Hello, and welcome to the Centuria Capital Group Half Year 2024 Results presentation. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question- and- answer session, and if you would like to ask a question, simply press star one on your telephone keypad. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. John McBain, Joint CEO of Centuria Capital Group. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you for joining us. I'm John McBain, Joint Chief Executive of Centuria Capital, and together with my fellow Joint CEO, Jason Huljich, and Chief Financial Officer, Simon Holt, we have pleasure in presenting Centuria Capital's interim results for the 2024 financial year.
I'll present an overview of the group, a half year highlights, and some comments regarding strategy and outlook. Our CFO, Simon Holt, will give an HY 2024 financial update, and my fellow CEO, Jason Huljich, will present, will present the real estate and funds management information. Centuria pays its respects to the traditional owners of the land in Australia and New Zealand, to their respective cultures, and to their elders, past and present.
Moving to slide five, provides an overview of the group and illustrates how Centuria has increased its scale and diversification throughout Australasia, through assets under management of more than AUD 21 billion recorded during as at the close of HY 2024. The slide also shows our diversification by fund types and asset sectors. Approximately 70% of the real estate platform is weighted towards unlisted funds, balance comprising three listed REITs.
Our unlisted real estate is characterized by long-standing relationships across an extensive distribution network, complemented by expanding institutional partnerships. Throughout the period, we've maintained key stakes in Centuria's REITs, our joint venture partnerships, as well as institutional mandates and open-ended funds.
Slide six shows the breadth and depth of Centuria's diversification by geography, real estate sector, fund type, and capital sources. It illustrates how management and the wider in-house Centuria team support this diversification through its operations.
Our treasury and finance team continuously provide proactive, conservative capital management to support our funds management business. In short, we leverage our in-depth market knowledge in favored sectors to access capital and grow funds under management. Turning to slide seven, financial highlights. As at 31 December 2023, the group assets under management totaled AUD 21.1 billion, 96% of which comprise real estate funds.
Notwithstanding the higher inflationary environment, the half saw our group expand its alternative vehicles across real estate finance and agricultural real estate funds. During the half, we executed AUD 831 million of total real estate transactions, comprising AUD 399 million of acquisitions in real estate financing and AUD 432 million investments and real estate finance repayments. A key benefit of Centuria's diversified platform is the ability to activate multiple growth levers simultaneously.
In an effort to generate value for security holders over future periods, the group's development pipeline has expanded to AUD 2.3 billion. One billion of this pipeline is focused on the strongly performing industrial sector, currently characterized by a high supply-demand imbalance, particularly in the last mile or in infill markets. The group secured a new $500 million mandate during the half, known as Last Mile Logistics Partnership, on behalf of Starwood Capital, and has quickly set about filling its requirements in terms of this mandate.
Jason will speak about this shortly. Capital management is a clear focus during the half, and I can report the group operating gearing of 13.9% was achieved and recorded. Simon Holt will provide more detail on our capital management during his presentation.
Our focus on countercyclical funds, namely our real estate finance funds, together with industrial and agricultural real estate investments, has contributed to Centuria delivering operating earnings of AUD 0.061 per security during the period, in addition to declaring an interim dividend of AUD 0.05 per security. CNI reaffirms our FY 2024 operating earnings guidance of AUD 0.115-AUD 0.12 per security and full-year distribution guidance of AUD 0.10 per security.
In slide eight, looking across our real estate platform, Centuria continued to manage its diversified portfolios across Australia and New Zealand, encompassing more than 400 properties and close to 2,500 tenant customers. Our portfolio management is led by an active in-house management team. They provide a hands-on approach to ensure high tenant satisfaction and well-performing assets.
This team contributed to a high average occupancy exceeding 96% and a 5.7-year weighted average lease expiry across all our real estate funds. Turning to slide nine. Centuria continues to implement its ESG framework. We recently announced new sustainability targets, including targeting zero Scope 2 emissions by 2035.
Portfolio plans to source 100% of its electricity from renewable sources through a combination of on-site solar and large-scale generation certificate deals, matching our consumption. As well as electrification of the portfolio, where practical, eliminating gas and diesel in our operations, where C&I has operational control by 2035. During the half, we delivered 589 kW of solar energy across the portfolio, and expect to deliver a further 1.2 MW during the remainder of the financial period.
