outlook for the year ahead.
We enter FY 2025 in great shape and confident we can continue to deliver stronger financial performance for our shareholders. This year, we are referencing key earnings metrics on a post-tax basis. We are targeting normalized net profit after tax of between AUD 440 million and AUD 480 million, with the midpoint of the range representing a 10% increase on FY 2024. This represents a normalized net profit before tax range of AUD 640 million-AUD 700 million. Achieving the midpoint of the guidance range would also achieve our ROE target of the RBA cash rate, plus a margin of 12%. As demonstrated in this result, we have a disciplined approach to cost management, and from FY 2025, we are targeting an improvement in the cost to income ratio, reducing it to a range of 32%-34%.
We will continue to operate within our 1.3 times to 1.7 times PCA range, with a preference to remain strongly capitalized. Reflecting our confidence in the outlook ahead and how we are positioned, we will continue to target a dividend payout ratio of between 30% and 50%. In conclusion, we have delivered exceptionally strong result this year and expect growth to continue in FY25. As a reminder of those 3 key takeaways: firstly, we have shown the benefit of our sales remix strategy. Secondly, this sales momentum coupled with a relentless focus on expenses, means we have shown a credible pathway to our ROE target for the year ahead. Finally, we have shown a positive step change in our PCA capital ratio, which provides a resilient balance sheet outlook.
With that, I'll hand back to Nick and look forward to joining you for Q&A.
Thank you, Alex. So today, you've heard how the successful execution of our strategy has delivered a strong performance in FY 2024. As we look ahead, the business is uniquely positioned to benefit from a range of long-term drivers. Most of our country's wealth now sits with those preparing for and in retirement, and will only grow as Australians retire in ever greater numbers. This generational shift in wealth has spurred progress in building a retirement framework for the future. Retirement will require affordable advice. Many across the industry are exploring how to scale advice for retirement, including integrating secure and guaranteed income solutions. Providing financial security to Australia's aging population really matters.
Building an appropriate regulatory framework that enables the delivery of innovative, guaranteed income products to more Australians will take time, but it is unquestionably the right thing to do, and in turn, will be a further driver of growth for our business. Challenger has a clear and compelling strategy. In the short term, our growth plans will be enabled by our customer experience uplift program. This will also support engagement with wealth managers, superannuation funds, and platforms, where we'll use our expertise to deliver retirement income products and solutions in partnership. We continue to see a considerable opportunity in the defined benefit market, where there is growing interest from institutions seeking to de-risk their pension liabilities. In Funds Management, the business's financial performance across FY 2024 has seen us grow FUM without that translating into profitability, which will be an area of focus.
We have built strong, collaborative relationships with our strategic partners, and we'll continue to work with them to identify ways to create shared value. Financial advisors play a key role in helping Australians achieve financial security and will increase the number of advisors we engage with and the volume of business they write with us. Our capabilities in private credit and private markets are performing extremely well, and they are starting to really attract assets. We are very focused on leveraging our in-house and affiliate partner capabilities to meet the significant demand we see here in the years ahead. We'll consider expanding our offshore reinsurance platform, leveraging our expertise from our long-standing reinsurance relationship with Mitsui Sumitomo Primary. Over the longer term, we'll continue to scale our core capabilities and develop new products, partnerships, and reach more customers, delivered through our multi-channel strategy.
In summary, Challenger closed FY 2024 in great shape. Our focus on execution has delivered a really strong result. The strategic investments we have made in our platform will strengthen and broaden our business's potential. And we're now in a very strong position for FY 2025 and beyond, and we're on track to meet our ROE target. And we'll have materially improved our financial resilience, which will provide capital flexibility through the cycle and support future growth. This will deliver strong returns for shareholders. And finally, none of this could be achieved without the commitment and the energy of the Challenger team, who I thank very much for their dedication. Alex and I will be very pleased now to take questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two.
We'll now turn to the Q&A. As a matter of process, we'll take questions firstly from the room. I'll then turn to the telephones and then via the online portal. Let's start off with Matt.
Thank you very much. If I could just turn to the guidance, on for the first question. You've got an improving COE margin trajectory, 5.5% net core growth, the maturity rate coming down by 200 basis points and improving CTI. How would you possibly get to the bottom end of the guidance target? I'm just wondering, how we want to assume this within that?
