Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Centuria Capital Group FY 2023 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. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press Star, followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the star 1 again. For operator assistance throughout the call, please press star 0, and finally, I would like to advise all participants that this call is being recorded. Thank you. I'd now like to welcome Mr. John McBain, Joint CEO, to begin the conference. John, over to you.
Thank you. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. I'm John McBain, Joint CEO of Centuria Capital, and together with my fellow Joint CEO, Jason Huljich, and Chief Financial Officer, Simon Holt, we have pleasure in presenting Centuria's financial results for FY 2023. I will present an overview of the group, our FY 2023 highlights and comments regarding strategy and outlook. Simon will give an FY 2023 financial update, and Jason will present the real estate and funds management information in more detail. Starting the presentation on slide two, Centuria pays its respects to the traditional owners of the land in Australia and New Zealand, to their respective cultures, to the elders, past, present, and emerging. Moving to slide four.
This slide provides an overview of the group and illustrates how Centuria has increased its scale and diversification throughout Australasia, with group assets under management increasing to AUD 21 billion during the period. It also shows the breadth of our diversity by fund, type, and asset sector. Approximately two-thirds of the real estate platform is weighted towards unlisted funds, with the balance comprising three listed REITs. Our unlisted real estate is characterized by long-standing relationships across an extensive distribution network and complemented by expanding institutional investment partnerships. Throughout the period, we've maintained key stakes in Centuria's REITs, our joint venture partnerships and institutional mandates, as well as our open-ended unlisted funds. Turning to slide five.
Our gross real estate acquisition activity is largely attributed to expanding our unlisted alternative real estate activities, particular agriculture, which increased 33% to more than AUD 500 million, while Centuria Bass Credit expanded its loan book 59% to AUD 1.3 billion. As I alluded to earlier, pleasingly, institutional capital investment continued to expand by 11% to over AUD 2 billion, Jason will provide further details on funds management, new capital sourcing, and acquisitions shortly. Capital management was a clear corporate focus during FY 2023, I can report that our group operating debt gearing reduced to 10.6% at year-end, with a AUD 329 million cash and undrawn debt facilities available at year-end. The group considers its balance sheet to be very healthy, with ample capacity to operate its normal business activities.
Furthermore, during the period, Centuria recouped AUD 200 million from sales and recycling of co-investment assets. Turning to slide six. During the period, Centuria maintained a disciplined approach to our strategy to create value for security holders, resulting in AUD 1.4 billion of gross real estate activity and an AUD 1.6 billion development pipeline. Increased recurring revenues to 91%, largely driven from management fees arising from FY 2022 transactions. Our ability to deliver on these forecast earnings was a function of strong recurring earnings, coupled with the execution of our strategy to diversify our real estate activities. During FY 2023, Centuria delivered operating earnings of AUD 0.145 per security, a distribution of AUD 0.116 per security, an increase of 5.5% year-on-year, both in line with guidance.
Looking across our real estate platform, we continue to effectively manage our diversified portfolios, portfolios across Australia and New Zealand. Our portfolio management is led by a very active in-house management team, providing hands-on approach to ensure high tenant satisfaction, as well as well-performing assets. Turning to slide seven. This slide focuses on the growth of diversification by both asset sector and capital sources. The first graph, in particular, highlights the growth across our alternative sectors of our agriculture and real estate finance, as well as healthcare. As you can see, approximately two-thirds of Centuria's portfolio is comprised of the industrial and alternative sectors. We believe this to be a highly relevant point of difference. Centuria also benefits from a broad range of capital sources across the group. Our strong retail base remains another relevant point of difference.
It is these investors who continue to support Centuria's recent push into, in particular, the agriculture and real estate credit sectors. We also like to highlight the strength of Australia's commercial real estate market in relation to global peers. In recent times, Australia is second only to Japan in the APAC region... in terms of attracting inbound real estate capital. We have a strong track record for capitalizing on mandates and partnerships from international institutions, such as the industrial and healthcare partnerships with investment vehicles, investment vehicles sponsored by Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing. Turning to slide eigh. As previously mentioned, Jason will provide a more detailed funds management real estate overview. I'll just make a few comments by way of highlight.
As of FY 2023, in the group managed approximately 420 properties, leased to 2,500 tenants. During the year, lease terms were agreed over more than 548,000 square meters across 542 transactions, representing 13% of the total platform. This significant leasing activity secured on strong tenant governance, resulted in rent collections across the platform remaining high at 99%. During the period, the weighted average capitalization rate across the group was 5.81%. We'd encourage security holders to examine this metric, in particular, in any peer comparisons that might be undertaken. Turning to slide nine. We continue our commitment to ESG initiatives through our flexible sustainability framework.
