Please note that this conference is being recorded today, Thursday, the 19th, February 2026. I would now like to hand the conference over to your host today, Mr. David Harrison, Managing Director and Group Chief Executive Officer. Thank you, sir. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and welcome to Charter Hall Group's First Half FY 2026 results. Joining me today is Sean McMahon and our Chief Investment Officer, and Anastasia Clarke, our Chief Financial Officer. Today, I will provide an overview of the highlights of a very active last six months, and then cover the usual funds under management, equity flows, valuations, operating environment, and finish with our property investment balance sheet portfolio. Sean then will take you through development activity and our sustainability initiatives, followed by Anastasia with the financial highlights. We'll conclude with our outlook and Q&A. Turning to the group's highlights. Operating earnings for the half were AUD 239 million, or AUD 0.505 per security, reflecting continued momentum across every segment of the business.
This strong performance underpins today's upgrade to FY 2026 guidance to 100 cents per security, representing 23% growth over FY 2025. Return on contributed equity continues our multi-year trend of generating above 20% returns, which has increased to 23.1% post-tax and over 28% pre-tax. FY 2026 also marks the 15th anniversary of consistent dividend growth. Over that period, dividends have grown at 7.8% CAGR, well ahead of historic inflation in the REIT peer group. Group FUM increased from AUD 84.3 billion to AUD 92.2 billion on a pro forma basis, which includes additional FUM created post 31 December, while property FUM rose from AUD 66.8 billion to AUD 73.6 billion. During the first half, we had a very active total transaction volume of AUD 9.8 billion.
Acquisitions and development activity more than offset divestments, supported by positive net valuations, largely driven by rental growth as economic growth and increased tenant demand met with a severely reduced supply across all of the markets we operate in. Our balance sheet remains exceptionally strong, with balance sheet gearing of just 7.7% and AUD 1 billion of dry powder, providing for accretive acquisition capacity, which contributes to the more than AUD 7.8 billion of total platform deployment capacity. Importantly, we also recorded the strongest level of gross equity flows in our funds management business in our three-and-a-half decade history. On slide five, the investment management business secured AUD 4.8 billion of gross equity inflows during the half. Inflows over the past six months have accelerated materially, exceeding the prior full 12-month period.
We also are pleased to report average annual inflows over both the last five and ten-year period at close to AUD 4 billion annually, highlighting our consistent capacity to attract inflows through cycles. Total transactions were AUD 9.8 billion, comprising AUD 6.6 billion of acquisitions and AUD 3.2 billion of divestments. Acquisitions, development completions, and valuation growth, as I said earlier, comfortably outweighed divestments. Turning to slide six and our strong earnings growth history. Operating EPS has tripled over the past decade, delivering a 12.6% CAGR, while distributions have grown at over 10% per annum. Around half of our post-tax earnings are reinvested back into the business, funding growth in property and development investments.
This enables us to invest alongside capital partners, expand our funds management earnings, and generate strong return for security holders without the need to issue new public market equity to grow. This is a key, competitive advantage we retain, and we will continue to organically grow the business through the retention of our earnings via our payout ratio policy. Given our capital-light business model, this is a powerful and sustainable driver of organic earnings growth. Slide seven highlights the long-term strength of our distribution profile. Over the past 16 years, Charter Hall's delivered consistent dividend growth higher than the growth rate of U.S. REITs, currently included in the U.S. S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Index. Slide nine provides a deeper look at our property funds management platform.
Institutional investors contribute over 76% of total platform equity, while more than 82% of our property funds under management is across the unlisted, wholesale, and direct channels. Investor demand for unlisted property remains strong, reflecting the safe haven characteristics of Australian real estate and the diversification benefits unlisted assets provide amid a heightened, listed/liquid asset class market volatility. Turning to slide 10, property FUM increased from AUD 66.8 billion to AUD 73.6 billion on a post balance date, acquisition-adjusted basis, driven by acquisitions, development completions, positive valuation movements, and of course, our previously announced Challenger mandate, which was secured during the half. Growth was led by the wholesale unlisted platform. This reflects early signs of valuation recovery and the benefits of disciplined portfolio curation across all three of our listed REITs, which has helped deliver meaningful earnings and NTA value growth for those REITs.
Property FUM has now surpassed the peak achieved in June 2023, before the devaluation cycle the market experienced. With AUD 7.8 billion of available investment capacity, we expect further growth through acquisitions, valuations, and ongoing develop-to-hold strategies over the remainder of FY 2026. Our property platform, as highlighted on slide 11, comprises over 1,600 assets, spanning 11.5 million sq m of lettable area, with 97% occupancy and a market-leading 7.5-year WALE, or weighted average lease expiry. Our integrated property management team secure more than AUD 3.6 billion in net rent each year, a critical metric as rental income underpins everything we do. I&L, or Industrial and Logistics, is our largest sector exposure at 37% of the platform, while convenience retail continues to grow and now represents over 20% of the platform.
Our office platform, at over AUD 26 billion, is the largest in the country. We are seeing encouraging early signs of recovery and are actively planning increased development and deployment in high-quality CBD asset locations, while we're also repositioning in opportunities, such as the recent acquisition of One O'Connell Street and the adjoining assets in the core of Sydney CBD, which, on a combined site area basis of approximately 6,800 square meters, is one of the largest site consolidations in Sydney CBD, alongside our 7,500-meter Chifley site, which, as you're all aware, we're well progressed on, developing a second Chifley tower, which, on a combined basis, will generate over 110,000 square meters of lettable space in two adjoining premium-grade towers. Turning to equity flows.
During the half, funds management secured AUD 4.8 billion of equity inflows, a record for a six-month period across the history of the group. Inflows were broad-based, spanning all three wholesale pool funds, CPOF, our office fund, CPIF, our industrial fund, and of course, our recently launched CCRF, or Convenience Retail Fund. Partnerships have also been a strong contributor, including the Challenger mandate I mentioned, and we have seen a notable uplift in fund or equity flows for Charter Hall Direct, which in six months has exceeded all the flows generated in the whole of FY 2025. Slide 13 summarizes our industrial platform. We manage over 7.2 million sq m of lettable area, representing AUD 27 billion of funds under management, and importantly, close to a 20 million sq m land bank across that portfolio, making this the largest third-party industrial platform in Australia.
