Testing one, two. Are we good? Yeah. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being here. On behalf of the board of directors of CLW, it is my pleasure to welcome you all to the 2022 Annual Security Holders Meeting of Charter Hall Long WALE REIT. My name is Peeyush Gupta, and I'm the chair of the Charter Hall Long WALE REIT board of directors. It's now just gone past midday, and as the necessary quorum is present, I declare this meeting properly constituted and open. I'd like to commence today's presentation with acknowledgement of country. Charter Hall is proud to work with our customers and communities to invest in and create places, assets on lands across Australia. We pay our respects to the traditional owners, their elders, past and present, and value their care and custodianship of these lands.
This afternoon, I'll provide a brief overview of the REIT strategy and some commentary on performance and growth over FY 2022. The Charter Hall Long WALE REIT fund manager, Avi Anger, will then provide an update on the operational and financial performance for FY 20 22. We will then move to the formal business of the meeting and the resolution for your consideration. There is one resolution for consideration today, and that involves the re-election of myself as Chair of the board. I'll say a few words at that time, providing some personal background and reasons why I believe I should be re-elected. Now I'd like to spend some time discussing CLW's achievements, and then I'll hand over to Avi, as I mentioned.
Since CLW's listing on the ASX in November 2016, the management and board have been focused on executing our strategy of providing investors with stable, secure, and growing income and capital growth. Today, CLW is Australia's largest diversified Long WALE REIT included in the ASX 200 and is a top ten listed A-REIT by market capitalization. CLW has a best-in-class AUD 7.1 billion diversified real estate portfolio consisting of 549 properties with a long-dated average lease term of 12 years. 52% of the income of the REIT comes from triple net lease properties. This is an important feature of CLW's portfolio, given that under a triple net lease structure, the tenant is responsible for all outgoings, maintenance, and capital expenditure. In addition, 80% of the CLW's portfolio is now located in markets on the eastern seaboard of Australia.
These factors enhance the security and continuities of CLW's income. When we compare CLW to the large and midcap passive A-REIT peers, CLW's operating earnings per share and dividends per share CAGR, a combined annual growth of 3.8% across the past five-year period since listing, is the strongest among our peer set, reflecting the quality of the portfolio and attractive lease structures in place. CLW's portfolio continues to be diversified by tenant, industry, geography, and property type, which contributes to the stability of its cash flow. CLW has a high-quality income stream generated from blue-chip tenants, with 99% of our tenants consisting of government, ASX-listed, multinational or national businesses. Our largest tenants are the Endeavour Group, Government, Telstra, and British Petroleum, who collectively account for 59% of the REIT's income.
CLW's properties are leased to 81 tenants across Australia and New Zealand and diversified across Long WALE retail, office, industrial, social infrastructure, and agri-logistics sectors. All the leases in our portfolio have either annual rent increases, providing strong year-on-year income growth, consisting of a mix of fixed or CPI-linked annual increases. That income growth benefits from increases in inflation. 49% of our rent increases across our portfolio are linked to CPI. This is a material increase, up from 40% last year, which is particularly attractive in the current inflationary environment. With a forecasted weighted average income increase in income across our CPI-linked leases of 6.3% in FY 2023. The average fixed increase across the portfolio is a high 3.1%. 52% of the income of the REIT now comes from triple net leases.
This provides CLW investors with a portfolio that requires a relatively low level of capital investment to maintain, thereby improving returns. The board is also committed to ensuring CLW retains a prudent capital management position. Balance sheet gearing as of 30th of June was 29.9%, within our target gearing range of 25%-35%, and with a weighted average debt maturity of 5.2 years. The board also remains focused on implementing sustainability initiatives across CLW's portfolios and consider ESG as a driver of long-term value for investors and tenant customers.
CLW has achieved an approximate 50% reduction in emissions under operational control because of our office and industrial sectors now being powered by 100% grid-supplied renewables in FY 2022. Additionally, CLW is proud to partner with our tenant customers, having agreed to install an additional 5.6 megawatts of on-site solar in the next coming year. We have leveraged our green credentials to execute sustainable finance transactions, including at our property at 242 Exhibition Street, Melbourne. We achieved 72 in the 2021 GRESB assessment, which is one of those surveys of your environmental sustainability. That was an increase of 10 points compared to the prior period. Again, evidence of our commitment to continuous improvement in this area. Good governance is an important element of sustainability, and that's something that your board of directors is keenly focused on.
One of our roles as directors is to ensure that management adheres to the strategy of the REIT. The independent directors maintain oversight of the services that are provided by the Charter Hall Group to CLW, ensuring a level of service that is consistent and appropriate for the fees charged. Within this capacity, we regularly engage external consultants to benchmark these fees to ensure that they are appropriate and consistent with market standards and that CLW security holders are receiving value for money. We also appoint the external auditors to audit the accounts, and then it is the responsibility of the directors to approve the REIT's financial statements.
In fulfilling these duties, I would like to assure security holders that your directors are ever mindful of their responsibilities to act in the interests of all security holders, and we endeavor to ensure CLW continues to provide investors with stable and secure income and the potential for both income and capital growth through an exposure to a portfolio of high-quality properties and tenants with a long WALE. The board remains committed to aligning with best practice frameworks to support transparency and disclosure. Finally, I would also like to acknowledge the achievements that I've outlined today have all been achieved as a result of the management of the REIT by the Charter Hall Group. Investors in CLW receive the benefit of the quality and experience of Charter Hall's capabilities, including acquisitions, asset management, property management, development, finance, legal, and treasury services.
Thank you for your ongoing support and interest in CLW. I will now hand over to Avi Anger, who is the fund manager for CLW, to review the year's financial and operating performance and to discuss the outlook for FY 2023. Avi?
Thank you, Peeyush. I'd like to start briefly discussing the financial performance of the REIT in FY 2022 and some of the highlights from that year. I'm pleased to report that we achieved strong operating performance over the year in FY 2022, delivering EPS of AUD 0.305 per security, which represented a 4.5% growth over FY 2021. Consistent with the FY 2021 results, there was negligible impact on the REIT's earnings as a result of COVID-19, given the very small exposure to tenants entitled to rent relief. Our exposure to major national tenants in non-discretionary and defensive industries means CLW is well-insulated against the mandated COVID-19 shutdowns. Our NTA, net tangible assets per security at 30 June 2022 was AUD 6.17, up 18.2% from AUD 5.22 the year before.