During FY 2023, we released our ESG policy and launched new sustainability targets, including targeting zero Scope 2 emissions by 2028, with our portfolio sourcing 100% of electricity from renewable sources through a combination of on-site solar and Large-scale Generation Certificate deals which match our consumption. The electrification of our portfolio, where practical, eliminating gas and diesel in our operations, where CNI has operation control by 2035. Continued expanding our 5-star Green Star rated buildings, with new assets delivered for Coffs and Smithfield by our in-house development team. We continued our 10-year support of St Lucy's School, which provide education to students with disabilities in New South Wales, as well as other statewide, charitable concerns. Centuria supports a diverse workplace culture, and we are proud to have increased female participation in our workforce to 45%.
Turning to Slide 10. Part of our reputation as a funds manager is built on our ability to adapt to market changes by unlocking innovative new products. We have a strong focus on alternative well-performing real estate sectors to expand our platform and deliver diversified income sources, one of Centuria's points of difference. In addition to our recent alternative sector success, we'll also continue to harness the strong tailwinds from the industrial sector moving forward. We'll continue to execute on our strategy against a backdrop of 10 cash rate hikes and high inflation during FY 2023. Whilst we believe that the majority of interest rate rises should be behind us, a certain level of uncertainty will still exist moving into FY 2024. Market sentiment indicates that at some point during FY 2024, interest rates should stabilize, allowing markets to begin the journey towards normalization.
Accordingly, Centuria will maintain a disciplined approach in navigating what we believe will be a challenging FY 2024 backdrop. We approach FY 2024 with a sharp focus on the industrial and alternative sectors as important revenue drivers. The strong growth in our real estate credit book and our agriculture funds to AUD 1.3 billion and AUD 0.5 billion, respectively, in FY 2023, is expected to continue into FY 2024, as is our ability to leverage our industrial real estate expertise. In addition, our investment bonds business, Centuria Life, is experiencing increased inflows. Centuria benefits from an experienced management team who maintain a disciplined strategic approach to capital management. We also wish to ensure we are well positioned to continue our growth trajectory as markets normalize. We talk about this internally as our through-cycle approach.
Finally, on Slide 11, we provide guidance at levels that reflect our best estimate of earnings based on current market conditions. This guidance anticipates lower performance fees and development profits, restrained transaction volumes, and increased finance costs. Centuria provides FY 2024 operating EPS guidance in a range of AUD 0.115-AUD 0.12 security, and distribution for security guidance of AUD 0.10. I'll now hand you over to our Chief Financial Officer, Simon Holt, who will walk you through our financial results.
Thanks, John. Just moving to Slide 13, which shows our operating earnings and distributions for the full year, as well as guidance for the FY 2024 year. Despite prevailing macroeconomic conditions noted by John, the business has remained strong, as shown by its scale and diversification established over recent years. Today, we reported that the group delivered statutory NPAT of AUD 105.9 million, an operating NPAT of AUD 115.6 million, and a distribution of AUD 0.116 per staple security. These were all higher than the prior year. The distribution of AUD 0.116, combined with our operating EPS of AUD 0.145 per security, were also in line with our Group guidance .
As John mentioned earlier, we provided FY 2024 operating earnings guidance of AUD 0.115-AUD 0.12 per security, and a distribution guidance of AUD 0.10. FY 2024 guidance, when compared to FY 2023, does anticipate lower performance fees and development profits, re-restrained transaction volumes, and increased finance costs. I'd also like to mention that our FY 2024 distribution guidance of AUD 0.10 further demonstrates our confidence in the underlying earnings and cash generating potential of the business. Slide 14 outlines the components of our operating earnings. The results for the current year were underscored by record earnings before interest and tax of AUD 166.8 million, representing a growth of 7.5% on FY 2022. Our property funds management fees increased 6% to AUD 84.1 million.
This was backed primarily by the full year impact of our FY 2022 platform growth, supported by an additional AUD 1.4 billion of gross real estate activity undertaken in FY 2023. Property funds management business was supported by additional performance fees of AUD 28.5 million, and the group still has a further AUD 126 million of embedded latent, unrecognized performance fees. It is worth mentioning the continuing contribution of co-investments to our operating results, which did increase 8% to AUD 52.4 million, reflecting the increased deployment of capital in support of our unlisted fund business, higher interest income, which was offset by the negative impact of reduced distributions and cost of finance. I'm especially pleased to note that the development segment experienced significant growth this year, increasing its profitability by 45% to AUD 9.4 million for the year.