The portfolio is modern, most of which has been developed by Charter Hall, attracting a high occupancy and is underpinned by long WALEs, strong leasing renewals achieved during the half. Importantly, we still believe the portfolio has got a 17% discount to market rents, providing positive rental reversions over the course of coming years. Our development pipeline sits at AUD 6.5 billion in industrial. This is underpinned by a significant land bank of over 223 hectares. I also note our recent media announcement on a new 20-year lease on a 100,000 square meter facility to Aldi at one of our largest sites in Melbourne, as an example of the ongoing pre-committed development activity we are completing within the industrial platform.
Slide 4-14 outlines our office platform, clearly Australia's largest at AUD 26 billion, with 2.1 million square meters of lettable area. Leasing momentum was strong, with 124,000 sq m leased across 134 transactions during the half. Net effective rents outpaced face rent growth, and 93% of, 93% of tenants were retained in their existing or expanded footprints. Occupancy remains high at 95% relative to peers and clearly relative to the market, well ahead of our, broader aspirations for occupancy. And I also note that in, in a strongly improving net effective rental market, it's also helpful to have a bit of vacancy so you can capture those, positive market rental growth reversions.... I anticipate that you'll be hearing a lot more from us on various office activity as we move forward.
We are positive on the outlook for our assets and also deployment, as this market is clearly, at least for quality CBD holdings, in the early phase of what could turn out to be a sustained and attractive recovery for office landlords. Our convenience retail platform, on slide 15, manages around AUD 15 billion of assets or over AUD 17 billion, including our Long WALE Bunnings assets. The sector represents a significant long-term opportunity, given limited institutional ownership and the increasing difficulty of replicating well-located assets in inner and middle-ring metropolitan markets.
Last year's successful take private of HPI was just another example of us expanding our long WALE convenience retail platform, and recent acquisitions of Bunnings portfolios, such as the AUD 290 million sale and leaseback acquisition we closed with Bunnings in the last half, is further evidence of our conviction to grow into the convenience net lease retail sector with the market-leading tenants in each of those sectors. When we think about barriers to entry in this sub-market, including land availability, zoning, scale, and capital, we do believe that Charter Hall is a durable competitive advantage in securing further growth for our investors.
More importantly, it's also providing another string to our bow when we talk to our tenant customers around curating their existing lease portfolios, but also being able to fund sale and leaseback transactions if that suits these major retail customers. Slide 16, and social infrastructure remains a core strategic focus. These assets provide essential services, exhibit low correlation to economic cycles, and are among the lowest risk property sectors. With Australia's growing population, demand for these services will only increase, and Charter Hall is well-positioned to play a leading role across all aspects of social infrastructure, from government-leased essential service assets through to childcare. The portfolio is 100% occupied, supported by long WALEs, and predominantly triple and double net leases. Now, just looking at our tenant relationships on slide 17. Our top 20 tenants contribute 53% of platform income.
We manage over 5,300 leases, collecting more than AUD 3.6 billion in net annual rent. Over 69% of tenants hold multiple leases, enabling deep, long-term relationships across assets, locations, states, and sectors. During the half, we were highly active with renewals, expansions, and sale and leaseback transactions virtually across every one of the sectors that we operate in. Long-term tenant partnerships remain a cornerstone of our broader strategy. Slide 18, and our transactions. As mentioned earlier, we completed close to AUD 10 billion during the half, with net activity up strongly. Office and convenience retail were the largest contributors to acquisition growth during that 6-month period, whilst we continued to actively curate our industrial portfolio. Slide 20 provides an overview of our property investment portfolio, which those of you not familiar with the terminology, represents the Charter Hall on-balance sheet investment portfolio.
The AUD 2.8 billion portfolio spans over 1,500 properties, 97% occupancy, and an 8.2-year WALE, and a 3.3% weighted average rent review. That is reflective of our co-investments, predominantly in all of the funds and partnerships we manage. In addition to that, we also have curated property investments on-balance sheet, generally for warehousing to provide assets that will attract further external capital. Cap rates compressed by 10 basis points over the half, with the weighted average discount rate now at 7%. Geographically, New South Wales or Sydney represents close to 40% of our exposure. Brisbane, predominantly Brisbane or Southeast Queensland at and Victoria, each around 20%. Our balance sheet exposure to office is deliberate.
We believe these assets offer most attractive prospective IRRs, will attract external capital, and provide income uplift potential across the platform over the next 3-5 years. With that, I'll now hand over to Sean to cover development activity and sustainability.
Thanks, David, and good morning to everyone on the call. Our development pipeline now totals AUD 17.9 billion. Our development capability and track record has been a significant key strength of the group for over 30 years. Develop to own next-generational assets are highly accretive to long-term returns for our investor customers. Development activity continues to drive modern asset creation, providing property solutions for our tenant customers and enhancing returns whilst attracting new capital to our funds and partnerships to deliver on strategic objectives.... Development completions totaled AUD 1.3 billion in the last 12 months. And notwithstanding completions, the pipeline continues to be restocked and is currently AUD 17.9 billion. There are currently AUD 4.8 billion in committed developments, with 74% of committed office developments pre-leased and 94% of committed industrial logistics developments pre-leased, providing de-risked, adjusted accretive returns for our funds.