Over the year, we achieved AUD 670 million of net valuation uplift for our investors, demonstrating the quality and resilience of the portfolio. This valuation uplift was achieved across our entire portfolio, vindicating our focus on long WALE real estate. CLW has a long weighted average lease term of 12 years, providing security and continuity of income for our investors. 49% of our lease reviews annually are CPI linked, which this year we're forecasting to achieve a strong 6.3% weighted average increase in FY 2023, and 52% of our income is from triple net leases. Balance sheet gearing at the moment is 29.2% within our target gearing range of 25%-35%. At 30 June, we had a weighted average debt maturity of 5.2 years.
We also completed a number of significant capital management achievements in the past year. We completed AUD 1.7 billion of debt initiatives, which included a successful refinance of AUD 1 billion of existing facilities with an average loan term extension of 1.5 years, as well as increasing by AUD 357 million to our existing facilities. We secured new facilities of AUD 355 million with an average term of 6.1 years to partially fund the activity during the year. In total, these debt initiatives represent close to 50% of the REIT's debt platform and provide the REIT with secure long-term financing.
The REIT currently has AUD 2.1 billion of its debt hedged, which reflects a hedged position of 77% for FY 2023, with a weighted average hedge maturity of 2.9 years. Turning to slide 11. The portfolio value is now AUD 7.1 billion. Occupancy is 99%, and the portfolio has an average cap rate of 4.35%. During the year, we further enhanced the portfolio with AUD 923 million of acquisitions. These acquisitions have increased the number of properties of the REIT to 549. During the year, CLW completed the acquisition of 50% of the ALE Property Group, together with our investment partner, Hostplus, one of Australia's largest super funds. The national portfolio of 78 high quality pubs and bottle shops is located predominantly in metropolitan locations along the East Coast of Australia.
The property features triple net leases to best-in-class ASX-listed tenant Endeavour Group, with the portfolio featuring uncapped annual CPI reviews and an open market review in six years' time. The large land holding and significantly under-rented portfolio provides the opportunity of income and capital growth in the future. Pleasingly, the portfolio of pubs was externally revalued after our acquisition, and we achieved an uplift of AUD 99 million. Turning to slide 13. An important part of our strategy is to grow and enhance our portfolio through accretive acquisitions. In addition to the previously mentioned 50% of the ALE portfolio, during the year, we also acquired three modern industrial and logistics facilities for a total consideration of AUD 88 million. The acquisitions include one of Australia's largest waste-to-energy facilities in Sydney, leased to a joint venture between Cleanaway and ResourceCo.
The property was acquired off-market with an average lease term of 15.9 years. The modern Star distribution facility in Brisbane is leased to Toyota, and the Toyota material handling distribution center in Brisbane were other acquisitions acquired in the year. The ALE acquisition and those industrial acquisitions demonstrate our focus on transactions offering attractive long-term risk-adjusted returns, but also mindful of downside protection, investing in properties that are strategically important to our tenants with strong tenant credit and favoring large companies and properties with high underlying land value. All properties acquired in the year were independently valued since acquisition, materially higher than the purchase price that was paid for those assets. In slide 14, we cover some portfolio leasing highlights over the year.
While the benefit of a Long WALE portfolio is the long-dated nature of our lease expiries, we are focused on proactively extending our leases ahead of their expiry dates. We recently announced that CLW had executed a long-term extension with Metcash at our Canning Vale distribution center in Perth. As a result, this expiry, which was to occur in FY 2024, has been pushed out by a further 10 years to FY 2034. The agreement with Metcash includes expansion of facilities on the site and installation of significant rooftop solar system. The lease extension demonstrates the active and collaborative approach of CLW to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes for investors and tenant customers, and was made possible as a result of the deep relationships across the Charter Hall business with Metcash, and highlights the significant benefit we receive from being part of the Charter Hall platform.
CLW also recently entered into a 10-year lease with Emeco at our office property at Osborne Park in Perth, which takes this building to 100% leased with an average lease term in the building of 10 years. Slide 15. Our portfolio of Long WALE properties is leased to high-quality tenants, including Endeavour Group, Government, Telstra, BP, Inghams, Coles, and provides CLW with tenant diversification to best-in-class tenant register. The acquisitions completed during the period further increase our exposure to Endeavour Group, while the introduction of new tenants in the period further diversify our tenant base. CLW's portfolio has a long-dated lease expiry profile, reflecting a low-risk position relative to our peers in the sector. Our portfolio WALE quality of tenants and proportion of triple net leases provides better downside protection and more resilient income stream, streams to our investors.
On slide 26, we're pleased to reaffirm our guidance for FY 2023, and based on information currently available and barring any unforeseen events, we reaffirm our EPS guidance of AUD 0.28 per security and distribution per security of the same amount. Based on yesterday's closing price, this represents an attractive yield of 6.8%. In closing, I would like to thank the directors of CLW for their ongoing guidance and support in the running of CLW and you, our security holders, for your trust and support. We remain focused on delivering a Long WALE resilient portfolio leased to high-quality tenants and providing investors with both income and capital growth over the long term. I would now like to hand over to the chair, Peeyush, to conduct the formal business of the meeting.
Thanks, Avi. Is it possible to go back to slide five? My apologies, I skipped over the slide, and I'd like to introduce my fellow directors and other management that are present here today. Firstly, welcome also to my fellow board members, Glenn Fraser, who is the Non-Executive Director and Chair of our Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee. To Ceinwen Kirk-Lennox, one of our independent Non-Executive Directors. To Carmel Hourigan, an Executive Director in Charter Hall Group's CEO office, and David Harrison, the Charter Hall Group's Managing Director and Group CEO. Also present at our meeting today is Avi Anger, who you heard from, our Fund Manager for the Long WALE REIT. Darryl Chua, who's the Deputy Fund Manager for the Long WALE REIT. Scott Martin, who's the Head of our Long WALE REIT Finance, and Mark Bryant, our Company Secretary.
Ryan McMahon is our auditor from PricewaterhouseCoopers, who is also here and available to answer any questions about the audit or the financial statements from security holders. With those introductions, I'm happy now to take any questions from the floor. And then after that from any online questions and to address those before we move to the formal resolution of the in front of the meeting. If you could please perhaps just introduce yourself and then your question. Thank you.
Yeah, thank you. David Kingston, K Capital. Look, nice presentation, but let me perhaps ask a few more focused questions. Chair, you said you are seeking long-term capital growth. In the last four years, you've achieved none. Share price was AUD 4 four years ago, 2018. It peaked at about AUD 5.80, AUD 5.90. It's back to where it was four years ago. I think your comment's not quite accurate. Secondly, Chair, stock's trading at a 35% discount to NTA. Now, that's huge. Now, we all understand that rates are under pressure, but this one has some attraction with its long WALE, nice and nice properties. But a 35% discount to NTA is totally and utterly unacceptable. My question is, why don't you do a buyback? Thirdly, Chair, I think your comment about gearing is technically correct, but also misleading.