Yeah. Okay. I'll, I'll start, and Alex can say a few words. So, you know, as you can imagine, at this stage of the year, we've set, we've set a range, which is built out from our sort of best estimates across the business. So if you think about, you know, Challenger in 2025, without the bank, if you think about our Life Company, there's lots of parts of that where the result is certain, but there are parts of that where it's less certain. And so, you know, we make an estimate as to where we'll get to, with that result. In the FM business, you know, FY 2024's been a tough year, so we've got an expectation of better performance coming out of the funds business in the year ahead.
As just noted there at the microphone, it's gonna be an area of real focus for us going forward. And then on the expenses side, you know, we've operated, I think we've operated the business really well, being able to pull back in spending in certain areas and reinvest it into areas where we really want to strengthen and expand our capability. But, you know, to acknowledge we're in an inflationary environment, that doesn't seem to be abating so much, but we will manage the cost base as rigorously as we can. So, you know, we think about those variables, which, you know, gets us to the 10% PCA, and, you know, this year we, we sort of outperformed our expectations we had at the beginning of the year. The year before, we did 10%.
So we think this is a good starting position for us, in terms of setting guidance. But might see if Alex wanted to-
Yeah, I think that will work.
Okay. Thanks, thanks, Matt.
Okay. Thank you. And just a follow-up question, if I could. On the, on the ROE target, congratulations on a, on a pathway to, to getting back there. Nick, if I could just ask, you know, when is the time to get more ambitious? You've talked about the AUD 1.8 billion of, of excess capital. You know, what is the hurdle rate for new investments when you're talking about some of these growth opportunities, including defined benefits? Is that above your, your, your current ROE target?
Yeah. Okay, maybe I'll split that up, and sure, I've got some comments on this as well. But, you know, if you think about the comments there about hitting ROE in 25, you know, this year we've closed the gap about 290 points. Pleasing the majority of that's been through, you know, through earnings improvement. We expect that to continue. You know, we expect net assets to improve in the year ahead. So, you know, that goes into the equation as well. You know, we think the target is appropriate, and, you know, hopefully in the comments, you know, when we price any business, whether it be DB or our domestic annuity business or any business we're writing, you know, that ROE target is the basis for how we price the business.
And it's also how we'll think about doing any, you know, not that we have, but, you know, you'd use that for the metrics for any internal investments or transactions. And so that doesn't, you know, that, that doesn't change. But, you know, I think what we'd like the market to hear today is that in reducing the PCA requirement, increasing the target surplus to PCA, and taking PCA to 1.67, and as Alex commented, you know, preference to operate at a higher PCA and achieve the ROE, you know, that is our focus for FY 2025.
Can we go to Sid, and then we'll take Nigel after that?
Thanks. So without permission from J.P. Morgan, a couple of questions, if I can. Firstly, just on capital. The capital ratio improved significantly over the half. A lot of it seems to be because the combined stress charge dropped, and I think, Alex, you mentioned diversification as the key driver. Can you just explain that a bit more? Is that a change in your assumptions around diversification?
Yeah.
Is there anything you've changed in your asset allocation, which has led to this, which you weren't able to get credit for? And related to that, you know, I noticed a change in your wording around how you're actually seeking to operate versus your own targets, as opposed to the statutory, the regulatory targets. You know, you want to be at the strongly capitalized. I presume that means you want to be at the upper end. I just want to be clear whether the improvement we're seeing is something that is changing the way you will operate, or is this just an assumption change?
Yeah. No, thanks. So I'm, I'm happy to take that. Yeah. So, if we, if we think about what we're seeing today, it is really a step change in that PCA ratio, and it absolutely does reflect in how we expect to operate going forward. And what it does is provide us with really material headroom when we think about, both opportunities for growth going forward, but also how different markets might perform, and therefore how that balance sheet can travel through the cycle in, in different markets. Now, what we've done over the last, couple of years now is think about what are all the ways that we can economically diversify the balance sheet. So in the first half of the year, you would have heard us talking about our increased allocation to alternatives, as an example.
Now, actually, in that case, alternatives are pretty capital consumptive, and so you saw the PCA ratio actually fall from the back end of FY 2023 to the first half of FY 2024 as a result of a higher asset charge. But it was the right economic thing to do in order to create resilience in the balance sheet. This half, we've continued with those diversification strategies, and we have applied a number of additional hedging strategies, which have actually given us a benefit from a PCA requirement perspective. And so, you know, I think what's important is that the overall decisions that we're taking around diversification are to improve economic diversification. Some of them have been on a capital position and some are more consumptive. But importantly, it provides us that resilience and option for future growth.