This result underscored the talent and commitment of our team, which leveraged our active project pipeline and successfully delivered development profits on its recently completed projects, despite challenging market conditions. As John mentioned earlier, an important highlight for the year has been our performance of our real estate credit finance platform, which, through our collaboration with Bass Capital, increased its loan book throughout the year, delivering a 61% increase in operating profitability. Rounding out our key income-generating divisions is the investment bond segment, which, while small, has over the years, remained a consistent contributor to our bottom line, delivering an operating profit of AUD 3.5 million for the year. Of note, has been the continuing expansion and modernization of its product range, which have now been approved and offered by a wide range of dealer groups nationally.
It's worth mentioning that the noted decline in profitability compared with FY 2022 for the investment bond division, relates to the impact of one-off fee recoupment on the unitization of capital guaranteed products, and that the underlying results for the segment itself were pleasing. In terms of corporate overheads, I'm pleased to report that the business was able to deliver substantial savings for the current year, primarily through initiatives deployed across travel, consulting and other controllable overheads. At this point, it is important to pause for a moment and recognize that the increase in EBIT arising from the contribution of each of our segments, have mitigated the full impact of rising interest rate environment.
All in all, the reported operating profit after tax of AUD 115.6 million, to be a good result, reflecting the ongoing hard work commitment from all of Centuria's staff and management, as we continue to navigate the challenging economic climate. Slide 15 highlights the important role the continued diversification of our platform played in terms of the increased resilience of our fee-generating potential. Specifically, transactional fee income, comprising acquisition, financing, and underwriting, and sales fees, were underscored by AUD 2.4 billion in transactional activity for the financial year. Underpinned by AUD 403 million of assets exchanged in FY 2022 and settled in this period, generating fees in addition to the AUD 811 million of FY 2023 acquisitions, and AUD 542 million in real estate finance.
It's also worth mentioning that the group also completed AUD 510 million of real estate divestments, and AUD 122 million of real estate finance settlements as part of its overall transactional activity. Looking at Slide 16, the group's balance sheet continues to be a source of confidence for the business, with net asset value of AUD 1.77 per security at June 30th, 2023, up AUD 0.04 on the previous year. Throughout FY 2023, Centuria increased its funding optionality. In April, a new five-year, AUD 50 million debt facility was secured in addition to the refinance of AUD 67 million of near-term maturities. I am pleased to report that as at June 30th, 2023, Centuria lowered its operating gearing ratio to 10.6%, from its previously reported position of 17.3% at half year 2023.
while realizing AUD 237 million of cash from the sale and recycling of balance sheet assets. Importantly, Centuria's balance sheet is positioned to fund organic growth with AUD 329 million of cash and undrawn debt. Finally, to this slide, it's important to note that the group generated AUD 83.4 million of cash from its operating activities alone, and enjoys a net operating interest cover of 5x , which despite recent increases in the cost of finance, represents a significant buffer above covenant requirements of 2x . Moving on to Slide 17, which highlights key attributes and profile of debt achieved across our managed funds platforms. We continue to broaden our debt sources and risk concentration with now 24 lenders to the platform.
Additionally, we access new capital through the issuance of AUD 300 million of external notes within CIP. Lending facilities of the group total AUD 8.2 billion, which covers more than 120 funds, with a weighted average debt duration of 2.2 years. This weighted average reflects the typical lending term of up to five years in Australia and up to three years in New Zealand, along with the maturity of a number of our closed-end unlisted funds. The group is hedged across these funds for a weighted average of 52% at 30th June, with a weighted average duration of 1.8 years, which is broadly aligned with our debt duration and in line with our policy of not hedging beyond the debt or fund term in closed-end funds. During the year, the group refinanced approximately 60% of all funds.
This significant body of work has increased our engagement with all our lenders, which has meant we have an enhanced understanding of our lenders' appetite and has led us to building stronger relationships with our lenders over the year. Moving on to my last slide, which examines the enhanced systems and processes delivered across the group's operations as part of our commitment to improving efficiencies and proactively managing costs. This extends to the continued integration of Primewest Commercial Property Services into Centuria's own infrastructure, which was delivered during the year, as well as the transition of Primewest Fund into Centuria's own property and financial management systems. Overlaid across these activities have been the delivery of an integrated customer relationship management solution used from west to east coast Australia and across New Zealand.
To support our business growth, back-end operations expanded in our Manila office, which, coupled with our strategy to deploy increased automation, will continue to be a source of strategic advantages and future cost savings across our platform. Looking ahead, increased integration is expected across our treasury function with the impending implementation of a unified treasury management solution. In terms of new and emerging focus areas for a business, it is also important to note the importance of the IFRS sustainability standards, with the business continuing also to invest and provision its enhanced data collection, storage, aggregation, and reporting systems in preparation for its introduction. Finally, with the increased threat of cybersecurity, it is important to reiterate Centuria's continued commitment in strengthening cyber defenses whilst continuing to comply with its APRA CPS 234 regulatory environment.