We have generated an AUD 5.5 billion pipeline with living and mixed-use projects that have now obtained strategic planning approvals, optimizing existing holdings and providing optionality to grow in the living sector. The successful SEPP planning approval of Gordon Shopping Centre, that potentially delivers a mixed-use, multi-stage project of AUD 1.6 billion end value, was the material addition to the pipeline in the first half. Noting David's previous comments on Australia's strong forecast population growth, we expect that the creation of new developed investment stock and opportunities for investment management platform will continue to feature prominently. Now turning to slide 24. Over the first half, our industrial platform completed AUD 515 million of developments for a WALE of 10 years. We currently have AUD 2.3 billion in industrial development projects committed and underway.
Our total pipeline of future industrial investment-grade stock now sits at a material AUD 6.5 billion. There are three major projects driving the pipeline growth, pre-committed by Australia's major supermarket retailers, Coles, Woolworths, and ALDI, that have a combined completion value of AUD 1.5 billion. That will deliver state-of-the-art automated facilities to service their respective networks. There is also good momentum at our Western Sydney Airport joint venture site, where there are multiple major pre-commitments secured or at advanced stages. Charter Hall has one of the largest industrial footprints in the nation, comprising over 20 million square meters of land, and we are focusing our efforts to maximize for our investor customers from the land we own. Given the scale and diversity of our land holdings, there are multiple key data center sites existing within this industrial land bank.
There are a number of data center sites in focus in our land banks that are located within availability zones, and we're in the process of unlocking significant power supply and associated planning approvals over the next few years. Importantly, we retain optionality to sell this powered land at a material premium to industrial land values or negotiate long-term ground leases with hyperscalers, as we have done before. Now turning to slide 25. The Chifley Precinct, which includes the existing North Tower and the South Tower, where construction is progressing well, will eventually have a precinct value of approximately AUD 4 billion. The project is Sydney's premier office address and will be Charter Hall Group's largest asset, with a combined lettable area of 110,000 square meters. The project is scheduled to complete in mid-2027 and is owned by various Charter Hall-managed wholesale investment vehicles.
Our wholesale clients are participating in the investment with the objective of long-term retention of this iconic asset. As you can see, the group has been very busy delivering new, high-quality office developments across Australia, anchored by government and Tier One tenant covenants. Now turning to slide 26. We continue to drive our industry leadership across all facets of ESG, demonstrated by recent GRESB Global and Regional Awards, with 18 of the Group's funds in the top quartile, and notably, five CHC funds were ranked in the top 10 global funds. Our listed entities achieved an A ranking under the GRESB public disclosure rating and a double A MSCI rating. Pleasingly, we have now installed 89.7 megawatts of solar power across our platform, and this equates to sufficient power for approximately 20,000 homes, and our green loans now exceed AUD 8 billion.
From July 2025, our whole platform operates as net zero through existing on-site solar and renewable electricity contracts. I'll now hand over to Anastasia to discuss the financial result in more detail.
Thank you, Sean, and good morning to everyone on the call. The first half of FY 2026 delivered strong operating earnings after tax of AUD 238.8 million, representing an increase of 21.6% on the comparable prior period. Top-line revenue growth was driven across all three segments, comprising property investment income, development investment income, and funds management revenue. Growth in property investment income was underpinned by like-for-like funds income growth of 4% on our co-investments, together with a material contribution from the incremental deployment of AUD 290 million net equity investment over the past 18 months. This results in a full-period contribution of the FY 2025 investments and partial period contribution from the year-to-date investments to PI EBITDA, all on significantly higher equity PI yields....
Development investment EBITDA has increased to AUD 38.1 million, representing approximately 10% of the group's EBITDA, achieved through the successful completion of developments primarily sold down to funds. Funds management EBITDA remains in line, which follows the usual historic pattern of strong equity inflows in the half, translating to fully annualized funds management fees in the following financial year, post a period of deployment. Underlying FUM growth through valuations and net acquisitions and progressive funding of the AUD 4.8 billion platform committed development pipeline is supporting growth in base fee revenue and transaction fees, offset by higher operating costs. Pleasingly, the group is reporting a healthy statutory profit after tax for the first half of AUD 272.8 million, reflecting the combination of operating earnings and positive property revaluations.
OEPS increased 21.6% to 50.5 cents per security, whilst DPS continues to grow consistently at 6%. This results in approximately half of the group's earnings being retained for reinvestment, primarily into higher-yielding property investments. As noted earlier, this reinvestment is meaningful in scale, underpins growth in property investment EBITDA, and provides a pipeline of assets to create new funds. Slide 29 provides further details on funds management earnings. Funds management base fees increased by 5.3% in the first half, driven by higher FUM arising from valuation uplifts and net acquisitions. Transaction fees are materially higher at AUD 32 million, reflecting large transaction volumes, with net acquisitions supported by high equity inflows across the platform, most notably within CCRF. Property services revenue was lower in the first half due to elevated leasing fees in the prior period.
Notwithstanding this, the group expects a sizable positive skew across all property services revenue in the second half of FY 2026. Variable operating costs has increased in first half 2026 to AUD 73.5 million, reflecting employee and payroll tax accruals. Overall, this resulted in FM EBITDA of AUD 142.3 million for the first half. Importantly, elevated net equity inflows lead to future deployment, resulting in full contribution to funds management fee revenue in the following financial year. Turning to the balance sheet and total returns on slide 30. The group's balance sheet investment in the property investment and development investment portfolio has increased to over AUD 2.8 billion. Pro forma adjusted for post-balance date deployment, including investments such as the O'Connell Precinct in Sydney, exceeds AUD 3 billion.
Positive revaluations and retained earnings during the half has driven an increase in NTA to AUD 5.54. Gearing remains low at 7.7%, and subsequent to balance date, the group has added AUD 400 million of new undrawn debt lines, together with existing cash, providing investment capacity of AUD 1 billion, positioning the group well to pursue investment growth opportunities. Further refinancing across existing bank debt lines to extend tenor, combined with new bank lines, results in a lower margin and line fee of 22 basis points in the second half. Total returns continue to grow, with the group delivering an after-tax annualized return on contributed equity of 23%. Maintaining strong return metrics is fundamental to ensuring optimal deployment of both the group's capital and that of our partners.