So the comments we made about wanting to remain well-capitalized, you should hear that we're not making a change to our range, but you know, in a benign environment, you should expect us to operate in the upper half.
Okay. Is there any cost to these hedging strategies? That seems to be the big change from six months ago. Is there a cost which we should... It doesn't seem in your guidance as any expectation in your normalized guidance, but usually if you de-risk or if your capital position improves, usually your COE margin should go down. I just want to understand-
Yeah. So the way to think about it, you know, the combined stress ratio is really just an outworking of LPS 110, a completely prescribed capital calculation by APRA, and this is just an outworking of this. So no, no, no cost to the balance sheet or to our PNL. And obviously, we were very cognizant of taking APRA through those calculations very carefully in the run-up to the end.
Okay, thank you.
Nigel, put away Sid, maybe just follow up a bit on that. I mean, in terms of the better capital position-
... How does that change your near-term attitude to growth? Does it mean that we could see an acceleration in book growth, maybe in the near term, now that you've got more capital to enable you to grow?
Yeah. No, thanks, Nigel. I'll make a few comments on that. We haven't felt capital constrained to support growth. We do see, you know, significant growth opportunities ahead for us. I mean, it's sort of splitting the two out a little bit. I mean, the focus in the last couple of years, we've got a sales engine, a sales resource base, and a capability. We have orientated that towards longer dated business. And that was a very deliberate choice, and all other things being equal, that is slightly more capital consumptive on the term book, and more capital consumptive on the lifetime and longer dated book.
And that, you know, that journey, we've sort of spoken about a number of halves here, decelerating the maturity rate, increasing the effective tenor of the overall balance sheet, has been a really important outworking of, you know, what we've tried to achieve in the last couple of years. So, you know, to the extent, there are opportunities to, you know, further opportunities around defined benefits, et cetera, which are, are larger, then we feel very well capitalized, you know, to support, you know, those, those growth initiatives. Does that, does that answer it for you, Nigel?
Kind of. I mean, you've obviously, I think, book growth is what, about 5% this year? I mean, is that sort of... You know, given the amount of opportunities you've got-
Yeah, okay. Let me. So we're not targeting, as a business, we don't target a specific book growth. What we have done is decelerated, in some ways, the book growth in the last couple of years, as we have not seen some of the really short-dated business roll, particularly institutional, because we haven't priced to retain it. But you've seen. You know, if you look at the three-year plus business, which don't break down, like for like, that's flat from last year. If you look at the lifetime book in retail, that's up. Good growth in the care book's up 50% PCP, lifetime sales AUD 1.5 billion, a record. So, you know, the type of book growth we've been getting has really been the focus, but we haven't felt constrained.
At the half, we spoke about the optionality that the absolute return funds were giving us on the balance sheet. These were assets that we deployed into. We took off the equity position. They're not directly correlated to equity or credit. They're very capital intensive under the capital, under the PCA asset charge. And so we always felt that to the extent we needed to support growth, we had capital stored up there to unlock, but also to the extent through, you know, to support the balance sheet through cycle. That was the flexibility we had then. We haven't constrained ourselves growing because of, you know, a capital position in the business.
Maybe moving on. Thank you for that. Maybe then just moving on, in terms of the sort of, new cost to income target, how much of the AUD 90 in savings from Accenture are you allowing in sort of giving that new cost to income target?
I'll take that. So again, thanks for, thanks for the question, Nigel. So just as a reminder for everybody, when we went into the arrangement with Accenture, it had two parts. The first part was outsourcing our, our IT platform servicing to them. And that was the main driver for the AUD 90 million of savings over a 7-year period that we expected to see. We did talk about that being not completely linear, but we have, there is a step change in the cost of our IT services that is baked into FY 2025, and so that is a component part of being able to reduce that PCA, that CTI range, for FY 2025. So there's a component in that.
I mean, you said it would be tail-ended, so 90 divided by 7 is 13. So we're presuming it's what, 8-10? Is that?
I'm not gonna be specific as that, Nigel. But yeah.
Okay. And I mean, you're already there in the second half. So I mean, in a way, it doesn't seem that much of a stretch, is that?