In your own documents, you declare the look-through gearing is 37%, and yet in the presentation today, you keep on talking about 29 or 30%. Look-through is a very important statistic. I just think you're putting a gloss on this. Next issue, Chair, cap rates. You just bought an office block for over 7% yield. I think from memory, your average cap rate's about 4.9. We all know that cap rates are about to go through the roof. That's gonna have a huge impact on your gearing ratio, which will take the look-through from 37 up to maybe 45-50%, which might even mean you need to do an emergency equity issue. You might be in breach of LTV debt covenants. You might be in breach of ICR once the hedging runs out.
I appreciate what you say, and well done. You've got some hedging. You've got 77% hedging. A weighted average hedging of 2.9 years. Your interest rate is gonna go through the roof once that hedging expires. That may lead to a breach of your interest cover ratio. Again, it may lead to an emergency rights issue. There are my just a few questions, Chair. I think the presentation was very glossy, very positive. The truth is, and not just for this company, for every REIT today, the truth is the outlook is bleak, and that's why the market is rating you at a monstrous 35% discount to NTA. Appreciate comments on those points.
Thank you very much for those series of questions, Mr. Kingston. Let's take them in turn. There are things that we can control, and then there are things that we don't control, the markets control. Your first question was, you know, you observed that our share price growth has been disappointing. Frankly, we would agree with you. We are a bit perplexed. This is an industry or sector-wide issue, as you well know. When we talked about income and capital appreciation, I guess I was referring more on the capital side to the things that we can control, which includes NTA growth. That is the appraised value of the properties that we've purchased and so on, and that we have grown very handsomely from an initial NTA of AUD 4 to AUD 6.17 today.
Yes, that is not reflected in the current share price. We are part of a subsector, which is a proxy for bond yields and/or rather very sensitive to bond yields. With inflation rising and as a consequence, Fed, central banks tightening interest rates, the equity markets are running scared, and we have seen declines right across the market, but particularly for interest rate sensitive stocks, of which we are one. We empathize greatly with our investors. As directors, we are all also investors, I might add. We too would like to see some recovery in our share price. We have grown NTA very successfully and strongly over the time that we've been listed. Buybacks. Buybacks have been an issue on our mind, or more particularly, balance sheet management, of which buybacks is but one option.
There is, you know, debt reduction could be another option in this environment, et cetera. I think also another issue on our mind has been, you know, to be concerned or to monitor our distributions over time, because our fundamental promise really to our investors is security of, you know, the capital and security of their income streams and hopefully a growing income stream over time. Buybacks are on our mind, as well as capital management generally, and we'll continue to discuss those, although we haven't made any, we have not, as a board, reached any decisions on those at the moment. Your third question, Mr. Kingston, was around gearing.
Yes, there is a distinction which we have been very transparent about right since inception, between gearing at the head entity aggregate level and gearing on a look-through basis. Now, some of our assets are leased, I'd call them specialty assets for want of a better phrase. They typically are leased to a major tenant such as Telstra, such as Inghams, such as Endeavour Group, and typically on very long-term WALEs, well in excess of the average WALE that we have. These might be 20-year leases and so on. They're typically housed in an SPV, a special purpose vehicle, and we can and do run higher gearing within those vehicles, which is why our look-through gearing is higher than our head entity gearing. These higher levels of gearing in the SPVs are not recourse to the main entity, the listed entity, so they're non-recourse.
We believe that the quality of the counterparty tenant and the length of the leases allows us to have safely higher gearing levels. We do have a weather eye to look through gearing, but we also have a weather eye to the nature of the legal arrangements to look through and recourse as well as what our policy position is on our headroom gearing level, and we are within our policy bounds. Part of gearing, obviously, is to monitor your exposure, to run stress tests on the various covenants that we have. We do that regularly as a board. Yes, rising interest rates mean that we today have less headroom than we had before, but on the major covenants that we have, we still have ample headroom.
That's not to say that we are oblivious or not mindful to further hikes and interest rates and so on, but we're not panicked by any stretch of the imagination. We think we are able to comfortably be within our covenant across a very rare range of scenarios, although who knows what the future will hold. If we knew that, I'm sure with the benefit of hindsight, we will all do things differently, but with the benefit of no hindsight, you need to be prudent and manage the competing trade-offs that exist. Finally, on cap rates, you know, you're prophesying a major rise in cap rates. It is very true that there is a discontinuity between what the listed markets are saying for REITs and what appraised values are saying for REITs. That is definitely true.
One of them is either very wrong or both are slightly wrong. Probably both are slightly wrong. That is to say the listed market is overestimating any, you know, expansion in REITs, and the appraised unlisted market is one exhibiting the typical lag that occurs in unlisted markets. Suffice it to say, we have, you know, good headroom on our, on our debt covenants with respect to cap rate expansion, and we have a range of other initiatives that we could enact should we ever feel that those limits were being breached. I think those were the four questions you'd asked, Mr. Kingston.
Follow through.
Please.
Look, I appreciate it's nothing certain, but with American ten-year bonds at 4.15, which is pretty mind-boggling, Australian market is expecting ninety-day bills to move up towards 4%. If we just conceptualize, if that is true, if the market's true, when your hedging expires 77% for 2.9 years, that's gonna have a huge impact on your interest cover ratio because your borrowing cost, if the market's correct, will move up to about 5.5%.
Yes.
That's gonna make a monstrous impact. It will also make a monstrous impact on your NTA because your cap rates. If the market's correct, the cap rates will go through the roof, which will have a huge impact on your gearing. In my view, you've done a lot of very good things. You've got some great properties. The concept of Long WALE is great. Plenty of ticks, but the big challenges for this REIT are the interest rate environment, which in my view, once your hedging expires and once the valuers catch up, you know, we all know that valuers are a lagging group of people. There's also some reluctance by valuers to adjust to the way the market's seeing valuations.
They like to see real-world transactions, but there's nothing surer that valuation cap rates are gonna go through the roof, and that's gonna smack your NTA, and I think it's gonna have a big impact on your FFO once your hedging expires.
Thank you for those two observations. You talked about our hedge ratio at 2.9 years and cap rate expansion again. On the hedge ratio, 2.9 years is a long time in markets, as you would well know, Mr. Kingston, right? The consensus at the moment across many economists seems to be that the Fed is clearly signaling its policy intent, which is to tame inflation, and therefore it is likely that at least the U.S. Fed will continue to raise rates for a while. The last RBA move was less than anticipated. Absent any other considerations, Mr. Lowe is probably indicating that he believes that they've done sufficiently now to observe the effects come through in the real economy over time.