I'll now hand over to Jason, who will take you through CNI's divisional highlights.
Thank you, Simon. Good morning, everyone. I will start on Slide 20, which outlines our 7 real estate verticals that make up Centuria's AUD 20.2 billion real estate platform. The platform has changed considerably in recent years and now is diversified across the seven sectors, including industrial, daily needs retail, large format retail, as well as the alternatives of healthcare, real estate, finance and agriculture. The latter two providing significant growth in FY 2023. On Slide 21, Centuria's office portfolio, with a total occupancy of 94%, remains exposed to Australia's better-performing office markets, with 95% of the portfolio outside of the Sydney and Melbourne CBDs. There remains a bifurcation within domestic office markets based on 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, a healthy 4.6 year WALE mitigates leasing risk, while the largest office asset within the portfolio comprises a mere 1.7% of total group AUM. Demonstrating Centuria's differentiated market position throughout FY 2023, five office assets were divested at an average premium to book value of 4.5%, reflecting investment appetite for smaller metropolitan and near city office assets. Furthermore, as a test of tenant attitudes and preferences, our 2023 office tenant survey revealed circa 75% of respondents anticipate retaining or increasing their space requirements throughout the medium term. Finally, we believe our office portfolio continues to provide affordable, well-located commercial accommodation that appeals to a wide range of professional workforces. Moving to industrial on Slide 22. The domestic industrial market continues to provide strong sector tailwinds, with the lowest vacancy rate globally at 0.6%.
Centuria's AUD 6 billion industrial portfolio is positively differentiated through a strategic positioning, building critical scale within urban in-fill markets, where occupied demand remains highest and land is most constrained. With occupancy of 98%, a WALE of 10.2 years, an average asset size of AUD 36 million, Centuria's portfolio is extremely well-placed in the current environment. Our average site coverage is below 50%, providing scope for value-add developments, repositioning, and many refurbishment opportunities. Rental levels for our industrial assets improved significantly, particularly in the second half of the year, with average re-leasing spreads reaching over 37%. Highlighting the quality of our portfolios, Centuria divested 11 industrial assets during the period at an average 2% premium to book value. Our listed Centuria Industrial REIT established a joint venture partnership with institutional investor MSREI.
This provides a strong indication of ongoing institutional appetite for industrial real estate. Slide 23 touches on our third traditional asset class of retail. Centuria's AUD 3.2 billion portfolio contains its exposure to daily needs retail, underpinned by non-discretionary spending and large format retail, which is aligned to household needs. Close to 44% of our daily needs asset income is derived from supermarkets, providing a resilient revenue flow. Our large format retail sites have low site coverage, which, like industrial, provides value-add options. Our average re-leasing spreads for the period across our Australian LFR portfolio were 11%. This included 8% for existing tenants and an impressive 24% for new leases. This high-quality portfolio has occupancy of 97.5%. Now on to our alternative real estate verticals on Slide 24, beginning with healthcare.
Close to half of our healthcare assets comprise short stay and day hospitals, making us one of the largest non-operator landlords in Australia. Our healthcare assets are largely new and customized for particular procedures and uses. These are healthcare facilities that lend themselves to better operational efficiencies, which lead to better patient outcomes and cost efficiencies. Our in-house development arm is currently providing a further AUD 360 million pipeline of assets for our unlisted healthcare funds. The portfolio has a strong occupancy of 96%, a WALE of 10.8 years, and 48% of the leases are CPI-linked. During the period, we transacted several healthcare assets throughout, though our overall AUM remained unchanged. Centuria will look to progress its institutional partnerships to further grow its healthcare platform.
Next, our real estate finance business has seen strong growth through the period, increasing AUM by approximately 60% of AUD 800 million- AUD 1.3 billion, as the property industry looked to non-bank financing as the Big Four tightened their lending criteria. This business lends to developer and investor clients, and we provide credit funds for our high net worth wholesale investor base through the Bass Capital Credit brand. We've seen extremely strong take-up from our investors across the two open-ended and multiple single loan funds, as we are able to provide compelling returns for first mortgage secured loan funds to our high net worth clients. Finally, our agricultural vertical. Throughout FY 2023, Centuria's focused on precision farming assets and, more specifically, protected cropping.