Well, as we know, look, when-
It took some work to get there.
It was not easy to get there in the first place. But what we've done is, you know, we could've left the cost to income ratio as it was from a range perspective and seen that as more of a through the cycle. And, you know, we'll continue to keep the market updated as we can deliver on that.
Okay, thank you.
Anthony, in the back?
Hi, it's Anthony Yoo at CLSA. Just a couple of questions. Firstly, again, just on capital, interested in your comments around, you know, your capital position at the top end of your range now. I think it was six months ago last year where you, you know, modified the payout dividend payout ratio, where you reduced the bottom end. So just interested in your comments around, given where you are, how do you see your payout ratio, dividend payout ratio going forward?
I'm happy to take that one. Yeah. So, given where we are, with our PCA range, what we wanted to note is that that is a step change in that, in that PCA ratio. At the same time, we're not planning on making changes again to the dividend payout ratio. So we did widen that to give us some capital flexibility, but you'll note that this period for the full year ratio is at 43%. And actually, although the payout ratio has been coming down very slightly, in dollar terms, the dividend has been going up period on period.
But should we expect, you know, you'll be at upper end of the payout ratio range?
So we're not gonna, you know, provide guidance within the range, but what we do as an organization, obviously, is make priority calls each period on the best use of that capital. And, you know, as long as we've got ways to earn our return on equity internally within the business, then there'll be reasons to keep that capital at the business. And if we feel at any point that there aren't, then that'll be a driver to return it to shareholders.
... And just the second one, just on the TelstraSuper arrangement, can you give us some insight into how that is progressing? You know, what the reception has been like from the advisors on their end, you know, any sort of indication on volumes for the-
Yeah, okay. Thanks, Anthony. So, just as a background, so we, we started the arrangement with TelstraSuper. It was in October last year, so it's sort of 7-8 months into it. We worked with them to integrate as a building block between 20%-30% lifetime income alongside the account-based pension. That is what they call their RetireAccess strategy for Telstra members. Now, we have not called it out explicitly in a separate line here, because that's not appropriate, given it's a commercial arrangement between us and them, but it is going exactly as we hoped. And so a couple of observations is that, you know, Telstra's got a fantastic process to take their members through a pre-retirement, retirement phase.
There, we've worked very closely with their advice team on how to position the RetireAccess or the lifetime income component, and you're starting to see multiple writers coming through, and very regular business now coming off the back of it. We always said around this, that it should serve as a real sightline as to what's possible. You know, the annuity is not there as a 100% solution to retirement. It is there as a building block, 20%-30% of a retirement solution that, you know, does a whole lot of special things. And the way that Telstra set it up, the members can see it, and really pleasingly, about a third of their sales have come from direct members, so unadvised members through the platform.
So have not needed to go through the full comprehensive advice process to take on the RetireAccess product. So, you know, we are absolutely delighted with our relationship and the sales progressing with Telstra.
Thank you.
Operator, we might jump to the calls. Can we go to the first call? Thank you.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Lafitani Sotiriou with MST Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. I just wanted to follow up on the guidance for FY25, and whether you can add any color around the Life net book growth, in particular, with some commentary around the one-year term. So during this product refresh, last couple years, the number of one-year annuities has gone from 52% of the book to 26%. Would you say that that's broadly the natural level you expect to base out at? Or do you still see some churn in that book, and what is the midpoint of the guidance range for net book growth that you're assuming?
Yeah, thanks, Lafitani. I might try to split the answer a little bit to that, because I might talk about the one-year business, 'cause its contribution, whilst it meets the ROE, the contribution to, I mean, it can have a significant contribution to book growth without that commensurate necessarily to profit, given how, you know, how capital non-capital intensive these tend to be. So, you know, we made decisions over the last couple years. We are happy, all things being equal, to write one-year business, particularly in the retail market, where the pricing makes sense for us, where it meets the ROE.
You've seen really material bank competition in this period of time, and, you know, for where we had the sales team prioritize the longer dated business, and what you would have to price to win the one-year business, it just didn't make sense for us to compete it. So, you know, you have seen the one-year, and to an extent, the two-year sales, you know, down PCP about 30-odd%, but then the longer dated term sales, you know, flat to up. Flat, the longer dated ones, and then the lifetime up. And so, you know, in terms of what we assume in guidance, probably the one thing we could say, what we haven't assumed in the guidance is any DB wins.