This continued focus on total return outcomes ultimately generates long-term earnings growth and sustainable value creation for our investors. On slide 31, similar to the group's balance sheet, we had a highly productive half year, which continues, raising AUD 10 billion year to date of new debt and refinancing existing debt across our funds management platform, supported by favorable credit market conditions. We expect the pace of refinancing to further accelerate in the second half through to 30 June 2026. Credit appetite from our lending partners, including both domestic and international banks, remains very strong. This is evidenced not only by the significant new and extended loan volumes completed year to date, but also in wider covenant headroom and lower credit margins, averaging savings of 27 basis points.
This debt financing activity has increased investment capacity to AUD 7.8 billion, providing additional flexibility to deploy capital across a range of various real estate strategies and opportunities. While the RBA cash rate and market floating rates remain higher than previously expected, we have progressively implemented hedging throughout the first half across funds, providing protection against earnings volatility in both FY 2026 and FY 2027. Overall, the group has achieved a ten basis points lower WACD across the funds management platform as at 31 December, compared to 30 June 2025. Before handing back to David, in summary, the first half of FY 2026 represents a strong earnings result. The combination of elevated equity inflows and balance sheet capacity positions the group well to deliver ongoing FUM growth and sustainable future earnings growth.
Thank you, Anastasia. Turning now to slide 33 and our earnings guidance. I'm pleased to advise that due to strong performance within our investment and property services business, today we are providing a further upgrade to earnings guidance for FY 2026. Based on no material adverse change in current market conditions, FY 2026 earnings guidance is for post-tax operating earnings per security of approximately AUD 1.00 per security... which represents 23% growth over FY 2025 earnings, and an additional AUD 0.05 above the AGM upgraded guidance provided of AUD 0.95. This earnings guidance excludes any expectation for performance fees. FY 2026 distribution per security guidance is for 6% growth over FY 2025, continuing a 15-year history of annualized DPS growth. That now ends the prepared remarks, and I now invite your questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder to ask the question, please press star one one on your telephone, then wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Suraj Nebhani with Citi. Your line is open.
Oh, thank you. Good morning. Great result, guys. A couple of quick questions from me. Firstly, on the CCRF fund, you called out AUD 2.4 billion of gross equity. Can I just confirm how much of that has been, like, filled in terms of transacted upon, and what capacity does that give you in the second half, please?
Thanks, Suraj. Well, the answer is that, there's another AUD 1 billion of acquisition capacity over and above what we announced, or, or issued in the media today, with another AUD 360 million portfolio acquisition. The other part of that capacity is, we're continuing to raise equity, in CCRF. So I think that dry powder will accelerate over the next few months with further inflows. And what typically happens with these open-ended funds is that, particularly with the scale and diversity of the LPs that have supported that fund, I think we're going to see an acceleration in both domestic and offshore, wholesale investor, inflows into that fund.
So while it might be AUD 1 billion of dry powder now, I'm sort of expecting that to continue to grow even as we deploy further. So, you know, I don't, I don't sort of really give guidance on how much I expect to acquire further in the second half, but it's fair to say, you know, with today's announcement of 360 and various other acquisitions I expect it'll be a pretty strong contributor to further fund growth in the second half.
Thanks for that, David. Maybe just one question for you, obviously called out a very favorable backdrop in the record inflows, yet we have seen 10-year rates, you know, move up pretty strongly, and even the longer-term rates in the U.S. are up pretty strongly in the last, let's say, in a few months. Is that having any impact on the discussions you're having, you know, with capital partners with respect to property investments?
Well, I think it'd be naive to say that movement in bond yields doesn't have an impact. The only thing I'd say is, before we even went into this, you know, almost hysterical view on, you know, multiple interest rate rises, there was already a pretty strong gap between bond yields and unlevered IRRs and levered IRRs that we can deliver to our capital, both in core, value-add, and opportunistic. So I think the demand still exists. I've said it before, you know, even though there's been some corrections in stock markets around the world, the reality is that most of the capital we talk to are under weight, their strategic allocation to property.
A lot of our capital have experimented in various forms of alternatives, some of which have blown up completely, some of which have been highly disappointing in terms of the return you should be getting when you're going into sort of new sectors. So I think there's, there's both absolute underweight, pension capital, and I think we're also gonna see further reallocation away from some of what I call the alternative experimental, investments we've seen in the last few years back to really good quality core. Particularly when in all core sectors office, retail, industrial, you're buying existing buildings way below replacement cost. And I'll call out, things like office, where, you know, we went through a period of, quite elevated rising incentives, and incentives are coming down, and so effective rental growth is outpacing face rental growth.
So it'll become a strong, deliverer of good total returns. And as I've said before, 'cause cap rates in office are virtually 150 basis points above where they were pre-pandemic, whereas other sectors are more or less got cap rates back to pre-pandemic cap rates the total return proposition for prime office, is, is pretty strong. So I think we'll continue to get good demand in convenience retail, logistics, and I think, as I've said on a couple of occasions, I think office might surprise everyone over the next two or three years. So overall I don't really see the latest sort of gyration in long-end bonds, material having an impact for all the reasons I just outlined.
Perfect. And if I can just ask one last question from Anastasia, please. Around the costs in the funds management division, the 73 million dollars that seemed reasonably high compared to first half last year. Is there a skew, Anastasia, there to the first half this year, or maybe expectations for the full year, please?
Thank you, Suraj. Not a particular notable skew to call out. I did say that it's variable costs, employee costs, and payroll tax, and it's really associated with the, you know, the outperformance we've achieved in the business. You've seen two earnings upgrades, and associated with that outperformance, obviously subject to board discretion, but there's an accrual there for further short-term incentive and the payroll tax that goes with that.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Solomon Zhang with UBS. Your line is open.
Morning, Dave, Sean, Anastasia. Thanks for your time. First question was just, I guess, in relation to the volatility in global capital markets that you referred to in your opening remarks and the result announcement. You've mentioned that that's increased the institutional demand for Australian property. Just wondering if you've got any data points around this. Are you seeing an uptick in year-to-date inbound inquiry and appetite to deploy on the platform?