However, Australia is not an island immune from other forces, so it's probably the case that the RBA can't afford to get too far behind where the Fed and other central banks go because it impacts our exchange rate too much. There's a quite plausible scenario that we will continue globally to see further tightening or raising of interest rates by central banks. It is equally the case, though, that the world is highly indebted and that the market consensus is that rates may well start coming down in 2024. Not 2023, but 2024. In any case, all of those things are but speculation and are within, well within the 2.9 years. Another point worth making is hedging is not costless. We are currently 77% hedged.
We could try and lay off more risk, expand the hedge duration, but there's no such thing as a free lunch. Everything involves a trade-off. Our best judgment, given the cost of laying off further risk relative to what our forecast is for how we think the scenarios will play out most likely. Now we are comfortable with where we are at the moment. Of course, we will continue to monitor what happens to interest rates, what happens to the cost of hedging, what happens to the duration of the hedging, and also of our debt stack. On your assertion, Mr. Kingston, that cap rates are necessarily going to expand, we would not fully agree with that.
At the moment, albeit there have not been a lot of market transactions, in the industrial market, there is a scarcity of stock, and there is very strong forecast for rental income growth. Across the Charter Hall Group in the past three or four months, there actually have been several smaller assets, admittedly in the industrial sector, that have sold well above book value. No evidence there of cap rate expansion there. Now, the office sector, yes. The whole work from home, et cetera, the tussle between staff and executives trying to bring people back. That's a bit of an unknown. In that segment of the market, though, the nuanced discussion would be around prime assets versus secondary assets.
Historically, when we've been through such cycles before, it's the secondary assets that get impacted most, and there is significant cap rate expansion. Primary assets tend to not suffer the same amount of declines. Across our office portfolio, we're mainly prime. Not exclusively, but mainly prime. That gives us some insulation, but not all. Yes, cap rates might expand, but you know, we don't buy the thesis that they will necessarily universally expand across all subsectors. I should have also made reference to our specialty assets. The Telstra exchanges, they're indeed housed in many of them. You know, will cap rates expand for those with 20-year leases, CPI linked? Your guess is as good as mine, but we're not persuaded that necessarily there'll be great expansion there. It'll be a mixed story across the subsectors.
I'm happy to come back to you, Mr. Kingston, if you have further questions, but let's see if there are any other questions from the floor. Sir.
Mr. Chairman. My name is Julian Waltram. I'm a private investor who came over from ALE Property . Again, on the subject of cap rate. I'm also a stockholder in Growthpoint Properties, which has a portfolio which is comparable in quality to your own portfolio. Long WALE and very good tenants. 30 June last year, they had an overall cap rate of 5%. Your weighted average cap rate was 4.3%. At 30 June last year, the ten-year government bond rate was 3.76, and the twenty-year bond rate was 3.94. Accordingly, I found your cap rate of 4.3% to be somewhat aggressive. Currently, the 10-year bond rate is 4%, the 20-year bond rate is 4.35%.
Can you seriously state that the cap rate of 4.3% is maintainable?
Okay. Well, thank you for your question, Mr. Waltram. I think the first point that I'd make is that we don't really set the cap rate in that sense. We have all of our properties independently valued at least annually and most generally twice a year. This is as best as we can do to get independent valuers assess and opine on what they believe is the appropriate valuation for the property and with their underlying assumptions for cap rates and discounts and terminal values and the like. That's where our weighted cap rate figure comes from. It's from these independent valuations. In response to Mr.
Kingston's questions earlier, I think I did cover a little bit of the subsectors that we hold and what our view is as to how cap rates might perform over the, you know, period ahead. Look, it is very highly sensitive to what the economies, the real economy, as well as central banks and interest rates do. No doubt. We are where we are, and the current cap rate that we have is a reflection of the independent valuations that have been done.
Peeyush, if I might just add.
Yeah, please.
Just on Growthpoint.
You might just use the.
Yeah, I think you would find their portfolio is predominantly office. I think you'd find it's more heavily weighted to office. In any event, I think if you look at the cap rates, comparable cap rates across office is probably similar to what theirs is as well. I think some of our cap rates on the more specialized assets, as Peeyush's talked about, like our pubs, Telstra exchanges, they're. Yeah. Well, all cap rates have moved down over recent years. That's right. We've seen that. That's what's bringing down the average. Sure.
I hope we've answered your question as best as we can, Mr. Waltram. Are there any other? Yes.
Darius Patrick, long-term shareholder. I'm just, I would like to have a look, historically, when we go back 14 years ago to, Global Financial Crisis. How would you characterize this, compare the two situation now and 14 years ago, and what are the strong points at the moment?
Thank you for your question, Darius. Just reflecting on every down cycle in markets has different drivers and a different context. I think the context 14 years ago under the GFC was a particular set of events. You know, liquidity drained out of the market. You know, central banks responded aggressively, et cetera. This time around, it's a different confluence of factors. We've had 15 years of ultra easy monetary policy, you know, virtually, you know, 0% interest rates, in some cases negative around the world. In recent times, we've had COVID, and then most recently, we've had geopolitical events like the Ukraine-Russian war. The backdrop of all of those factors, COVID has impacted supply chains in the first instance. That initially drove up inflation.
Central bank's initial view was that inflation would be short, sharp, but it would decline as supply chains came back into existence and production resumed. That turned out not to be completely accurate. That wasn't the only factor that was driving inflation. There was perhaps excess liquidity that was also driving certainly asset inflation and maybe consumption inflation as well. There was a decoupling just starting of the global order. Supply chains may well be decoupled, you know, kind of, particularly in some industries, and chips comes to mind. So it's a more complex set of, you know, factors at the moment. You also have contradictory policies. Central banks are trying to tame inflation. Governments, and particularly in the U.K., you can see this play out.
You know, different arms are sort of trying to juggle different interests. The government is trying to protect populations from austerity, from cutbacks and so on. Independent central banks are trying to tame inflation. Ideally, you'd like all arms of institutions aligned in their intent, at least directionally. In some countries, we observe that, you know, maybe that hasn't been the case. It is slightly uncertain times, particularly at the geopolitical level. I think that's the wild card out there in all of these things. I think we can probably see, absent the geopolitical things, how these things will likely play out. Governments could take away independence from central banks. Remember, that's only a relatively recent phenomenon in the past 40, 50 years.
So long as central banks largely remain independent, and they're mindful of political consideration, but so long as they remain largely independent, their current trajectory ought to at least halt the rise of inflation. Whether it'll cause inflation to come down to a 2% number or thereabout, maybe not. Maybe inflation will come down somewhat but stabilize at a higher number. The big question impacting asset prices is what's the terminal value for cash for the risk-free rate 12, 18 months hence. People thought it might start with a three. Today, they're saying it might start with a four. We'll just have to see. What we can do in amongst all of that uncertainty and what we do at CLW is.