You know, we've just kept it for that which we see immediately, you know, that which we can sort of easily forecast, as opposed to any of the sort of the singular events. But at 20x, you know, to many extents, that would have a minimal impact given that, you know, where it lands and the amount of period that, you know, you would be deploying that capital. So, you know, that's probably the comment on the one-year business there. So, you know, we have seen a relaxation of some of the competition in the, in the, you know, post the bank funding and TFF.
You know, so we'll see how that plays out in the next year, but there's significant assets that have built up in the term deposit market, which, you know, all things being equal, should be a target for us across the retail side of the business in the year ahead, given how competitive we are on rates out through the tenor. But then, you know, Laf, in terms of... We don't disclose what we are expecting otherwise for book growth into that guidance. Want something else?
No, I think, you know, the only other thing to say is that it is useful to have a well-diversified mix of sales across the balance sheet. And so, you know, we're not targeting a particular level of one-year business. The important thing for us is that we'll write it if it can meet our ROE.
... but certainly in the last few years, it's been very difficult to do that, and that's why you've seen those volumes come down.
Okay, got it. Why don't I move on? So looking at the, you know, as strong as your Life Company result is, on the flip side, it's actually pretty shocking that we're in a scenario now where the Funds Management business has a lower ROE than the Life Company. So there's a bunch of things you've talked to, initiatives you've got for the next year to try and improve the Funds Management business. But as much as there was a project sort of refresh in the Life Company to get the ROE reset, can you talk to how, over the medium term, you're really gonna see what should be a high ROE business, improve its returns?
Yeah, yeah, thanks. I'll make a few comments now Alex might add some. Yeah, I think if you look at what's happened in this period, just to be sort of clear, in our funds business, we break it down between our Challenger Investment Management and Fidante platform. So Challenger Investment Management, which is so important to the Life results, has had a fantastic year. So we've seen great origination coming off the back of that business. But that all sits inside the Life balance sheet. And so seeing the benefits of that sitting in the Life result, not in the funds result, in the main.
Now in the Fidante business, you know, we're not, we're not alone in having had a very difficult, retail sales environment, but it's extended now for, sort of two years there. We had some strategies that, had performed extremely well in the low rate environment, where in addition to, you know, the actual, retail environment, not seeing a lot of net flow, net flows, there are some green shoots now. You know, we have seen some outflows coming off one of the managers that have performed extremely well during, as I said, that low rate environment particularly, which has also impacted, the overall margin.
So the way we've based on it is that, you know, we, on the sales side, you don't get these sorts of institutional links and their, you know, their specific mandate opportunities without having the highest quality investment management capability. And so we're very confident in the platform, in the managers that we have on it. But in this period, you have had this, you know, reasonably unique, very strong top line fund growth, not translating to earnings growth. Now, some of that is timing. A lot of that, some of that flow came right at the back end of the financial year, so there will be some benefits coming through in FY 2025.
The other area we've spoken about is the material step up in the expense base that we've seen there, really as a result of servicing the investment management platform, so investment administration operations and data. And that has had a really material impact on the profitability of the funds business. So you know, that's not to make any excuses of it, 'cause to step back from it, the strategy that the team are executing to really focus on A, how we come out of this very low sales environment in retail, orientate some of the growth in the front book to higher margin credit product, as well as alternatives, as well as we're starting to see some of the equity manager flow come back, come back through retail.
You know, we're very focused on the, on the levers there that we have to control, whilst we've also been making decisions around uplift and improvements on the operating platform to reduce the cost of delivering those services. So that's a bit of a large bag of items there, but I might just ask if Alex would like to add anything to that.
No, I think you said it all. That, you know, we don't have a crystal ball around, you know, when the retail sentiment will change, but we have got really strong capability, particularly alternatives capability, ready for when that sentiment changes. In the meantime, what you should hear is that management will be relentlessly focused on those investment administration expenses, particularly for FM, but it affects the Life business, too, and then how we can bring those down.
Got it. And just one very quick, sort of macro question. So we've seen a lot of currency volatility, particularly with the yen. You've got some assets over there. Could you just talk to and some obviously business coming out of there. Can you talk to the change in hedging costs or any change in outlook over the year ahead that may come from some of the volatility we're seeing?