The three agricultural assets acquired in the period are high-quality glasshouses, which lend themselves to highly sustainable farming methods that also produce significantly higher yields than broad acre farming. These glasshouses have been acquired for both our Australian and New Zealand unlisted farms. Centuria is now Australia's largest large-scale glasshouse landlord. Across our entire agricultural platform, 92% of our assets provide net or triple net lease structures. We currently have 100% occupancy and a 14.5 year WALE across the portfolio. On to development on Slide 25. During FY 2023, Centuria delivered AUD 400 million worth of high-quality, sustainable projects throughout Australia and New Zealand. Projects include property upgrades, refurbishments, redevelopments, as well as new assets for our listed and unlisted funds.
Our award-winning in-house development team is also progressing AUD 800 million worth of committed projects, alongside a further AUD 800 million of future projects. It's worth noting that our team recently took home the Urban Taskforce Industrial Development Excellence Award for CIP Southside Industrial Estate. Our development division generates strong recurring development management fees, and in some cases, development profits for balance sheet opportunities. Our development management fees increased 45% year-on-year to AUD 9.4 million. Moving to Slide 26 and our unlisted funds platform, which grew 6% to AUD 13.8 billion. During the period, Centuria expanded unlisted retail assets with two wholesale funds, which were fully subscribed, illustrating strong demand for regional daily needs retail assets.
A 50% interest was secured in the AUD 223 million Allendale Square office tower in Perth, and several industrial assets were secured for both Australian and New Zealand unlisted funds. On the alternative front, the unlisted open-ended Centuria Agriculture Fund acquired 2 additional glasshouses for a combined AUD 143 million, and Centuria NZ Agricultural Property Fund launched, seeded with an AUD 18 million glasshouse. Bass Capital Credit launched 4 single-asset wholesale credit funds, which were fully subscribed, in addition to expanding the open-ended Centuria Bass Credit Fund. Collectively, AUD 600 million of unlisted capital was raised during FY 2023. On to our listed A-REITs on Slide 27. CIP is Australia's largest listed pure-play industrial REIT, with 89 industrial properties worth AUD 3.9 billion.
CIP continues to harness the strong sector tailwinds, achieving average re-leasing spreads for the year of 30%, together with more than 182,000 square meters of agreed leases across 30 individual deals. Significantly, during the period, CIP formed a joint venture with an investment vehicle sponsored by Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing, Centuria Prime Logistics Partnership. Through this JV, CIP divested a 50% interest in 8 of its prime assets for AUD 215 million, which helped strengthen its balance sheet and provide liquidity. Additionally, CIP issued an AUD 300 million exchangeable note at an attractive rate, increasing its debt diversity. The REIT maintains low gearing at 33.1% as at 30 June, with no debt expiry until FY 2025. CIP delivered FY 2023 guidance of AUD 0.17 per unit, and distribution guidance of AUD 0.16.
The ASX-listed COF is Australia's largest listed pure-play office REIT, with 23 high-quality office assets, worth AUD 2.3 billion. COF executed a high volume of leasing transactions throughout the period, which significantly improved its occupancy to 97%. Throughout the period, AUD 63 million worth of divestments strengthened its balance sheet, reducing its debt and pro forma gearing to 36.7%. Additionally, more than AUD 225 million of debt was refinanced, and COF has no debt expiring until FY 2026. COF delivered FY 2023 FFO of AUD 0.156 per unit, and provided distributions of AUD 0.141 per unit. Moving on to Slide 28, final slide. During FY 2023, Centuria continued to broaden its capital structures and investor profiles. In particular, institutional investor capital expanded 11% to AUD 2.1 billion, with CIP establishing its joint venture.
Centuria also continued to service its office, retail, and healthcare mandate throughout the period, and is focused on increasing its institutional capital base. That concludes the formal presentation, and I'll now hand back to the operator to commence Q&A. Thank you.
Yes. Thank you, all speakers. At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star one on your telephone keypad, and we'll pause just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Caleb Wheatley from Macquarie Group. Your line is open.
Good morning, John, Jason, and Simon. Thank you for the presentation. My first question is just around guidance. Conscious of your qualitative comments on some of the operational movements into FY 2024, but just wondering if there were to be any more quantitative, in terms of drivers, particularly in the real estate platform, regarding revaluations, any thought on net acquisitions, et cetera?
Well, perhaps, John, I'll make a few-- Thanks for the question, Caleb. I think this year, in particular, the view of the management team and the board was, we believe it's one of the most difficult years to be precise in relation to the outcome. Whilst it's always challenging, you know, we're in a backdrop now where we're uncertain whether there's gonna be none, one or two more interest rate rises. We're relatively convinced of market sentiment that, it will stabilize, and the majority of the rate rises were, are behind us. I think that in itself is significant uncertainty.