Unlike the GFC for the REIT sector, to go to your question, we are mindful of our debt and how it's layered and laddered. In terms of expiry of debt, we try and make sure that it's spread out over time so that we don't have one particular crunch point. Longer term debt in the Australian market, it's hard to get competitive debt much beyond five years, so we diversified our funding sources. A portion of our debt now is longer than that, accessing U.S. and overseas markets. We try and do the sensible things like that to layer and ladder our debt. We try and lay off risk, noting that it costs to lay off risk, so currently we're sitting at 77% hedged. That's the way we. You can't, unfortunately, in this world, remove risk entirely.
You can try and be resilient and to manage it proactively, which is what we have been trying to do and will continue to try and do. Other questions. Mr. Kingston.
Thank you, Chair. Just one final one from me. Look, potentially this could be a perfect storm for REITs. Certainly some of the European REITs are trading at 60, 70% discounts to NTA. It's scary. Look, there's a threefold impact of the current environment. Number one, as interest rates rise, and I think it's clear what the market's saying, that 10-year bonds are now above 4%, so it's not gonna be a short-term hiccup. It could get a lot worse because inflation rates are at 10% in different places. The first impact is cap rates go up. Now, your 4.3, if it happens to blow to 5.3, you've lost 20% of your gross asset value overnight.
It's actually worse than that, Chair, because with your gearing at 37%, all it needs is your 4.3 to blow to 5.3, and you've lost 35% of your NTA because of the gearing impact. It's actually worse than that. You potentially, quite likely, appreciate you've got cover at the moment, but if that scenario played out, which is not a draconian scenario, I think it's a very likely scenario that your cap rate will blow from 4.3 to 5.3, because the 10-year bond rate's gone out so much. The second aspect is your gearing LTV cover and your interest cover ratio. Once the hedging runs out, you're probably gonna be very, very close to your covenants. The third impact it.
Clearly, when your gearing, when your hedging runs out, it's got a big impact on your free FFO because you're paying a hell of a lot more interest. My guess is your interest rate may well double, you know, once your hedging runs out. Question, if I may to David Harrison. Look, it's fantastic comments in the recent AFR property scenario. Love the comment with Darren Steinberg that, oh, Darren, you know, we're not in the toughest environment in 2009. No Western Australian offices, they could only pay their outgoings. You know, do you see, David, you have been around for a long time. You've built a fantastic company. Congratulations. Admire what you've done from scratch. Well done.
Do you see a scenario where back in 2009, GPT had an emergency equity raising at AUD 0.60. Greg Goodman nearly went bankrupt, literally on the door of bankruptcy. That's why he's got very low gearing now because he was pretty singed in that period. He's done a phenomenal job. No one knows, but life is all about playing the percentages, and in my view, your gearing is too high at the moment. In my view, your NTA is misleading. In my view, your cap rate's misleading, and, you know, I think that's why the market is rating you at a 35% discount to NTA. Thank you.
David.
Look, there's been a lot of questions, a lot of comparisons with the GFC, and the circumstances are very different. All I would say is we own over AUD 70 billion of assets, property assets in this country, across most sectors. We're not novices. We are the largest property owner in the country. We have institutional capital, most major super funds, most global pension funds that invest with us, and in some cases, like the ALE portfolio, we have super funds investing alongside CLW in high-quality portfolios. I think one of the things that's missed in this discussion, and I was and am a registered valuer, so I just got to make a couple of comments. Valuers are not employed to estimate what an asset's gonna be worth in three or five years.
Analysts are not employed, even they try to do that, to try to work out where the bond yield's gonna be or where, when, and if we're gonna have an inflection in interest rates. One of the reasons why this portfolio has a balance sheet gearing covenant, and while your focus on long look-through gearing is relevant, GPT had two emergency equity raisings in the GFC because they actually had a look-through balance sheet covenant, and they breached it, or nearly breached it, which is why they had to do their equity raisings. Nearly 50% of the income in this portfolio is unhedged CPI.
If you are looking at assets that have 5, 6, 7% rental growth, they're naturally gonna justify a lower cap rate than something that might have a 2 or 3% growth rate that might be at a higher cap rate. I know Growthpoint very well, sir. I've sold most of their office assets and industrial assets to them, and there's a lot of other REITs that have bought from us. I don't wanna get into a beauty parade on comparisons, but this portfolio is one of the highest quality portfolios in the country. Charter Hall Group has the biggest investment in this fund of any of our other investments. Pretty big compliment to CLW. You know, I personally have got over 1 million shares in CLW. Another, in my opinion, compliment to CLW. I do know the market well.
None of us know whether bond yields are gonna top out at 4%, 5%. None of us know whether your proposition that the cap rates could go to 5.3%. What I would say to you is, when you have high-quality, long lease assets that have the sort of rental growth with nearly 50% of the portfolio with CPI indexation, the chances of both the buyers in the market, because with all due respect to listed investors, they don't actually set valuations, and valuers are followers. What sets property valuations is willing buyer, willing seller. The sales evidence is what will determine the future market value of assets.
Our experience and the sales evidence that exists right now, even with rising bond yields, suggests that assets with high-quality tenants with stronger rental growth are going to maintain attractive or low yields. In some cases, as is the case in industrial, the yields are more or less at bond yields. Now, when you have double-digit rental growth in industrial with vacancy factors less than 1% in most major markets, lower than I've ever seen in my 35 years in this industry, of course, you're gonna have sharper cap rates for those sort of assets. Now, we don't need to get into a debate whether that market will maintain that sort of momentum.
The reality is that the macro growth of e-commerce is gonna continue to help industrial, and as you say, Greg Goodman's done a great job in, you know, playing that logistics market. Have we. We're as big as Goodman in industrial in Australia. If I think about the way we've cultivated the CLW portfolio, we have leveraged it to industrial, we've leveraged it to CPI-linked properties. We also have, in the case of ALE, bought assets that are significantly below market rents. The reason why ALE is traded the way it has for many years is that its passing rent is well below market levels. Now, whether we extract that now or in 2028 when there's an open market review, we're still gonna get that rental growth on behalf of CLW investors and our partner, Hostplus.
I do think there's a little bit of crystal balling going on in the conversation today. As investors, you have the right to crystal ball. But as the manager of the biggest portfolio of real estate in this country, I think we have a pretty good grip on where market's going to go, what's the best way to position these portfolios in the context of our view of where bond yields are going, but more importantly, in the context of where rental growth's going. Yes, I agree that we always need to maintain buffers. I went through the GFC. The reason why we're 3x our IPO price and a lot of other large REITs are less than their IPO price 30 years ago is that we've been good custodians of capital.