Yeah, maybe just to break that down, Matt. So, we have a JPY 50 billion agreement with MSP as a minimum, which, you know, so that gets translated to Aussie dollars. And so there will be some variability based on what the actual yen value of annuities written has been in any given year, translated. That which are done in yen, translated back to Aussie dollars. So, you know, you will always have that impact. We do have a Japanese property portfolio, which is hedged back to Aussie dollars. So, you know, that isn't so much an issue, and I'm trying to think if there's any other impacts.
No, that's fine. And we haven't seen any material changes-
Okay.
in the actual hedging costs.
Yeah. Yeah, none, no changes in the hedging costs there.
All right, great. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Andrew Buncombe with Macquarie Group. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for taking my questions. Just one for me, following up from the comment before, in relation to the timing of the fund flows in Fidante,
... That's causing a fairly significant reduction in percentage terms for the rate in, second half 2024. Should we assume that that rate gets back to the first half 2024 level going forward, or will it be somewhere in the middle for these structural changes in the portfolio? Thanks.
Yeah, I'm happy to take that question, Andrew. Thank you. So look, we have seen, you know, that income margin come down to 16.4% for the full year, so that's down 230 basis points. As Nick mentioned, you know, the very big licks of institutional flows were backended to the second half. And so, you know, that does, that, you know, that is a high contributor to that margin coming down. As we look ahead, it's difficult to be definitive because it will depend on the mix of business that we write going forward. And as Nick said, we've seen some green shoots around retail, which can be significantly higher margin, in comparison to some of the institutional flows that we'd, that we have been writing.
So I'd, I'd be hesitant to guide you to a specific point.
Okay. That's it for me. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Scott Russell with UBS. Please go ahead.
Yeah, morning, Nick. Morning, Alex. Can I just pick up on the conversation about Japan with the pretty extreme movements in the yen and JGB yields since the balance date? My understanding is that you don't necessarily naturally match the assets to the liabilities you've sold, and then you manage the FX risk with derivatives at the group level. Can you just confirm that's true? And then I also look at the sensitivities, and I noticed the earning sensitivity, the yen movements has risen, albeit still a low number in absolute terms. But maybe if you could just tie the two together, the volatility we're seeing in markets together with the way you approach FX risk and the increase in yen sensitivity.
Thanks for the questions, Scott. I'm happy to take that, 'cause the two are separate. So the way you've articulated how we manage the portfolio is right in terms of the hedging strategy. When you look at the sensitivity table this period, the sensitivity to currencies is slightly larger, and that is as a result of these changing and hedging strategies that we talked about as diversifying strategies, so providing the tail risk protection for the balance sheet, that has had that impact on the currency stress from a PCA perspective.
Okay. And then in terms of the sales, I think I saw somewhere that 60% of the, of, of the MSP sales came from the, the new yen-denominated, sales. Can you maybe comment on how you see that evolving? I mean, there's obviously gonna be some demand from the surging JGB yields since you started that business, but is Challenger agnostic as to what currency those, that business from MSP is written in?
Yeah, thanks, Scott. I'm gonna make a few comments on that. So we are agnostic. And so in extending the reinsurance agreement last November to yen, that was as an outworking of discussions with the MSP product team for what is happening, specifically in the Japanese market. So we've made a few comments in the past that, you know, foreign currency annuities have been very popular with Japanese annuitants, that a slightly positive nominal rate is certainly creating a lot of opportunities for yen-denominated annuities. In addition to which the, you know, the Japanese regulator had also totally unrelated to annuities, had shone something of a light on foreign currency sales of other products through certain channels.
And so that, you know, has led to stronger or larger volumes advised into yen-denominated products in Japan.
Okay. Thanks, Nick. Cheers.
Your next question comes from Julian Braganza with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Just following up on the discussion on the capital benefit in the currency stress . Alex, just the reason why there is no cost to the hedge. Just want to understand that, because is it this change in the calculation predominantly driven by assumed management action that you would take in a stress scenario? And if so, just what is, what has changed there? Just want to understand as well why the cost of the hedges is zero and there's no impact on the margin from that capital benefit.
Yeah. No, Julian, I mean, look, there is a tiny cost associated with actually putting the features on, but it is not at all material in the context of the Life P&L. And so you're absolutely right. That currency stress calculation looks at a single scenario where it puts all the capital charges together in one scenario, looks at what that adjustment should be to the capital that we need to hold. And as a result of having, you know, a long position on a range of foreign currencies, you know, that requirement in the currency stress , so that adjustment is smaller, and so the PCA requirement goes down. So that's what's driving that.