We've tried to, in our presentation, reinforce repeatedly that we believe that our retail investors have given good support for the alternative sectors and industrial, and that they continue to perform, whereas we, we understand, and it's common knowledge globally, that, that the equity capital markets and REITs, in some sectors, have issues. You know, we've tried to indicate that two-thirds of our portfolio is unlisted, so it's not necessarily subject to those restrictions which the equity capital markets place.
on, on listed platforms. Going too much further beyond that, is more difficult this year than it's ever been. Jason, you might care to...
Yeah. No, that's right. Then looking, yeah, looking forward, you mentioned, yeah, acquisitions. I think there's gonna be a bent probably towards the alternatives such as ag and healthcare. Then I think another big, you know, another sector we think we'll be buying a bit in is, is industrial as well. I think the, the diversification of the platform is allowing us to continue to, to grow, but in some different sectors. Obviously, the credit business is going from strength to strength. We think it'll be another big year this year for them as well.
That's really helpful. Good support from the retail base. Keen to hear what you're seeing on the opportunity side, and you mentioned a few of the alternatives there, but what are you seeing in terms of pricing or relative attractiveness, in some of those new subsectors? Obviously, credit, relatively attractive at the moment, particularly with regard to agriculture as well.
Yeah. Credit's great. Yeah, credit, as you said, is going very well. You know, we, our products that we are distributing to our investor base, which is probably mainly the high net worth investor base, our wholesale products. We've got two open-ended funds that are returning between 8.5% and 9.5% there, and then we've got single asset loans at around 10%. They're extremely attractive for a debt product, and the high net worth are really tied into them, which is good. The other, other asset sectors, look, we've been watching and waiting. We haven't seen, you know, great value over the last few months, but we're starting to see it. We're putting some different sort of vehicles together to take advantage of that.
Particularly for the, the high net worth into the market, that likes the sort of total return play, and obviously, we've got a long history in repositioning assets. That's something you'll see us take advantage of over the next 12 months.
Ryan?
Great, thank you. That's really helpful. Final question from me. Just wondering if you could talk to any comments on how you're viewing gearing across the entire platform. Conscious you maybe comment around average cap rate being at, at 5.8 relative to peers, but any high-level thoughts on where gearing is across the platform, and what you might do from here on that front?
Do you want me to talk? Look I think from a platform, platform point of view, we obviously are dealing with 120 different funds, and they all have their different, unique, assets. In terms of we will continually and consistently keep doing what we have been doing, which is monitoring, and managing that debt platform. You know, when we talk about having touched facilities of 60% of those funds, they, they are ranging from all sorts of things that we're talking to, to being new funds, refinancing just because it was near the end of term. I think what we're probably focused on is making sure that we don't fall current on a go-forward basis in terms of the, those single asset funds.
We don't do that in the listed vehicles today, but we, we have from time to time, done that on the single asset funds. We're very focused on making sure that we're bringing forward the debt refinancing in particular.
I think, Jason, here, just one other thing, you know, I think we learned lessons from the GFC around covenant buffers. You know, the management and the board are being extremely focused on debt, particularly in the, those unlisted vehicles, having so many of them, of having, you know, lower gearing and, and higher covenants. If you look across the platform, you know, the average covenant is in the high 50s- 60s, and, you know, the actual drawn amounts is in the low 40s. We've made sure we've got a good, strong buffer between covenants.
That's really helpful. Thank you for your time.
Your next question comes from the line of Solomon Zhang from JP Morgan. Your line is open.
Good morning, everyone. Two more questions on gearing. Just wanted to clarify, what is CNI's balance sheet debt covenants based on? Is it based on operating or look-through gearing, please?
It's based on there's a number of different covenants, but the key one is actually an LVR covenant test that actually isn't operating. It's down in some underlying funds. But we use operating gearing as a good metric. There is a look-through gearing metric as a covenant that we do have, but it is a different calculation to what you may normally see in the market.
All right. Now, in terms of the look-through gearing, where, where would that be at? Just curious, with the LVR calc, does that include or exclude intangibles? Obviously, that's quite important. Again, you've got AUD 800 million of goodwill and, you know, management rights on the balance sheet.
Yeah, just on the, the LVR covenant, it relates to a, a number of trust entities within the group. It looks at the assets of that trust and two other trusts. It's a very low gearing level compared to the covenant itself. Sorry, what was the other part of the question?
Whether it includes goodwill.
Goodwill. Yeah, sorry, it doesn't include goodwill in that calculation of LVR.
Helpful.
Look-through gearing question. Sorry, look-through gearing, so I'm sure everyone's going to ask it. Is it 33.5%? It's down 2% from June last year and down about 3.5% from the half-year numbers.
Right, right, that's in excluding the intangibles?
No, that would be our covenant calculation, which would include-
Okay.
Management rights exclude goodwill.