I don't think there's any one of our funds that are going to get into that emergency rights issue scenario that you're talking about. We have a large portfolio of very liquid assets, and as Peeyush said, the board will consider all of those capital management initiatives you've talked about. There's no free lunch. You sell assets and you de-gear, you're going to lower your earnings per unit. I think investors have bought CLW because they want stability of income, stability of distributions. They want a low-risk portfolio with a combination of fixed rental growth with CPI growth, and that's what we're delivering. I'm not saying that we're not cautious about maintaining those buffers. Of course, we are.
We're not gonna get into the situation, as you've suggested, that occurred in the GFC, where some very good quality REITs had to do emergency equity raisings. We weren't one of them, and we're not gonna be, presiding over any funds that are gonna need to do that. We're quite confident about managing this portfolio and managing the risks that you've articulated. I think the reality is none of us have any idea about crystal balling, because if we did, we wouldn't be sitting here. The reality is that the direction of interest rates, the direction of the economy, whether we have a soft landing, a mid-sized landing, or a hard landing in different economies, they are all questions that will unravel over the next few years. To your earlier point, I do think we will continue to maintain those buffers.
We have a board and a management team that's not oblivious to the risks. All I would say to you is that, you know, from our perspective as the largest investor in CLW, at 11% of the register, it's a pretty important investment for the Charter Hall Group, and we'll continue to cultivate the portfolio appropriately, having regard to risk, but also having regard to, as the chair said, we're ultimately there to provide stable distributions to our investors and provide some earnings growth. I think your point's well made about rising debt costs, but we also have the benefit in this portfolio of a pretty strong indexation, because interest rates can't run off in perpetuity unless inflation's running off.
If we're getting inflation at, you know, as we did in June, and most of the inflation-linked assets in this portfolio benefit from the September print, whether or not it's above or below the June print, it's still gonna provide pretty strong rental growth for our CLW investors.
There's another question.
Charlie Kingston, K Capital. Just don't mean to bang on about it, but the cap rate issue, there is minimal private transaction evidence as has been discussed, but the most recent asset that you've bought was on an initial yield of 7.4%, I think it was. Don't know the occupancy or if it's under rented, but I think it was a nine-year lease, so I presume it's pretty fully occupied, et cetera. You know, how reflective is that of the private market at the moment, that sort of yield?
David, again, I think you were quoted back a few weeks ago at the AFR summit, something along the lines of, everything will be benchmarked against the ten-year, as sort of the hurdle rate, which makes sense if you're buying on 7.4%, 10-year, 4%, et cetera. That 300 basis point buffer, which makes sense. First question is how reflective is that cap rate, of the current private market, which you've said does set the valuations? And then secondly, just looking forward in terms of growth, historically, you've grown through raising equity, sometimes at a premium. I think there was once a discount to NTA, but when you bought ALE, that was part scrip.
Looking forward, just bearing in mind that recent purchase at 7.4% sort of cap rate, is that the sort of acquisition hurdle you'd be looking for, and how are you gonna finance that? Because as we've spoken, debt costs are going up. I presume, you know, it's 5% odd to be borrowing today. Presumably, you want to hurdle, you know. It's an industrial, sure, there's plenty of rental growth to justify that potentially. Just looking forward, how are you gonna be financing any growth? I presume it wouldn't be any further equity issuance or, yeah, just any comments around that would be great. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Charlie. I think there were two questions in there. One was sort of an outlook on cap rates and does that recent Geoscience Australia acquisition herald current, you know, real transactions. Then secondly, our intentions about balance sheet management and growth. I'll let Avi or David, between you, answer the first question, and I'll take the second one.
Yeah, look, I'll answer the first question. We're large investors in the Canberra market. You can't look at a passing yield and then think that then is a read through to cap rates. I'll give you an example. Investa Property Group just bought an 18-year government leased asset in Canberra in the city at a 4% cap rate. Like last month, not last year, last month. We've also just acquired a new 15-year forward-funded project at Barton next to Parliament House, in the early fours. Geoscience Australia is a more specialized suburban asset. It's a life science asset. It's not brand new. There's a whole range of reasons why that passing yield is different to the core cap rate on, you know, CBD assets.
I think the second point I'd make is that it is very simple to just think bond yields go from 1% to 4%, therefore cap rates have to blow out 300 basis points, which is really the basis of your thesis. When bond yields were 1%, there's not an institution in the world was thinking bond yields were gonna average 1% for the next 10 years. Right now, as we speak to most capital, there's very few thinking bond yields will be 4% for the next 10 years. Yes, you can buy a 10-year bond yield at 4%. I think the institutional market looks through to what they think the average spot bond yield will be, and they'll price things accordingly.
I think it's a little bit simplistic just to think that we bought an asset at 7.7%, and that means that's where cap rates are going. You've got to understand the individual differences between a particular asset and why that's not gonna lead to widespread, you know, sort of cap rate expansion to the extent that you guys are talking about. There is pretty significant volume of transactional evidence. We've just had another AUD 1 billion worth of sales outside of the Melbourne CBD office building that we bought at Southern Cross, which is further giving some comfort around the level of cap rates. You know, we're not here to try to predict where cap rates will be in a few years' time.
All I said, I'll repeat what I said before, it's a very simplistic way to look at real estate is to sort of compare one transaction with multiple other transactions. That's why we pay valuers who are the experts to value real estate. Their obligation is to use direct sales evidence to justify their assessment, not to predict what they think might happen with future bond yields. That's it.
Thanks, David. I'll just make a board governance sort of process point in and around. I think on this issue of cap rates, it's important to understand these are not our cap rates. Now, legally, we have the right to exercise judgment on what we hold the assets at in our books and from which the aggregate cap rate is derived. We have never exercised that judgment other than in a mechanistic sense, so that post-valuation date, if there's been some CapEx which will improve the value of the property we've added that back in. So generally not exercise judgment. So to the extent that you believe that the valuation industry has an issue structurally with the lags and so on, that may be a fair thesis, but it's one to prosecute with the valuation industry.
From a governance perspective, you need a mechanism for valuing unlisted assets. That is our mechanism. I think it's an understood mechanism, it's accepted by the mark-to-market, and I think it's important to register the fact that we take that seriously. That's why we value our properties independently so frequently. That's all we can say on cap rates. I think on the future sort of prognosis of, you know, what might we do in terms of equity raising, et cetera. I think it's important to understand that the board has a kind of a long-term vision of quality growth. Quality growth, and I've emphasized both words. We do think growth. We don't chase growth for growth's sake, but we do think growth benefits the CLW and our investors. Why? Firstly, it incentivizes good management.