We further demonstrated our commitment to diversity, broadening the board's gender balance, which now has a 43% female representation, welcoming Joanne Dawson to the Centuria Capital board, and as chair of the group's Audit, Risk, and Compliance Committee, following Peter Done's retirement. In terms of our commitment to governance, Centuria staff completed more than 4,000 cybersecurity training courses during the half, totaling approximately 600 hours of learning.
Finally, we are extremely proud to be ranked in the top 10 AFR Best Places across Australia and New Zealand, property construction and transport category during 2023. Our unique culture is embodied across our organization by our hardworking and talented staff. Slide 10 deals with our alignment with investor capital allocation. Our platform caters to a broad range of investment opportunities.
Now, these closely align with investor intentions for the coming year, as shown in the research prepared by CBRE. Our platform is exposed to both the high-demand traditional real estate sectors and the alternative sectors investors seek. I'd like to highlight a significantly high preference for real estate debt. Within this sector, our range of Centuria-based capital investment options target this preference.
This research reaffirms how Centuria's platform diversification and fund diversification is extremely well placed to capture investment appetite. Slide 11, strategy. At the beginning of FY 2024, we set out our vision and execution strategy for the group. Whilst these overarching guidelines remain in place, security holders can now evidence their execution during the first half. For example, Centuria Bass , our real estate financing venture, has performed exceptionally well during the first half.
We've added to the Centuria Agriculture Fund, acquiring a AUD 21.5 million glasshouse in South Australia, and we intend to continue to acquire targeted agricultural assets during the second half. Industrial has been a key component of our portfolio, with CIP experiencing very high re-leasing spreads.
Centuria Select Opportunities Fund was commenced in the first half, and its first acquisition was in the industrial sector, where our team sees many value-add opportunities. In closing, Centuria management team remains cohesive and focused. We are alert to new opportunities as global interest rates, rates unwind. I now have pleasure in handing you over to our Chief Financial Officer, Simon Holt, who will walk you through our financial results. Simon?
Thanks, John. Just on slide 13, shows our statutory and operating earnings and distributions for the half, together with a confirmation of the group's FY 2024 guidance. Today, we report that despite the continued higher inflationary interest rate environment, the group has delivered a half year 2024 statutory net profit after tax of AUD 45.2 million, and an operating NPAT of AUD 49.4 million.
This has translated into an operating EPS of AUD 0.061 per security for the half, with the distribution per stapled security of AUD 0.05, aligned with our FY 2024 guidance. Our FY 2024 earnings guidance remains in the range of AUD 0.155-AUD 0.12, with an unchanged distribution guidance of AUD 0.10 per stapled security. Moving to slide 14, which outlines the key components of our operating earnings.
Operating profits attributable to our property funds management segment are broadly in line with half FY 2023. A pleasing result, considering the subdued transactional income, and in spite of the observed decline in property valuations experienced in the half.
Performance fees of AUD 4.8 million recognized for the half are lower than the prior period, reflecting reductions in property valuations and fund extensions. Despite the observed reductions in property valuations, I'm pleased to report that the business continues to have AUD 111 million in latent, unrecognized fees based on current valuations.
The current investment operating earnings, prior to the impact of fair valuation, gains and losses, have remained largely in line with the prior period, with lower distribution income arising from the investment of our underlying property funds, and have been offset by an increase in earnings from the balance sheet support provided to Centuria Bass offerings.
The group's development earnings for the half have decreased to AUD 0.6 million as a result of a number of existing projects completing early in the period, and our desire to keep key capabilities with a slower ramp up of new projects.
Despite the observed decrease in development earnings this period, with the recently announced AUD 1 billion five-year industrial development pipeline announced by CIP, this business line is well- positioned to contribute to the future earnings of profitability of the group.
As previously guided, the group made no development profits this period. Moving on to the property and development finance business segment, which represents the group's 50% interest in Centuria Bass Capital. The business contributed AUD 7.4 million of operating profit for the half, a 95% uplift from the prior period.
Centuria Bass has benefited from investor appetite, growing its AUM from AUD 1.12 billion at the end of half year 2023 to AUD 1.58 billion at the end of this period, and benefiting from Centuria's distribution, expertise, and balance sheet strength. While market conditions are expected to continue to be conducive for this business line, the group expects consistent earnings for the second half.
The investment bonds management segment continued its reliable contribution to the operating profitability of the group, delivering a segment profit of AUD 1.8 million, which reflects improved management fee revenue due to FUM increases of 3.8%. In terms of corporate overheads, continuation of our cost management initiatives introduced in the second half of last year, are expected to maintain corporate overheads at a rate slightly lower than the full year 2023 result.