Look, as a broad statement, every pension fund or super fund is different, but you know, what we're seeing is a reduction in allocations to international listed equities. I'm not sure I'm necessarily seeing an absolute reduction in allocations to domestic equities. If you sort of think about the private markets, and most pension funds have people running listed equities, you know, fixed income, and private markets, and within private markets, you've got property, infrastructure, and private equity. We are seeing globally a lower new investment into private equity because it's well understood that private equity has materially increased their investment holding periods, and therefore, the cash coming back to investors out of realizations from private equity has severely been reduced.
W e think we will be a beneficiary of incremental dollars not going into PE and coming into property. Infra has obviously sort of performed pretty well, but it's often very lumpy, the new deployment opportunities that, that exist. So all of that sort of puts it into property into a basket that will have demand. And then when you split the world into regions, I'm not sure we're seeing a lot of narrative around incremental CapEx going or investment into U.S. property, from global investors who would need to make a choice where they want to invest. We're certainly seeing a ood acceleration in demand out of European pension funds wanting to invest in Asia Pac.
The backup in bond yields in Japan is actually helpful because most Asia Pac core capital really doesn't see core markets outside of Japan and Australia. You know, most of the other options are sort of seen as a little more volatile and higher risk. And with the backup in bond yields in Japan, there's some question marks around whether or not the 30-year, you know, yield spread play, where there's not a lot of capital growth or and/or potential negative capital growth. Now, a lot of people are starting to wonder whether, you know, there is gonna be negative capital growth with the backup in Japanese bonds.
A ll of that means we're getting accelerated demand for investment in Australia, and as the biggest player in the country across all the sectors, we're a natural port of call for this capital. And we just don't wait for them to walk into One Martin Place. I've got a team traveling the world regularly talking to capital. I feel that we're in a good position. Australia's generally in a good position, and I think we're going to see, as I said earlier, both core value add and opportunistic risk capital wanting to get deployed in Australia.
That's good color. As a follow-up to that, would you have an estimate of where property allocations might sit versus their strategic asset allocation targets? I know we have good visibility into the Australian Super fund data, but less into offshore.
Mate, I think even the Australian Super fund data is very different, whether it's a defined benefit fund, an accumulation fund. But as a broad cross-section, and this is all, you know, available on APRA, you know, I'd say domestic super allocations to property could range anywhere between 6% and 13%. We've found global capital typically would have a higher allocation at the bottom end, and in some cases I've seen allocations up to 17%, 18%. But if you wanted a rough rule of thumb, I'd say 9% in domestic and 10% or 11% - 12% for international capital. And then depending on the particular partner, whether it's a pension fund or a sovereign wealth fund, some of them are very opaque in their weighting. So, you know, it's difficult.
But, you know, all I care about is, do people have incremental appetite? And everyone I talk to has got incremental appetite. So that hopefully gives you the color.
Thanks, David. Maybe just a final question for Sean. Just on the AUD 5.5 billion in mixed-use pipeline, can you just give us some math of how you've built up to that amount, maybe just how many lots, rough area, value per square meter? And can you just confirm whether this is assuming, you assume you hold 100% of the project equity at the end, or do you assume that you bring in a capital partner for a part of that stake?
T hank you. Look, that's the pipeline completion value on the assumption that we build out the strategic planning approvals we've delivered over the last year or so. So in terms of optimizing our existing assets, which is the real strategy, that's a big accomplishment, which leads to the AUD 5.5 billion, and that's more recently, a material addition was Gordon Shopping Center, where we just got a SEPP amendment for a potential AUD 1.6 billion mixed-use project. So we now have the optionality to bring in new partners, to strategically develop these assets out, or we can optimize the existing assets as they are and trade them for a premium. I think the main thing is we have optionality now to grow in these sectors, which is a new thematic, if you like, in the living space.
But I might add that over the last five or six years since we've owned Folkestone, we've built out about six in global residential subdivisions, which has been very successful. So it's not a brand-new sector for us, but we're just optimizing the existing assets that gives us optionality to deliver future earnings in different spaces in the future. Do you want to add to that, David?
Yeah, I'd just add, you know, over 95% of the gross completion value is build to sell. So one of the reasons why pension capital likes build to sell is over the course of a sort of three- or four-year project, they know they're gonna get their money out plus their profit, because that's the nature of build to sell. And there is absolutely no way we're funding any projects without majority external capital. So I think that answers your question. I think the other thing I'd say is that, we're probably, when you think about this pipeline, we've added value to assets that we already own in the platform. We're not going out there buying overpriced Sydney land, which has been the case for a lot of people trying to do residential.
We're actually cultivating and adding value to our existing owned assets or managed assets. It's quite a different model, but, you know, it, depending on market cycles and obviously us attracting external capital when we're ready to go, that's how these things will get developed out.
That sounds very clear. Thanks for your time.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Simon Chan with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Oh, good day, everyone. Hey, David, you talked about pretty successful fundraising campaigns over the last six months. Just wondering if you think office market now has stabilized to a point where, you know, flow of equity could come rushing back into CPIF? Because from memory, you're gonna kick off a capital raise there, right? Have you got any insights for us?
No, we've already recently raised a quarter of a billion in CPIF. I think as I said before, Simon, when I look at like-for-like cap rates for prime office versus the other sectors, they've got the most cap rate compression just to mean revert back to pre-pandemic levels. I think all the hysteria around work from home is dissipating quickly. You only have to look at the occupancies, the vibrancy in, in, you know, both Sydney and, and Brisbane. Obviously, Melbourne's gonna have a slower recovery, but it also has got very little new supply, and we're starting to see double-digit , unbelievably, double-digit net effective rental growth coming through in the Paris End of Melbourne albeit off high incentive levels.