Good people don't wanna be in a company or an entity that is static or worse, declining. I think you need it to retain good people. Secondly, scale matters to a degree. Larger scale means that we can stand in the market. I forget the number, but I think it's directionally right. Something like 70%-80% of transactions over the past 12 months were off-market transactions for the group, not on-market transaction. I think off-market transactions benefit CLW. You can get a look through to assets that others aren't getting a look through at. Enhances the brand because buyers or sellers know that you're a counterparty that will, you know, not chisel them and actually complete transactions and so on. Scale does matter.
It lowers your cost of capital, et cetera, but not at any price, and that's where the quality thing comes in. Now we're trying to build CLW with a 10, 20, 30-year vision. We want this entity to be known for quality growth. Not growth for growth's sake, not quality, unlike ALE, not having grown at all, but somewhere in the middle. Pursuit of both growth and quality. Those are the principles that guide us.
Just in terms of financing growth going forward, I presume you won't be raising equity at the current sort of discount, which historically has driven growth to some extent. You've also issued equity.
Yes.
I presume you wouldn't be doing that, but then debt is obviously a lot more expensive today. We don't know where that's gonna be. Just looking over the next, you know, everyone likes to talk 10, 20, 30 years, but I'll be a very old man in 30 years. You know, for the next three years as an investor, what can we expect to be driving growth? Is it maintaining the current portfolio and seeing where things settle? Or is it, are you looking for acquisitions? There's a lot of. Clearly, you know, it's been a pretty indiscriminate sell-off in the REIT sector. You have taken over a listed equity before, a listed entity. You know, just going forward, how, as shareholders, should we view the growth prospects? How are you capitalizing on the current, dislocation in valuations?
I'd go back to the two principles that, well, that I enunciated. We have a bias towards quality growth. It's in the DNA of the group, and I think it's in the DNA of CLW. We will remain with a positive intent towards growing. That being said, it all depends. You have to be able to fund growth with appropriately priced capital. As you correctly note, at the moment, trading where we are, it's gonna be difficult to raise capital. On the other hand, if you get offered the deal of a lifetime at a price of a lifetime, you might do it if the math makes sense, the financial math. Very unlikely, I might add, but, you know, I wouldn't rule it out one hundred percent. It is difficult at the moment to raise capital.
Sometimes you can do part scrip or entirely scrip acquisitions, but they are complex and difficult. We'll remain open to all those possibilities, but the discipline on markets will keep us honest, as will our guiding principles of quality growth. I hope that answers those questions. Adam.
Christina Ritchie. I'm an investor via my self-managed super fund. My question is related to something you mentioned earlier, Mr. Chairman, about the fact you were looking at buybacks and also possibly reducing debt. I would have thought in this current interest rate environment, you'd be leaning towards reducing debt. If you are, how would you intend to do that? Would you be looking at selling some assets that perhaps you see performing less well in the next few years, particularly if you can do that and reduce debt before the hedging finishes in 2.9 years' time? Thank you.
Thank you. Ms. Ritchie, I think we need to consider you for a potential addition to the directors of the board because we've just come from a board meeting prior to this AGM, and in fact, those were the very issues we were discussing. Management of the balance sheet, the trade-off between buyback versus debt reduction. Should we do that at the moment? Should we not, et cetera. As I said earlier, we haven't landed any of those issues, but they are under active discussion. However, I mean, I think David made a point earlier which is also relevant to this discussion, which is to the extent that you want, that we do want the underlying distributions per share to continue to go up over time.
Remember, many of our leases are very attractive, either with their fixed rate escalators or uncapped CPI, and particularly where they triple net, which means that the CapEx costs are lower. There's a trade-off there. You could sell those properties to reduce gearing, but you'd be giving up some of your future growth in property income as well. It's a judgment call. You know, where are our current debt levels? What is the level of interest rate protection? How far forward is it? What is our judgment about where rates might land? How much headroom do we have? You could land the judgment on either side of the ledger. That is to say, sell some assets now if you can get them away at or about book value and either reduce debt or do a buyback.
Those are all active questions. We haven't landed them, but they're the right questions to be asking, which we will continue to do. I think the sentiment that I'd like to leave you with is just at the moment, we are not, what's the right word? In any in a panicked or a highly concerned state of mind. We are in a very vigilant state of mind, but that's where I would say we are. Okay. If there are no other questions from the floor, we may have some online questions. Avi, can I ask you to just check or someone to check if there are any online questions? If so, take us through those, please.
Yes, there's two that were raised previously.
Okay. Shall I go through those first? Right. We had three questions that came through prior to the AGM. The first question was from a shareholder by the name of IT Nickel Proprietary Limited. The question was: Why has the distribution for 2023 been reduced from AUD 0.305 per share to AUD 0.28 per share when the fund benefits from CPI increases and outgoings to the properties held in the fund? That's a good question. Just to unpack that a bit, it's the offsetting movements of, yes, we do benefit from rental increases, particularly from uncapped CPI, but also from fixed escalators. Against that, we have the cost of debt. About 12 months ago, we were about 50% hedged, so we had some exposure to interest rate movements.
We have roughly AUD 1.5 billion in floating rate debt. Interest rates have sort of gone up by about 1.5%-2% in that time. The net cost, interest cost rise was well in excess of the CPI rental growth. AUD 20 million rise in interest rate costs, it's like a AUD 5 million benefit in CPI, you know, escalators. Net 15 behind, and that's why the EPU and forecast DPU went down from last year. That was in response to the first question. We had two other questions from another shareholder, Mr. William Peter Gayton. Mr. Gayton asks, firstly, we have an 11% property holding in BP petrol stations, which generate about 10% of our net property income.
What are our views on the long-term transition to electric vehicles and the impact of this on our property portfolio, with particular attention to city suburb property locations? Avi, I think you might be the best person to address the first of Mr. Gayton's question.
Sure. Thanks, Peeyush. In relation to our BP portfolio, there's a portfolio across Australia and New Zealand of high-quality service stations located predominantly in metropolitan areas around both countries. Importantly, we own that portfolio jointly with BP. CLW, together with CQR, the other listed Charter Hall Retail REIT have a 50% holding, and BP retain the other 50% holding. We're aligned on long-term outcomes for that portfolio. They have 20-year triple net leases across the portfolio, so very long leases with very strong, you know, rental growth prospects. BP is really at the forefront of rolling out EV technology in Europe at the moment, and we'll be replicating that in Australia. A large part of what they do on the sites is convenience retail, so we see that also being a driver of those properties' long-term performance.
We'll work over time as well to realize higher and better use for some of the properties if they become less relevant as service stations. We bought the portfolio well. We think we bought the portfolio close to its underlying land value, so we think there's good upside in the future should any of the sites be wanting to be redeveloped for higher and better use. There's a lot of positives across that portfolio.