Despite the noted increase in timing of expenditure for the first half of the year and the presence of inflationary pressures in the marketplace. Finance costs have increased from AUD 15.6 million in FY 2023, sorry, HY 2023, to AUD 16.6 million in this half. With this result, shielded by the group's mix of fixed rate borrowings, reducing the impact of market interest rate fluctuations on the group's earnings.
The decrease in operating tax expense from AUD 10 million in half-year 2023 to AUD 4.8 million for the current period, reflects the mix of earnings, including lower performance fees, and an increase in interest as deductions associated with the higher funding costs of the group's cross-staple loan balance.
Moving on to slide 15. This slide outlines our transaction fee revenue mix across our diversified platform, including acquisition, financing, underwriting, and sales fees. It is especially pleasing to note that reduced property transaction fees resulting from the subdued nature of the property market for this period, has been substantially offset by the increased group's earnings associated with the lending activity of Centuria Bass Capital.
Our 50% interest in the business contributed AUD 7.4 million, and this was achieved by additional financing of about AUD 220 million extended to the property developers, as well as successful completion of approximately AUD 120 million in real estate financing from prior periods. This outcome does demonstrate the benefits of the group's recent strategy to diversify its revenue sources.
In all, Centuria is reporting AUD 830 million in total transaction activity in what has been a challenging economic environment. Moving to slide 16. We are pleased to report the group's balance sheet has remained resilient during the first half of FY 2024, with the net asset value per security remaining stable at AUD 1.78 , up from AUD 1.77 at 30 June.
As shown by the group's co-investment earnings for the half, Centuria continues to utilize its strong balance sheet to support the underlying business, with AUD 184 million of cash realized from the sale and recycling of balance sheet assets during the half. The operating gearing ratio of 13.9% remains within the long-term tolerances of this metric and reflects our focus on capital management while utilizing a flexible balance sheet to provide support to the business as required.
This flexibility is further demonstrated by the extension of the group's revolving loan Note A to FY 2027, which brings the group's total available cash and undrawn debt to AUD 255 million for the half year or at 31 December.
Another important metric, the operating cash inflows of AUD 56 million on the operating after tax, compared to an operating after-tax profit of AUD 48 million, further demonstrates our cash-generating capabilities of the business. Now, turning to slide 17, which is talking about the platform's debt and managing it.
Centuria continues to diversify and recycle its sources of debt capital across the platform, with the introduction of new lenders and the recycling of existing exposures with supportive financiers. The group continues to actively manage debt across the platform to ensure optimal financing outcomes are achieved, demonstrated by the platform topping up hedging profiles over the half as market opportunities have presented. Pleasingly, the average margin for the group, including New Zealand, is 175 basis points.
We continue to take a conservative approach to the early extension of debt maturities and taking tenor wherever possible. I'll now hand over to Jason, who will take you through CNI's divisional highlights.
Thanks, Simon. Good morning, everyone. Slide 19 outlines Centuria's AUD 20.3 billion real estate platform. The platform is diversified across seven real estate sectors, and I'll talk to each of those shortly. Let's begin on slide 20 by examining the impact of the platform's diversification. This slide provides focus on the growth of our asset diversification by sectors, capital sources, and fund type.
Looking at the various real estate sectors, the first graph highlights the growth across our alternatives, including real estate finance, agriculture, and healthcare. These alternatives, in addition to our industrial portfolio, make up close to half our real estate platform. This is a highly relevant point of difference. Centuria continues to benefit from a broad range of capital sources.
Our historical strong retail and wholesale investor base remains another point of difference, and it is these investors who continue to support Centuria's push into alternative real estate assets, in particular, real estate finance and agriculture. Our more recent focus on growing our unlisted institutional base will provide compelling opportunities going forward. Slide 21.
As we've mentioned, our real estate finance business has delivered significant growth throughout the period. Throughout the past 12 months alone, AUM has increased by 41%, from AUD 1.1 billion - AUD 1.6 billion. This growth is largely attributed to the big four banks tightening their lending criteria against the background of rising demand for new homes to house Australia's growing population. Across the real estate finance platform, the vast majority of loans are first mortgages, with an average LVR of circa 61%.
During the half, Centuria Bass Credit executed 13 finance transactions for AUD 222 million, and has just launched its first fund in New Zealand. We are also very excited to announce a circa AUD 150 million credit-approved term sheet for a new warehouse facility with a global bank. This facility will help accelerate the growth of the platform. Moving to slide 22, our industrial portfolio.