I think, I've been saying for 12 months, I think you might find over a 5-year period, you know, office is the sleeper in terms of inflows. Do I think that's gonna be the next 6 months, 12 months, 18 months? I don't know. I can say we're having a lot of constructive discussion with investors and the smart ones who realize you want to get in early in a recovery cycle, not at the later end of it, to maximize your IRRs, having a really good look at jumping in now. If you, you know, if you look at our acquisition on One O'Connell Street, that's a pretty big statement about where we think really strong potential growth is gonna come in the prime core of Sydney.
A ll I can say is that, we're looking to play that office recovery across core value add and, and, and opportunistic. I think there's, a bit like I was saying about build to sell on our existing assets, it's pretty hard to go out there and buy a block of land and make things work. So quite often, as we've done with Chifley, we'll cultivate what we've already got. W e in Melbourne, about eight years ago, we built another 26,000 meters on an existing 30,000-square-meter building. Effectively, didn't owe me anything on the land, and I created 2,500-meter floor plates on, on the bottom 10 levels. And so I think there's, different ways that you can play that market.
I think the office will provide outsized, go-forward equity IRRs, compared to other sectors. And there'll be some that are smart enough to get in early, and then there'll be others that wait for a couple of years of solid NTA growth before they sort of jump back in. T hat's the landscape we're looking at.
Fair enough. If I think about your guidance, originally, you were guiding to AUD 0.90 for the year, and now you're guiding to AUD 1. That, that, especially over the course of the last six months, David, you found an extra AUD 50 million somewhere, right? That's a sizable number. Like, what has driven, I know in your prepared remarks, you kept saying, "Our business is better," but fifty million dollars is a big number. Like, did you just completely misread the market back in August? Or, like, where's the bulk of the AUD 50 million coming from?
Well, first of all, if you think about AUD 4.8 billion of inflows in six months, which is probably higher than any full-year inflow we've ever had, even with my optimistic outlook, I didn't think we'd raise that amount of capital. And obviously, you know, there's some wins in there that we wouldn't have necessarily anticipated at the start, like the Challenger mandate. There's a few other things that are happening in the second half that, you know, we'll eventually announce. We've also done, I think, a good job in further recycling equity we had, selling it down to capital partners and then redeploying into new investments that has helped drive the PI line.
L ook, I've said it before, Charter Hall has historically been able to deliver very, very strong and consistent multi-year earnings growth after a correction cycle. If you're an analyst, you have a look at the history of Charter Hall's earnings. We, you know, we're in a positive momentum situation, but the last thing I'm ever gonna do is over-guide based on I might raise AUD 4.8 billion of equity in six months. I'd prefer to guide where we have visibility, and if we can deliver upside through further deployment, particularly further equity flows, that's the way we've run the business for 21 years since it was listed.
The other thing I'd say is, and I've called this out before, there's a bow wave or delayed impact on revenue and hence earnings from strong inflows. You know, if we have AUD 4.8 billion in the first half, you won't see an annualized impact on that until FY 2027. So if we can have another strong inflow year in the second half, so we've got, you know, an even bigger record of inflows in FY 2026, the bow wave effect means you're not gonna see a full-year annualized revenue and EBIT impact from that till 2027.
So this is why we're pretty constructive about the future, and obviously, myself and the rest of the 600 team are out there, raising more equity continuing to do active leasing and grow the business. So, hopefully, that gives you the answer that you wanted. Like, if you're asking me why I didn't know we'd be at AUD 1 when we guided 90, well, that's the answer.
Yeah. Fair enough, David. Thanks. That's all I got. Cheers.
Okay. Thanks, Simon.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of James Druce with CLSA. Your line is open.
Yeah. Hi, good morning, David and team. Thank you for the presentation. I just wanted to clarify something I'm not sure on. I mean, you've done 11.5% return over 10 years. Since inception, it's probably better than that. Is, is that in performance fee territory for ' 27?
Mate, I don't give you one-year forward guidance, let alone two-year forward guidance on anything. So, all I'd say is, you'll recall we generated performance fees out of CHOT in FY 2019 and FY 2020. As you its point out, there's another measurement period in 2027. What I would say to you is we're gonna need a decent level of Cap Rate compression to get that back to the high watermark, because your IRR calculation on all performance fees always goes back to time zero, and has regard for previously paid performance fees. But, so I wouldn't say it's out of the question, but I certainly wouldn't say it's in the money at the moment.
Okay. All right. And then, just second question, just on the, the, AUD 5.5 billion mixed-use opportunity. How do we think about the, the timing of getting something to go to market, for that? I mean, it sounds like you've got all the pieces of the puzzle together. There's strong demand in that sector.
Are you talking about residential?
Yeah, the AUD 5.5 billion.
Mate, it's all about market cycles. You know, some of those have got a S tage 2 planning approval, like 201 Elizabeth Street, and would be ready to go. Similarly, at Westmead, Gordon needs to go through another stage before it's fully ready to go. They're all income-producing brownfield opportunities, so we're in no hurry. What I call the planets aligning is A, having vacant possession and planning approval, B, having external capital partners to fund it, with us maybe doing a bit of a co-investment, and, more importantly, our team having conviction that it's the right time to go. Now, if you think about build to sell, you're not gonna start construction on any build to sell without a significant level of pre-sales.
If think about all of that you need the planets to align, including pre-sales, so you can get non-recourse project finance to l ike anything you've got to match the equity funding with the debt funding, and pre-sales for you to start construction. So that's how we're gonna prosecute those development opportunities. W hile residential, particularly luxury res, such as 201 Elizabeth Street is strong, we think there'll be very, very strong demand for something like Gordon. The reality is you've got to make all the planets align, including getting fixed price construction contracts that make sense.
Fortunately, we're starting to see some deflation in construction pricing in industrial, where we've let a lot of building contracts well below what it would have been a year ago. But it's still it's not easy, as you've probably heard from some of the on-balance sheet resi developers. It's not easy to lock down decent pricing on construction. T hey're all work in progress, and as I said, for the time being, we're getting good passing yields on those assets in the various funds and partnerships that own them.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Adam Calvetti with Bank of America. Your line is open.