All right, just a question as well on, on the performance fees. Could you just call out what you've assumed in guidance for 2024? Is it a material step down, step down from 2023?
Yeah, look, I think, even going back 12 months ago, we were talking about performance fees, it's going to be much lower. I mean, we were looking at 12 months ago in that $10 million-$15 million range. I think that's where it's going to be going in 2024.
Well, maybe if we could sneak in one more. Just on the, I guess, the, the latent performance fees. I guess you previously called out that, you know, a substantial portion of that was sort of pulled across as part of the Primewest merger. Could you just talk about your control and visibility over, I guess, recognizing that AUD 126 million over the next couple of years? Is it highly dependent on investor exits, or is it sort of linked to finite life funds?
It's, it's pretty much linked to finite life funds. There's a significant portion of funds that expire in 2029, 2030 in the Primewest portfolio that will have some of those performance fees. It will there will be, I suppose, if you're thinking about how you're looking over the next 3- 5- years, you know, I think we'll see it fit reasonably plodding along, and then there's that kicker in 2029 and 2030 coming off the platform.
Great. Thanks very much.
Your next question comes from the line of Benjamin Brayshaw from Barrenjoey. Your line is open.
John, Jason, Simon, thanks for the presentation. Just had a quick question. I was wondering if you could provide an update on performance fee receivables, just the current and the non-current. How are you positioned for the next 12 months and beyond in relation to the AUD 60 million, please?
Yeah, that-- look there are a few that will, a few that will settle during this year. The continuation of some of the larger funds that we had booked performance fees in the past have been extended through the course of FY 2023, that will push out that, the collection of those. I think, Ben, what's worth mentioning and, and, and repeating is that we do take a very conservative approach to what we recognize in our approach to performance fees, particularly on initial recognition, where we have taken into account at that particular point in time a 20% reduction in the asset, the underlying asset valuation of that property. If there was a performance fee, then booking some on that.
We believe we've taken a conservative approach to those, to the recognition, and we're not expecting to have to write anything back in the future if valuations keep progressing the way they may progress over the next 12- 18- months.
Thanks, Simon.
Your next question comes from the line of Simon Chan from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning, guys. First question. I appreciate that I think, 50% of your unlisted AUM doesn't actually expire or mature until year five or beyond. Can you give us some color as to, you know, anything that's going to be expiring over the next 12 months in FY 2024?
Go on.
Yeah, there, there's a couple of larger single assets coming up. What we've seen in the, over the FY 2023 period is, as Simon mentioned, there's a couple of bits. We've had a couple extended. I think, as you know, Simon, how the funds work is they're usually a five year term. We go back after five years and give a recommendation to hold or sell. Sometimes we sell early and sometimes they extend longer. We've got some, a couple of the healthcare funds coming up in FY 2024, so that's CHDMF 1 and number CHDMF 2. CHDMF 1 will probably be sold down. CHDMF 2, we're still working that through with investors. There's about nine months to go.
In the Primewest portfolio, we've got a mix of retail, industrial, and office coming up there. There's about AUD 400 million odd, and look, that'll be on a case-by-case basis throughout the year. If we think it's a, you know, if it's the right time to sell the asset, we'll sell them. If not, we'll be recommending to hold for that sort of two-year period.
Jason, of the AUD 14 billion unlisted platform, how much is expiring then? Should we assume 10% in 2024?
It's AUD 900-- probably about AUD 900 million.
AUD 900 million in total. Okay. Okay, understood. Very good. Thanks for that. Next question, maybe it's for Simon Holt, but hey, Simon, can you talk a bit about weighted average cost of debt for CNI in FY 2024 and how that compares to FY 2023?
Yeah, look, compared to FY 2023, the weighted average... Sorry, I mean, the average cost of debt. Well, it's definitely gone up with obviously the underlying underlying BBSW. We've got the house view that we've used both in SIF and COF, and we are using in CNI on that BBSW rate of 4.6% in our forecasting for 2024. You know, we've been consistent across the entities. I think that's probably the main thing that's gonna change between 2023 and 2024.
Like, all, all in cost of debt, including your hedge including hedges that you have in place, you know, 50% hedging, what, what, what should the market expect for CNI Groups, weigh the average cost of debt all in, in FY 2024?
That is a calculatable thing that can be done. We don't have much hedging in, in stock. We've got AUD 100 million fixed rate debt. The rest is all variable. In the accounts, we provide plenty of detail to be able to calculate that number probably quite accurately.
Okay, great. Final question. Hey, any changes in the way you accrue performance fees over the last-
No.
None at all? Any, any intention to change over the next year?
No, we set the policy whenever the standard came in in 2018 or 2019. We haven't changed that policy in any way, shape, or form.