As John mentioned, Centuria is harnessing the strong industrial sector tailwinds. During the period, we secured a $500 million logistics mandate from U.S. private investment firm, Starwood Capital, of which $147 million has already been deployed. Additionally, Centuria Industrial REIT has identified a AUD 1 billion development pipeline across a five-year horizon, capitalizing on supply-constrained urban infill markets that deliver outsized rental growth and continue to attract high occupier, higher demand.
This pipeline will provide Centuria with strong ongoing development management fees over the foreseeable future. Illustrative of rental growth during the period are the average 49% re-leasing spreads for the portfolio, demonstrating exceptionally strong rental growth across our industrial platform. More than a quarter of Centuria's industrial platform benefits from lease expiries within the next two years, providing further opportunities to capture rental uplift to the benefit of investors.
Looking ahead, we believe industrial tailwinds will be sustained throughout the medium term, driven by record low vacancies and a growing domestic population. According to CBRE Research, an additional 4.5 million sq m of industrial logistics space is needed to service a net migration of 935,000 people between 2023 - 2025. Moving to our other alternative sectors on slide 23.
Our agricultural real estate expanded 31% year-on-year to AUD 0.55 billion of AUM. It comprises 17 properties with 13 different irrigated crop types, using best practice, controlled environment farming methods. Centuria is focused on precision farming assets, particularly within its open-ended, unlisted Centuria Agriculture Fund, which has grown to AUD 360 million of AUM. Centuria remains Australia's largest, large-scale glasshouse landlord.
Similarly, our healthcare platform provides occupancy exceeding 97% and a long-term 10.1-year WALE. More than 80% of its assets provide net or triple net lease structures, with 60% of leases being CPI-linked. Centuria's healthcare funds have a committed gross development pipeline of AUD 320 million for our new healthcare assets, and close to half our healthcare assets comprise short-stay and day hospitals, making us one of the largest non-operator landlords in Australia.
Slide 24 touches on our retail platform, which has a total of AUD 3.2 billion of AUM. Our daily needs retail assets capitalize on non-discretionary spending, and across the portfolio, provide an average 97% occupancy and 5.5-year WALE. Approximately half of our daily needs income is derived from supermarkets, providing resilient revenue streams.
Our large format retail assets are aligned to household needs, providing a 98% portfolio occupancy and 3.6-year WALE. The large format platform achieved 6.9% re-leasing spreads throughout the period. Again, the population growth thematic provides tailwinds for the retail sector, with an estimated 2.25 million sq m of retail floor space required to maintain current per capita metrics.
Slide 25 details our office platform, which has a total occupancy of 92% and remains exposed to some of the better performing, better performing office markets, with 95% of the portfolio outside of the Sydney and Melbourne CBDs. Despite the uncertainty and challenges in some office markets, there remain a bifurcation regarding asset size, quality, and leasing risk. With an average office value of less than AUD 100 million, Centuria's assets provide exposure to a wider transaction pool.
Additionally, our 4.1-year staggered WALE was supported by the leasing of 64,000 sq m of office accommodation across 80 individual transactions throughout the half. Despite flexible working arrangements having become somewhat entrenched, many Australian office markets experienced positive net absorption throughout 2023. This suggests many tenants have already right-sized, and tenant demand may be finding an equilibrium.
Many tenants have not decreased their footprints. The office leasing distress predicted by some market speculators has not materialized. According to JLL Research, future office supply across the metro, fringe, and near city markets is expected to materially reduce over the medium term due to rising construction costs, increased finance costs, and softening capital market transactions. This should support markets Centuria is exposed to, particularly in the light of forecast population and white-collar employment growth.
Moving to slide 26, our unlisted platform comprises AUD 14.1 billion, or roughly 70% of our real estate AUM, providing a suite of investment opportunities to more than 12,000 retail, wholesale, and institutional investors. During HY 2024, the unlisted platform benefited from more than AUD 300 million of capital inflows and AUD 112 million of latent unrecognized performance fees were recorded.
Centuria launched two new wholesale value add funds in Australia and New Zealand, respectively. In Australia, we launched an open-ended Select Opportunities Fund and secured a AUD 21 million industrial logistics facility as a seed asset post-balance date. Centuria New Zealand launched a two-year closed-ended fund, raising AUD 23 million for a single asset storage conversion investment.
Our unlisted offerings also expanded throughout the growth of CAF, our agricultural fund, and Centuria Bass Credit, mentioned earlier. On to slide 27, and our listed AREITs. Centuria continues to manage Australia's largest listed pure-play industrial and office REITs. During the period, CIP delivered record re-leasing spreads of 51% across 109,000 sq m of leasing.