Hi, David and team. Just trying to reconcile. I mean, first half, you've done AUD 6.6 billion acquisitions, transaction revenues, AUD 32 billion to AUD 32 million. I mean, last financial year did about half the transactions and the same, transaction revenue. So I mean, is there some unrealized acquisition fees there? Are they going to fall into the second half? I mean, have you had to give away just structuring of, of the different funds, some not having acquisition fees? What's really going on there?
Well, first of all, when CQR put its seed assets into the core retail fund and swapped part of them as an equity investment in that fund we're not charging CQR divestment fees. I t's a good question, but what I'd guide is that not all of the transactions are generating fees if there's that sort of related party transaction. The other thing is that there is a bit of a deferment on transaction revenue. I f something wasn't completely unconditional at 31 December, it'll become a second-half transaction fee.
And of course, as you'd expect when it's hard to charge a client like Challenger, who gives you a mandate, an acquisition fee when they already own the assets. So that's the reason why when you look at those recent transaction fee revenue numbers versus the volume, it looks a bit different than prior years.
Okay, that's pretty clear. I mean, on the AUD 1.9 billion of post-balance sheet acquisitions, will those be generating any fees?
In second half.
Acquisition fees?
In the second half, yeah.
C orrect. Okay. And then, just thinking if you just double first half probably going to see some growth in PI and FM. We're, perhaps we're above 100. So what's going to be dragging it down?
This is my 21st year doing this, and you guys always do the same thing. You just double all the first half metrics to get to a full year number. It's not that simple. T here'll be various items, but it's hardly a first-half , second-half skew at 50.5 versus 49.5. So I wouldn't get too excited about why aren't you doubling everything to get to a higher number?
Okay, that's, that's somewhat clear.
It's about as clear as I'm gonna be. L ook, what I would say, and I said it earlier we have an expectation for the second half, which has guided our recommendation to the board, who signed off on the guidance. Like the answer I gave to Chan earlier, if we pull off some miraculously, great deals or inflows that drive our revenue and EBIT above our expectations, then we might beat that guidance. But, at this stage, we're pretty comfortable with that guidance, and as I said earlier, I think you guys should be thinking about the bow wave effect and what this sort of equity flow and fund growth is gonna do on an annualized basis into 2027 and beyond.
Great. Congratulations, all. Thank you.
Right. Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Ben Brayshaw with Barrenjoey. Your line is open.
Good morning, David. I just have a question on the operating expenses. Historically, there has been a skew to the second half. How are you and the team seeing the composition for this financial year?
Anastasia?
Yeah, as I said earlier, we're not seeing a very significant skew. You should see it as fairly in line in terms of the expenses we've reported in the first half as indicative of second half.
Thank you. That was my question.
Thank you.
Thanks, Ben.
Our next question comes from the line of Tom Bodor with Jarden. Your line is open.
Good morning, David. I just was interested in your acquisition of One O'Connell post-balance date. I noticed that's not in the development pipeline for office. I'd just be interested in your thoughts around that project, the potential to maybe take on board the other 50% over time, and what scheme you think makes sense for the site?
When you buy a site consolidation, you know, that's cost the vendor a lot of money, and we're buying it well below what they accumulated it for, I wouldn't necessarily think the highest and best use is bowling over five buildings and creating a 100,000 meter tower. I, you know, we like that because we effectively think that we've got optionality, you know, the sum of the parts and the realisable value on each of those buildings. Once Charter Hall adds its active asset management, you know, it may well be a much better outcome than doing a major development, whether it's a 100,000 meter single tower or two 50,000 meter towers. O ur partners and I are just looking at that with lots of optionality.
C learly, we have a preemptive right over the other 50% when and if that fund decides to sell. G iven what's happening with that series of funds I'd be surprised if t hey don't go down a path of looking to sell it, and if they do, we've got a preemptive right to look at it at sensible pricing. B ecause of all of that, and because it's a Stage 1 DA, not a Stage 2 planning approval, you know, I wouldn't see any potential development, scheme, as I said, whether it's 1 tower or 2 towers, coming into our uncommitted development pipeline until we, you know, went down that path if in fact, we even go down that path.
I think that's the best way to answer it. T here's no doubt with a stage 1 planning approval for a 100,000 meter tower that virtually has to be worth, you know, AUD 40,000 to AUD 50,000 a meter. By the time it's built, you know, it's AUD 4 billion to AUD 5 billion of built form. T hat is the way I sort of look at it. By the same token, unless it beats an alternative strategy, you know, which is our base case, you know, we won't be doing 100,000 meters of development on that site.
T hat's very clear. And then maybe just a follow-on question just around the valuation cycle's clearly troughed, all the rates have seen positive revals. I f you look in the smaller and mid end of the sector, there's still some pretty significant discounts to NTA. D o you see that? How do you see that evolving, and what opportunities do you see in the listed sector over the next f ew years?
Well, as you know, we've been running property securities money for a long time, ebbs and flows, but, you know, if you sort of roughly say we've got, a bit, you know, roughly AUD 1 billion in our various property securities funds invested in the REIT sector there's some dogs out there, and I think there's some really cheap, buying. A s an investor in REITs, on behalf of the balance sheet and our capital partners, I think there are some good buying. Just if you look at my three REITs, if just 'cause the market trades them at a discount to NTA, doesn't mean that, me or the rest of the direct buyers in the world don't think that, NTA is real.
You only have to look at how much money we've raised in our retail fund at NTA to show what the wholesale world thinks. So it's we're just going through a normal listed cycle where, the listed markets are punitive on good quality portfolios of, you know, for macro reasons. Doesn't mean I think the listed pricing knows what it's doing. And if you look at the history of this group, you know, when the listed market is not pricing us correctly, we've taken opportunities to take REITs private. So I don't see that being any different over the next 10 years for the last 15 years. So, you know, but we're not gonna jump into something we don't like.