Thank you, Avi. Mr. Gayton's second question, and I'll read it out. My government employer has recently relocated their Sydney office at the end of their lease. They made the decision, firstly, to reduce the amount of floor space, introducing hot desking and post-COVID lockdowns to introduce a 40% work from home regime. Working from home has become a regular article in the media, with emphasis on office workers not wanting to return full-time to their offices. Could you comment on this new way of working and how it might impact your government office lease arrangements? A very contemporary question and topic, obviously, on how will working from home finally play out and so on. I guess the first thing we'd observe is that the impact of COVID has not been uniform on the office sector.
In part, it depends upon where you were and what the extent and duration of the lockdown was. For example, the experience in Perth was very different to the experience in Melbourne. Subsequent behavior of office workers has also been quite different across the different jurisdictions. About 60% of our office portfolio is government, with about a 6-year WALE and versus a 7.4-year WALE across the office portfolio overall. In other words, these are long leases, and we think six years will be a sufficiently long time for this working from home issue to settle down. However it settles down.
It is true that while the space requirements in aggregate might be reducing, the actual square meterage per person is going up, partly to create a better working environment to attracting workers back into the office and partly from WHS perspective and so on. Aggregate requirements for space might actually not be going down. Too early to conclude that, but again, there are countervailing trends. Fewer people in on any one day, but each person that in is in occupying a slightly larger footprint. Net, not much different to before. We also touched on the difference between prime versus secondary earlier. Where will the impact most likely, if there is an impact, be felt most in office? Probably more in secondary. Most of our portfolio is actually prime. Not all of it, but certainly the very substantial part of it.
Combination of the fact that these leases go well beyond where the time period I think where COVID and work from home issues will settle down, we'll all have to watch and see how that evolves. Were there any other questions that we got from the phone over the telephone? No. Okay, thanks. Well, if that deals with the questions, then I will now proceed to the formal business of the meeting. To begin, I table the notice of meeting dated 20th September 2022, which contains the resolution up for consideration today. Copies of the notice of meeting and annual report would have been made available to you by post, email or available to view on the webpage. Copies are also available from the registration desk. I will take the notice of meeting as read.
The only item for consideration today is the re-election of myself as director. As I am the only director standing for re-election, I will now hand over the running of this meeting to Mr. Glenn Fraser, the chair of our audit committee. Glenn.
Thank you, Peeyush. I've been five foot six for a long time. Peeyush has explained, the only item for consideration today is the reelection of an independent director, Peeyush Gupta AM, which will be decided by poll. Before I open the poll, I'd like to ask Peeyush to say a few words detailing his background and experience for the benefit of all security holders. As explained in the notice of meeting, only the shareholder of Charter Hall WALE Limited, being the Charter Hall Group, may appoint a director. Accordingly, it is noted that today's resolution is advisory only and non-binding. Notwithstanding this, directors will of course give due consideration to the results of the resolution. Peeyush?
Thank you, Glenn. I first joined the board just prior to listing in 2006, and I've served as chair since then. I bring to the role over 40 years' experience in the financial services sector. I've been a successful entrepreneur, having co-founded and grown a wealth management firm, and I've subsequently worked as a senior executive in the global multinational firm to whom we sold our business. My executive life was spent in the stewardship of other people's money, a role that requires trust. I have experience across small, medium, and large firms, similar to the many tenants that CLW is landlord to. I've been a company director for over 35 years, and I've been a full-time director now for over 12 years.
My governance experience is extensive across corporate, government, and not-for-profit sectors, on boards both large and small, and in both the public and private sectors. My current directorships include in ASX-listed companies, National Australia Bank and Link Group, in addition to CLW. In media, Special Broadcasting Service or SBS. In insurance, New South Wales icare. In technology, I serve on a private firm in the area of quantum cryptography called QuintessenceLabs, seeking to commercialize deep science from Australia, world-leading science. In a not-for-profit sector, I serve on the boards of the Northern Territory Aboriginal Investment Corporation and Cancer Council NSW. These experiences across a range of industries equip me to bring broad perspective, sound oversight, counseling judgment to matters for which the CLW board is responsible.
I confirm to you my capacity, desire, and capability to represent you, and I'd be honored to serve as one of your directors and proud to be part of the continuing growth of CLW. Thank you, Glenn.
Thank you, Peeyush. I think you all agree, we're pretty lucky to have someone who can speak like that and have a CV like that because they're few and far between. Now, I declare the poll open.
Can I ask a question on the resolution?
A question on the resolution? Yes.
Just a quick one. Impressive CV. I'm surprised you can spend much time on anything else after the Link saga, which has been pretty extreme. Just a quick question, given your experience in wealth management, and noting Steinberg and GPT, have you ever looked at internalizing the management here?
The short answer is no, we've never looked at it in the sense of formally looking at it. However, the question is always on one's mind. It's a perennial debate, external versus internalization. Ultimately, that's a matter for security holders, I think. I wouldn't wish to, you know, conclusively try and pass judgment that one is better than the other. In the Australian marketplace, I think there's reasonable evidence to show that internalized vehicles might have lower costs, but generally, they've not been associated with growth. That's what the data says. That the externalized vehicles have slightly higher costs, but have generally been the ones that have delivered superior returns. Not always, but generally over a longer period of time.
As you continue to grow, if we continue to grow, that issue becomes slightly more pronounced because the, you know, benchmark exercise of what the internal cost could be versus the external costs, you know, sort of becomes more visible and more and more acute in that sense. I think it is up to our investors to judge whether or not they value being part of the Charter Hall Group of entities, having access to the talent and skills, having access to the deal pipeline, having access to the tenants, the brand, all of those attributes that the group brings for us. It's a relevant issue. I think one that'll periodically get, you know, be brought up. The larger we grow, you know, I'm sure the more regularly will be those discussions. That's been the extent.
Thank you. Thank you, Peeyush. I now declare the poll open and ask that unitholders cast their votes for and against the resolution by marking the box on their voting card for the resolution. This resolution is an ordinary resolution, and as you can see displayed on the screen, are the results from the proxies that we've received. If you haven't done so already, I invite you to mark your yellow voting card and hand your forms to the Link representative, who'll take them to collate. While the final results of the resolution won't be known until the conclusion of the meeting, it's clear from the proxies that Mr. Peeyush Gupta AM will be reelected. The results of the poll will be made available to the ASX and put up on our website later today. I'll now hand over the meeting to Peeyush.
Thanks, Glenn. As there is no other business now to be considered, I now declare the formal business of the meeting to be closed. Thank you very much for both your support and your attendance today and for your ongoing support of CLW. Management and directors present will be very happy to have a cup of tea with you or whatever, outside for those of you that have the time. Thank you for your attendance.