This leasing success resulted in upgrading FY 2024 earnings guidance from AUD 0.17-AUD 0.172 per unit. The REIT also reaffirmed its FY 2024 distribution guidance of AUD 0.16 per unit. To further capture strong tailwinds within the last mile markets, CIP identified a development pipeline throughout the coming five-year period, with an estimated end value of AUD 1 billion.
Activating this development pipeline unlocks embedded value and provides modern, sustainable industrial assets to complement its existing portfolio. CIP maintains a portfolio of 88 high-quality assets with a strong portfolio WALE of 7.5 years, complemented by 97.2% portfolio occupancy. Centuria Office REIT executed on a number of key full year 2024 objectives during the period, with a particular focus on leasing.
During the half, high occupancy of over 96% was maintained, and the portfolio WALE increased to 4.4 years. Pleasingly, COF renewed its largest tenant, with the Commonwealth Government committing to a further 10-year term at 235 William Street, Northbridge, WA.
Selected divestments of two non-core assets totaling AUD 63 million, improved overall portfolio quality, positioning COF to take advantage of the recovering conditions in decentralized office markets. COF reaffirmed FY 2024 FFO guidance of AUD 0.138 per unit and distribution guidance of AUD 0.12, which provides a healthy, attractive distribution yield of 9.6%.
On to our development slide on number 28. We continue to progress our AUD 2.3 billion-dollar development pipeline, comprising a committed pipeline and future pipeline projects, with estimated values on completion of approximately AUD 600 million and AUD 1.7 billion, respectively.
We expect this pipeline to contribute to the group's recurring revenues through development management fees and in some cases, development profits for balance sheet opportunities. Five projects worth circa AUD 300 million were completed during the period.
Moving on to valuation summary o n page slide 29. During the half year, negative valuation movements impacted the commercial real estate industry, and Centuria was not immune to this. Across the platform, total valuation movements during the half declined 1.38% on average, forming part of a larger 4.32% reduction throughout the 12 months to 31 December 2023.
This decline resulted in an average 61 basis point capitalization rate expansion across the real estate platform throughout the previous 12 months, resulting in a 6.03% weighted average capitalization rate. Looking more closely at the much-talked-about office sector, valuations fell an average of 3.05% during the half and 6.64% across the 12 months.
As at 31 December 2023, our office platform expanded 48 basis points across the year, providing a 6.34% weighted average cap rate. We've talked a lot about the industrial sector throughout this presentation, which also has not been immune to cap rate expansion. Industrial cap rates expanded 91 points in the last twelve months to 5.67%.
Despite the expansion, average valuation movements declined only 2.37% across the same period, reflecting strong rental growth, offsetting valuation declines in many instances. Turning to slide 30, an overview of the property asset management platform. The group manages circa 417 properties, leased to approximately 2,500 tenant customers.
Centuria partners with some of Australia and New Zealand's largest corporates to provide effective real estate solutions, as can be seen by the group's top ten tenants. Our portfolio is in excellent shape, with average rent collections during the period above 99%. This impressive result was complemented by 254,000 sq m of leasing terms agreed across 224 individual deals.
Collectively, our Australasian platform provides a high average occupancy exceeding 96% and an average WALE of 5.7 years. That concludes the formal presentation. I'll now hand back to the operator to commence Q&A.
Thank you. If you have a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. Your first question comes from the line of Stephen Tjia with Barrenjoey. Your line is open.
Morning, Joe, Jason, Tom, thanks for your time this morning. A couple of questions from me. Just firstly, at FY 2023, you called out about AUD 900 million of unlisted funds expiring in FY 2024. If you could talk about, you know, redemption requests and how the process has been managed so far, that would be great.
Yeah, sure. Look, as you may be aware, we only have a small number of funds that actually have full, that have redemption facilities, being three of our Australian funds. You know, the others are all fixed-term funds a nd there's been a mix, as you would see in the presentation, we have divested some assets, including some of the older healthcare assets through the period.
On the redemption side of things, the three funds that do have redemptions are our agricultural fund, our healthcare fund, and our diversified fund. There are no outstanding redemption requests in the ag fund. In the other two funds, the redemption requests range between 7% and 9% of units on issue.
What we're doing on the fixed-term funds is, particularly on the office, we recommend we're recommending fund extensions until the market sentiment turns a bit more positive, and, you know, the investors have been voting with our recommendations. So you are seeing most of those funds extend.