And as I said before, the sort of planets have to align for that to work. I f listed markets keep mispricing things, well, yeah, I think there's whether it's us or others, you're gonna see a continuation of REIT take privates. You've already got NSR on the block. We did HPI last year, a bit like virtually half of the listed infrastructure sector, it's all gone off the bourses because the wholesale capital is prepared to price the assets different to the listed market. So yeah, I don't see it being much different, to be honest.
Thanks very much.
Okay.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of David Pobucky with Macquarie Group. Your line is open.
Good morning, David, Sean, and Anastasia. Thanks for your time. Just the first question on Chifley South, if I could. 60% committed. Just curious to know how you're thinking about the pace of the lease-up, and any anecdotes on current interest levels that you can provide, please.
I'm in no hurry. All of our internal forecasts suggest to me we're gonna be getting well into double-digit net effective rental growth in the core of Sydney CBD, and we're really the only new, you know, top-of-the-hill, premium quality tower. There is one other, which I call down in Tank Stream, is nowhere near the sort of level of what Chifley South is, and to be honest, the achieved face and net effective rents sort of prove that. W e'll be patient about how we do deals in the rest of the tower.
W e'll probably get, of the 20,000 still to lease, we'll probably get 10,000 done with multi-floor tenants, and the rest of it will be whole floor tenants, who literally will have no other choice to go into a whole-floor , premium-grade tower at the top of the hill. W e're gonna get a very good result on both the rents and the end value of that new tower. I'm very relaxed about being where we are with 60%, but it's fair to say, I think it'll be higher than that in June and then higher again in December.
You know, I'm not too much in a hurry, given the strong growth in rents.
Thanks, David. Just a couple quick ones for Anastasia. Just firstly, around tax, expense. I think the rate was around 18% versus 23% in the PCP. Just the driver of that and how we think about the tax rate going forward.
W e've done some cross-state pool capital reallocation, AUD 400 million the year prior and AUD 200 million recently. And that certainly has, particularly the prior one, had a result in lowering our effective tax rate on the CHL side of the staple by about 5 percentage points, is our estimation for FY 2026.
Thank you. And just a second one around where your weighted average debt margin currently sits, and how much that's come down by versus last year, please. Thank you.
For the hedged main balance sheet, it's come down from 1.65 by 22 basis points. I don't necessarily think it'll land there. We've got some further plans around refinancing, which actually translates right across the platform. We talked, the result today was AUD 10 billion of refinancing, and we're accelerating that pace all throughout the second half. And so across the platform, we reduce margins by 27 basis points, and we expect that to build as a number as we get through that refinancing program, just because credit markets are very, very strong, and we're also wanting to lock in the higher covenant headroom that we're achieving across the platform.
Great, thanks for your help.
Thank you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, hit star one one to ask the question. Our next question comes from the line of Richard Jones with JP Morgan. Your line is open.
Oh, hi, David. Thanks for the presentation. Just interested in your high-level views. So there's been a lot of market discussion about AI and the potential impacts for office. So just interested in your views and the associated views of capital as to whether that may delay potential office investment.
Look, there's a lot of theories out there, and, you know, I think there's an unnecessary focus on white-collar employment versus all sectors of the economy. You know, we're seeing a massive acceleration in automation going into warehousing. W hether you want to call it technology AI-driven, like, the reality is we're seeing an acceleration of what I've seen for 20 years in terms of, you know, blue-collar workers being, you know, in warehousing, being replaced with automation. In terms of the office markets, our view is that, if sort of processing-type roles are going to be most at risk from AI, we think that's gonna have an outsized impact on suburban office markets, as opposed to sort of core CBD, which is virtually where most of our assets are.
Look, you know, right now, we're continuing to do lots of leasing with both, you know, whole floor and multi-floor tenants, and I'm not seeing any planned reduction in floor space when people are signing up on 10-year leases. So, I think that just reflects that, you know, the whole corporate world's not quite sure whether headcount's gonna be materially impacted, or whether there's gonna be a reallocation of roles and/or whether AI is simply gonna augment productivity rather than, you know, replace human labor. So that's sort of how we're playing it, and I have a very strong view that the very best modern office buildings in the best core markets will prosper.
You know, right now, you know, who would have thought the net effective rental growth in Brisbane is higher than the Sydney CBD? But that's what's happening. It's tightening up very quickly up there. We're fortunately sort of been high conviction on Brisbane core CBD for a long time. So, you know, I don't have the answers. I don't think anyone's got the answers, but, you know, I think if you're going to shape your portfolio towards the very best locations and keep them as modern and as relevant as possible, you'll do better than, you know, a lot of other buildings. You know, our team have constantly reminded me that virtually 90% of all vacancy in most markets, but particularly in Sydney, sits in about a dozen buildings.
And it will be no surprise of, you know, most of them are, you know, sort of older buildings that haven't had capital invested in them, and aren't necessarily in the sort of absolute core locations. So I think each market will be very bifurcated by the quality of the building and its location, and, you know, we'll continue to see sort of, if you like, centralization. That's why I've never liked North Sydney. We're seeing a centralization of relocation, tenants relocating into the city because the new metro basically has taken away the time advantage that used to exist for people to locate in North Sydney. We're also seeing a flight to modern quality. You know, we've secured ING Bank to move from, you know, a pretty old boiler in 60 Margaret into a modern One Shelley Street building.
So, I think these are the sort of bifurcation trends we're seeing, and that's why you'll see us continue to have modern buildings in good locations that are gonna attract the tenants. And if anyone else can give you a better answer on the future impact of AI, please let me know.
Good stuff. Thanks, David, appreciate it.
Right on.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm showing no further questions in the queue. I would now like to turn the call back over to David for closing remarks.
Okay. Thanks once again for your time. You know, I'm sure we'll be meeting various people at investor meetings following the results. Thank you.