Okay, great. Understand. And then just a second question on the product cash margin. So if I look there, just in the second half, we sort of saw a nine basis points underlying improvement in that product cash margin, so that's excluding just the other income. Can I just kind of keen to understand what sort of benefit we should be seeing from here going forward. You have, you have sort of been seeing a pretty regular benefit, on that, on that line over the last few halves. And just a second observation as well is because when I sort of triangulate your NPAT guidance and, and your ROE expectations into next year, it doesn't look like you're factoring a lot of improvement in, in COE margins.
So I'm not sure if so one, is it the product cash margin, the expectations? Or is it, two, are you factoring interest rate cuts to come to that might offset as well? So just interested in understanding that. Thanks.
Yep, no problem. So a few parts to that question. So maybe I'll take the last part first, just to confirm, as before, we don't take a position on interest rates, it's falling all right. So we'll, you know, we, our guidance is based on assuming that it is at the level that it is today. When you look at the product cash margin, what we've seen is expansion, both for the half and for the full year, where the yield on the assets is growing faster than the interest expense. So although we are, we're passing on those higher interest rates to customers, we have been generating a greater yield on the asset side, which has widened that margin. And then you've also seen an increase on the shareholder fund side.
Now, the important reason why we don't provide COE guidance is it's not internally how we think about running the business. We run it for the ROE. And so the guidance range that we've provided today, the midpoint of that would meet our ROE target. But the actual mechanics of the outworking of the COE margin could vary, depending on the mix of business that we write. So an example of that is, we've got a really strong pipeline of Index Plus business at the moment. That business is low margin, but low capital, so great for ROE, but would be, you know, it has a lower COE margin. But we, you know, that's a good thing because it, it, it accretes to that ROE. So that's, you know, that's one of the reasons why we don't provide guidance on that, on that COE margin explicitly.
Okay, great. Thanks. And then just one last question. In terms of now, both, both Nick and Alex, just, now that in 2025 it's looking like you'll meet the target, how does this change how you run the business strategically, whether it be for, for growth, a greater focus on growth, or is it, more competitive on pricing? So just interested in how you think about the business now that you're at the, you're at the juncture where you're sort of achieving your ROE targets.
Yeah, okay. Well, I might have a first stab at that one. So, you know, Julie, it's been a real focus of ours for the last couple of years. We saw the cash rate move very quickly from 0 to 4.35, and, you know, we have been motoring up behind it. So we, you know, very much look forward to meeting the ROE target next year. The strategy that we've laid out to grow is sort of agnostic to that. You know, we have, you know, we're doing things across the business to continue to expand the channels through which we operate today. And so the results you've seen today is a significant outworking of that strategy.
You know, the really great looking sales that we're getting in the longer tenor business in retail. You know, as we bring on the new technology, our ability to do more integrations with the platforms to bring the term business into platform alongside the relationships that we're building around the wealth groups, around how they think about retirement and building retirement products for their advised client base. The work we've been doing ongoing with all the super funds, you know, none of that, whether it be DB or the flow partnerships, we have not missed a beat in the last three years as we've pushed, we've pushed on those efforts because we think, you know, we have a very clear vision of where we want to take this business. And we're doing...
You know, we're trying to do all, all these things concurrently. Business that creates the right type of return is managed prudently. You know, so you've seen that in CTI, you've seen that in what we've said about hitting ROE. But a business that's investing into its brand, investing to make sure that we retain our thought leadership position, and that's all happening, right? At the same time, we're investing into our technology to integrate ourselves into this, you know, evolving landscape. And it's evolving. It's not a point in time.
It's gonna keep developing in the years ahead, but position us to be unbelievably competitive in that space, through the technology investments and then all the relationships we have across the industry, that we've been investing so much time in the last number of years, whether it be super funds, wealth groups, et cetera, so that we can play a partner role with them. So we've been lining all these activities up concurrently, and so I think none of that stops, but we are very pleased that as we look to FY 2025, we're meeting our ROE target, and we're doing it with a balance sheet that has incredible capital resilience. You know, and clearly there's capital there to support, you know, the growth of our, of our annuity products in the years ahead.