Great, thanks for that. Just secondly, just how you think about gearing across the platform, and I guess particularly around the unlisted funds, where your LVR might be a little bit higher. You know-
Yeah, so-
How do you think going in, in relation to covenants as well?
Yeah, sure. So average LVR gearing levels in the unlisted funds are sitting in the mid-forties. The vast majority of those funds had covenants at 60. I think on average, valuations would have to drop about another 20% on average to get to the covenants. On the ICR side, the unlisted funds average ICR covenant is 1.75, and on average, we're above three, so there's plenty of buffer there as well.
Yeah, and so just-
I'll just add... So, Simon here, I was just gonna add. You go.
Sorry, Simon.
So I was just gonna add, I think the banks have been very supportive working through ICR covenants as we had reported six months ago. That hasn't changed where there has been pressure.
All right, great. That's clear. Thanks.
Your next question comes from the line of Tom Bodor with UBS. Your line is open.
Morning, all. Maybe just one for Simon on the topic of covenants again. There's a comment about covenant compliance via additional hedging. Can you just elaborate on that, and have you been paying for in the money swaps to ensure your ICR covenants are met?
No. Generally, what we've been looking at is ICR beyond two years, and in those positions, if there is some stress because of where a view of a floating rate note may be, we would look to hedge a significant portion, whether it's somewhere between 50%-100%. Our main focus has been ensuring that we've been around the 50% hedged as a minimum, across the majority of funds.
Okay, so can you confirm those swaps, though, that are taken out are at the money, or are you using capital to buy in the money swaps?
Sometimes... Look, it's a, it's a blend of both. The majority of them aren't brought down, and there's reasons that we've gone in and brought some of them down, but, but we're not doing it across the entire platform.
Okay, thanks. T hen maybe just on Bass, are there any non-performing loans there?
No, is the answer to that. I mean, obviously, there's always the ones that have some stresses in them, but that's when we make a better profits out of the outcomes.
Yeah, a lot of, you know, some of them will be, have extended build time, things like that. But there's none in the portfolio that are giving us, keeping us awake at night. The guys do a really good job of managing them, and as Simon said, you know, they are, probably the more profitable loans, the ones that are time extensions and the like.
Okay, now that's great. Thanks. T hen just, maybe just a final one, if I may. Just the pipeline of transactions yet to settle into half that have sort of been agreed. That's normally in your slides. I couldn't see it, but I might, may have missed it. Just wanted to double-check that.
It is, it is there. I think it was AUD 34 million. No, no, we, no, we haven't put in yet. I'll have to check, but I'm pretty sure it's very small.
Okay, thanks. Great, thanks. Thanks a lot.
Your next question comes from the line of Simon Chan with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Oh, good morning, guys. Hi, hey, good operating cash flow, Simon, but I just got one question regarding performance fees. You booked AUD 5 million or just out of AUD 5 million this half, and you collected AUD 1 million. Last year, you booked AUD 28 million but collected a hundred grand. Just wondering when can investors start seeing some of these performance fees come through as cash?
Yeah, I think it goes back to Jason's earlier conversation around unlisted funds and a number of those ones that have those embedded performance fees, those funds being extended, particularly around office. So, you know, those extensions have ranged from one year to two years, from their expiries. So that, that's really what's happening. We are managing that through the process of revenue recognition, but we have, in that context, our policies remain the same.
Great. Is there a limit as to how many times these funds can have their life extended, or can you just keep kicking the can down the road as long as you see fit?
Yeah. So, so for the fixed-term funds, how it works is, usually at the second extension, so the first extension's, you know, usually, 50% or 75% vote. The second extension has to be unanimous unless the fund can take out those parties that wanna get out. So, you know, you've seen some of our funds that have been extended, more than twice, where there might be a small amount of people that wanna get out, and we can use the capital within the fund to do that. So as long as you've got that, and, then you can keep extending.
Great, and just a final follow-up then. So, what proportion of your these limited life AUM are in the time extension phase at the moment, whether it be first or second or subsequent extension?
I'd have to check. I'll confirm the number. If you look at the Primewest portfolio, for example, just before they listed, they extended nearly all their funds for 10 years, as part of that, and the investors got some benefits, so I think they got some shares in the IPO. So that is a decent chunk that has already had one extension. Also, you know, a number of our older office funds have been extended either once or twice. So we can work through those numbers and get something to you.
Okay, terrific. Thanks very much, guys.
Your next question comes from the line of Caleb Wheatley with Macquarie. Your line is open.
Good morning, John, Jason, Simon. Thank you for taking my questions. My first one was just a follow-up on an earlier question around the unlisted platform gearing. So you're saying it's about 45%, but can you just give us a sense for, I guess, the range around that 45? Just conscious that some, particularly those more recently potentially unlisted, could be a bit higher than that 45 level, please.
Look, the range ranges from early 20s up to... There's very few, but one or two that are up around the 60% or just under. So that's kind of the range on the, on the-
When you say very few-
Gearing.
One, two, or three.
It's one or two.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Everything else would be in the range of 45-50.
Yeah.
Yeah, 52. Yeah.
Other parts are below that, but yeah.
Okay, and on that one or two, not more in the context of the overall platform, but what are discussions like with lenders, if it's getting-
Harmonious
... close to that?
Harmonious.
Okay, thank you. My second question, just on,-
Sorry, no, they've been great. When I say, they're just a couple of things settling in, and companies we've bought where it was high, always been high, and the bank's happy to.
Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. My second question, just on capital interest in some of the newer real estate equity subsectors. So, you know, healthcare and agriculture have been a bit of a positive news story over the past couple of years. Just keen to get an updated view on what's happening with, or how capital is viewing, those areas of the platform.
Sure. Look, I think ag's been very successful. As you've seen, that's been growing. We've got good demand. It's obviously getting the assets, and we're working on a good pipeline at the moment of new assets, and then we can raise more equity into into the ag fund. Our healthcare's been a bit quieter. It is, you know, lower yielding. You know, we've had some inflows in, but it's been pretty quiet.
A lot of the planning groups are sort of sitting on their hands at the moment, waiting to see, you know, obviously interest rate stabilization and the like. T hen obviously on the credit side, we've had huge, huge growth there, just money to, you know, to the high net worth investors, finding those, you know, shorter-term debt funds, you know, very attractive.
Okay, great. Thank you. T hen just a final one from me, office obviously still being a fairly large portion of the overall platform. Based on your discussions with the investor base, what are they sort of waiting for and looking for, before they get more comfort on deploying there? Is it more a fundamental issue, or it's around work from home, or it's around pricing, or a combination of all three?
Around the office side? Look, there's just been so much negative press. They've really built up a story around office that's not true, and if you go through the, the COF presentation, the guys and girls have done a really good job of dispelling a lot of myths around office. You know, for example, in most of our areas where we invest, you know, you've had positive net absorption since COVID, over the last three years.
You know, obviously, Melbourne and Sydney CBDs have had quite large negative, but that hasn't flown through the, the suburbs. The metro markets have actually been very strong. There's also some research there on every metro lease deal over 1,000 m, and the amount of tenants increasing their floor plates, or footprints, vastly exceed those decreasing.
So you know, obviously, you've got this reduction in large financial service groups like the banks, but across the board in a lot of our office markets, it's actually not quite right. So look, it is just turning that sentiment around office. You know, and a lot of when we talk to our offshore investors, especially those based in the States, they've got a very different view of office and what's happening up there.
They sort of think that's happening everywhere around the world, where it's not. You know, U.S. has 40% more office space per capita than Australia, for example, so I've got some, you know, structural issues up there.
As we've shown, you know, leasing down here has actually been pretty strong in nearly all the markets we invest in. So I think we just need some more positive news out of office. We need the media to stop beating it up, and we'll get there. But yeah, I think if you look at that office pack, there's some very, very good , you know, medium-term tailwinds for office.
Like, if you look at population growth and, for example, and what that means, white-collar employment, you know, based on the figures in the pack, you know, you could need up to 7 million sq m of office space to accommodate white-collar employment growth over the next eight years, right?
Put that in perspective, you know, the Sydney market's 5.5 million sq m . So there's actually some really good news coming out, but it's just not flying through the press and investor sentiment as yet.
You can see, you can see why in North America in particular, you know, is a bit of a basket case, and over here, the facts don't make good news. It's understandable, but we believe that the, you know, work from home ratio is pretty well set now.
Yes, there might be some change at the margin, but we wouldn't be getting these re-leasing statistics and the sort of rents we're getting if no one wanted to ever be in an office. The problem is, it's kind of unbelievable, the facts are unbelievable to the domestic market because of the weight of continued negative press. Like, it'll unwind. Like every... all these things will unwind.