Great. Thanks so much for that, guys.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone. Your next question comes from Andrei Stadnik with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Can I ask my first question just around the guidance? And you've highlighted that the tax rate you're looking for about 31.3%, you know, I think a little bit higher than you've run with in the past. But what's driving that, and is that something that, you know, would persist into the next couple of years beyond 2025?
Thanks for the question, Andrei. So no, it's a, it's a straightforward answer. We have for a number of periods, and will continue into the future, have a permanent difference arising from the non-deductibility of the interest on our capital notes. And so to the extent to which that, forms a permanent part of our capital stack, we will always have a, an effective tax rate just above the 30%.
... Thank you. And look, my other question, just, you know, going back to slide 18 on the last COE margin. When we compare, you know, all the drivers, for the full year, with the first half slide, it seems like, you know, the benefit of higher rates was just as strong in the second half as it was in the first half. So the question there is, you know, is there further benefit to come from higher rates, just given, you know, the lag in nature? So should we expect all else equal, that the COE margin would want to push higher, in the first half of 2025? You know, setting aside, you know, interest sales growth potential, is the lag benefit of higher rates still coming through?
Yeah. Thank you, Andre. So you know, we've been playing catch up with the interest rate for some time. I would say that, you know, the vast majority to all of the interest rate expansion, certainly to 4.35%, we'll see where it goes from here, is now reflected in that COE margin. As I said previously, it will depend on mix really, to see where it goes from here. But certainly the annuity business that we're writing today is accretive to that 3.12%.
Thank you.
There are no further questions on the phone line at this time. I'll now hand back. Thank you.
Thanks, operator. Are there any further questions in the room? Sorry. Sid?
Maybe just two quick ones. Just the, Alex, a key focus of what you've been saying has been driving the improved results is this focus on longer tenor annuities and the fact that it generates a higher ROE. You haven't really spelled out what that difference is. Can you give us some quantum? It's very hard to tell. You know, there's so much moving in the, in the numbers around writedowns and just changes in asset mix to really be sure. So if you could just tell us, in your view, what the difference is on a go-forward basis?
Yeah.
The difference.
Look, thanks, Sid. And not a new question. And it is a difficult one to articulate, because what we've been saying is, in extending the tenor of the liabilities, what that means is it really opens up the asset universe for us, because it's the asset side that's really delivering that return on equities. Now, on equity. In this period, we have had a, you know, a fixed income outlook where credit spreads have been quite tight, so we probably haven't fully maximized our ability to expand that ROE, which is why some of that expansion we're seeing will continue into FY25. It's not until FY25 that we fully meet it.
the ability to, you know, really invest in longer duration assets and the fact that a liquidity premium, which we talk about being sort of 1%-2%, that's where, you know, the magic comes in terms of the higher ROE as a result of the longer debt liabilities.
So, sorry, 1%-2% higher margin, COE margin-
Yeah.
with, so for an ROE, is it... How would that translate to an ROE?
It is, you can't do it on a completely linear basis because you could write longer dated assets and back them with capital light assets and deliver a lower ROE, or back them with more capital-intensive assets and deliver a higher ROE. So it really does depend how much capital you've got to be able to deploy in any one particular period.
Okay. Just one final question, just the property writedown. So, can you just give us comfort that where you're up to now, you're happy with your valuations on property?
Yeah. Thanks, Sid. So as I said previously, we have externally valued the entire property portfolio this year, so those are at fair values from an external valuation perspective. I think 69% were done in the second half, so very recent revaluations. That's the best way that we can give the market confidence that we're using all possible data points in capturing those valuations. You know, it's hard to determine exactly what the outlook looks like as we look ahead. You know, office, the office portfolio has clearly been the area that has been under the most pressure. But the retail portfolio and our Japanese portfolio are performing really well, so.
I think the comment we've also made is that the thing that we can control is the performance of the assets. And so what we've been really pleased with in the last 12 months is some of the re-leasing activity and extending, extending existing tenants, et cetera, across some of the assets, including some of the multi-tenanted office assets that we have as well. So, you know, and that's where Alex's comments about, you know, the cap rate expanding 34% relative to the valuations across the office part of the portfolio this last year, coming down 15%, but 20% over the last couple of years. So we're gonna continue to really try to drive the assets hard, because that will support the valuations.
Okay, there's no further questions in the room, so I'll close today's briefing. If you've got any further questions, both Irene and I are available on the telephones. Thank you for your interest today, and thank you for attending.