Just take some time. On the buyer side, what we're seeing is demand for the smaller assets are there, so sub-AUD 100 million, mainly for privates and smaller syndicators a nd what you see in this point of the cycle, where a smaller syndicator can get time and subject to equity raising terms, you see them sort of come out of the woodwork.
You know, we obviously sold a couple of assets and bought through the period at pretty close to book. One was to a private, and one was to a smaller syndicator, and we've sold some of our unlisted assets to newer syndicators as well. So you're sort of seeing demand in that sub-AUD 100 million range.
That's really helpful. Thank you again for your time this morning.
Thanks.
Again, if you have a question, it is star one. Your next question comes from the line of Richard Jones with JP Morgan. Your line is open.
Good morning. Jason, are you able to just work through just the latent performance fees, obviously down a little bit, I imagine through the devaluations you booked in the period. Can you just discuss the time realization on these fees and I guess the risk on, I think it's AUD 112 million?
Yeah, well, Simon's probably best to speak to that.
Yeah, look, again, most of that relates to the latent fees coming through from the Primewest book now a nd that, as Jason mentioned earlier, 10 years from 2019 is 2029, so there's a fair whack sitting in that range. It kind of spikes towards that back end of 2029.
There are some that come through in the next couple of years on one of the 111. But again, just reminding everyone, it is a position based on current valuations as opposed to what actually gets booked over time. But in essence, we're still 4-5 years away of the big pieces of that.
Okay, and then the Last Mile Logistics Fund, just in terms of the mandate there, can you just discuss deployment opportunities and competition to deploy at the moment?
Yeah, look, it's. We're seeing good pipeline for it. You know, we've filled just under a third of it. We're working on some other opportunities right now. You know, we've got a very active industrial team. You know, we've been one of the biggest buyers of that smaller style infill logistics over the last three or four years, and obviously built the whole CIP platform around that.
We've got very good intel, having 180 assets in the industrial space across the platform. We've probably got some of the best intel on all those submarkets and what's happening with rents and tenant demand and the like. So, yeah, we're definitely seeing opportunities there that meet the investment hurdles for Starwood. So, yeah, you expect to see more deals in that space.
Okay. I s there any other institutional discussions you have that are advanced on other mandates? I f so, what asset classes can you-
Yeah, look, we're talking to a number of groups. We get approached by groups, and obviously we're up, you know, in Asia and other places talking to a lot of groups as well. So look, you know, it's definitely a focus of ours to expand that industrial, that institutional footprint, which was something that we didn't focus on for a very long time because we had such a strong retail and high net worth sort of base. So it's something the guys are focused on. We're in a number of discussions at different levels, but it is something the team's working on trying to grow further.
Thanks, Jason.
Your next question comes from the line of Alexander Prineas with Morningstar. Your line is open.
Thank you. Apologies if this has been addressed. I wasn't on the call for the entire time due to a clash. Just on the fixed term funds, can you provide a bit of color about sort of how conversations are going for fixed term funds that are expiring, the remainder of this year and into 2025? Is there anything you can say about the outlook there for retaining or extending those funds or?
Sure. Look, we talked briefly about it, but yeah, you know, we're recommending in a lot of situations, especially on the office funds to extend. You know, the investors are backing our recommendation, which is good. We've been selling down assets in some of the oldest healthcare funds and the like, which terms are up. But a lot of the larger office assets we are extending and the investors are happy to go along with that.
Thanks. Okay. A lso the, I understand there's some, some big, maturities around 2028, 2029 period. Is that, is that similarly, is that the Primewest, stuff-
Yeah
-that is coming off that 10 years from 2019?
That's exactly, exactly right. L ook, if you look at-
Okay.
- the Primewest funds, you know, again, they, they tend to hold them probably longer than the average Centuria fund. A lot of those, a lot of the Primewest—there's some very old Primewest funds that have been around for over 20 years in that, in that portfolio. So, their investors historically have liked to hold longer.
Are those investor groups in those Primewest funds, are they making other investments with you into other funds?
They are. They've been particularly supportive of-
Since that deal?
Yeah, they've been particularly supportive of the debt funds, actually. You know, their investor base-
Okay
is, you know, sort of 800, you know, pretty high net worth individuals and families, and, and, yeah, they've definitely,
It's been popular.
Find those debt funds attractive.
Okay, thanks for that. That's it from me.
There are no further questions at this time. I will turn the call to John for closing remarks.
I'd like to thank everybody for taking time to listen, and we will close the presentation. Thank you very much.
This concludes today's conference call. We thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.