Very good. Thanks very much, gentlemen.
The next question comes from the line of Tom Bodor from UBS. Your line is open.
Good morning, John, Jason, and Simon. I was just interested in your progress in selling down, both New Zealand aged care that you have and Allendale. I saw the Allendale number in the back of the pack, but just was keen to understand, you know, run rates of selling down and when you expect to have sold those co-investments down.
Yes, for Heritage, we've, I believe last year's number was a closing of about AUD 89 million, and it's come down to about AUD 48 million. We've managed to move some of the larger assets off, off balance sheet. We ran that through two processes. One was to put a, a number of those assets into a New Zealand unlisted fund. Also, we have been selling some individual assets in the market in relation to Heritage.
Yeah.
To date, we've sold 1, and we're in the process as, as we speak, of selling, seeking to sell another 3.
Sorry.
That's Heritage.
There's a few others, right? Cook Street, which was the backpacker pod hotel in Auckland, that was settled for about AUD 30 million. That was on balance sheet. We brought down our Allendale Square exposure by AUD 13.5 million. It was about 32 of Heritage Lifecare assets. There was also a legacy investment in 111 St Georges Terrace in Perth, which was reduced by AUD 20 million. Then we had some seed in both CAF and some of the Bass lines as they go out and then get collected. That all contributed to AUD 237 million of recycled cash.
Okay, that's great. Thanks for that. Just on to Bass, clearly performing well from an earnings perspective, but just wanted to understand the underlying loans. Are there any loans that are in arrears or problematic across the book?
Look, you know, as a business, I've never, I've never lost a dollar of principal or interest. They run a really tight ship. You know, when you've got 80 loans out there, there's always some that are more difficult than others, but I've got a fantastic team that are looking after them. There's no loans in there that we're, we're worried about at all. Yeah, they're very good at mitigating risk and managing the book.
Okay, great. Thanks. Then maybe just a final one on, you know, covenants within the funds. You talked to the, the significant headroom on average, but would just be keen to understand, you know, if there's any outliers there amongst your stable of funds that are breaching covenants, how the discussions are going with the banks around that?
No, there's none that are breaching covenants. There are, as we, I think, said at the half year, some that we haven't renegotiated the covenants, to date, we continue to negotiate the covenants as and, as in when we refinance to, to continue to create those buffers. We're as we've been probably dealing with for almost 18 months now, working with the banks on, on managing that much, much earlier before we ever get to a point of ever breaching the actual agreement on covenants.
Are those, are those issues generally ICR or is it LVR as well?
Yes. They have been all ICR. Yep. Yeah.
Okay.
We're, we're seeing a bit, the banks, you know, obviously, ICRs have increased in the low interest rate environment and you know, the bank's been pretty amenable to, to, reducing them, which has been good.
Yep. Okay, great. Thanks very much.
Your next question comes from the line of Edward Day from MA Financial. Your line is open.
Good morning, John, Jason, and Simon. Just to follow up on that ICR question. As part of that ICR renegotiation, what's the bank's view on distributions?
We have not had an ICR issue that we've had to adjust the distribution on. We actually haven't had that conversation with the bank.
... I think the bank, over the past few years, they've been probably pushing the ICR covenants, a little bit more, more than they, they perhaps should have or might have. I think they've appreciated that. They've been very good to deal with, actually, in my view.
Are they typically going from 2 times to 1.5?
It'll be various, somewhere within that range.
Yeah, okay. Jason, just one for you. I think you mentioned you were looking at some new style of products. Could you just give a bit of a you know, flavor for, you know, what you're thinking about there?
There's I think there's a couple of things we're focused on. Obviously, as I said, taking advantage of, of any value we see in the market. You'll probably see some sort of opportunistic vehicles. The other focus is on the institutional side, where, you know, we're, we're having a lot of discussions with different offshore groups, in the main for, you know, mandates and partnerships and the like.
Presumably, that's mainly in office?
It's a mixed, yeah, across different sectors.
Okay, thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of James Druce from CLSA. Your line is open.
Yeah. Good morning, John, Jason, and Simon. Just to hark back to some of the guidance comments, can we expect simply to be up for 2024?
Yes.
Yeah, that's, that's helpful. While you might not have a low color on all the moving parts, you probably do have a good feel for the divestments for 2024. We stepped through some of the expiry events earlier. Can we get a, you know, how much of that sort of AUD 900 million up for review would you expect to sell next year?
Oh, look, it's, it's, it's hard because some of the, the best conversations haven't even commenced. You know, probably the, the, the, the first one that does have some certainty about it is, is the Healthcare Fund No. 1, which is one of the Heathley original funds. It's got just over AUD 100 million in it. That one, I think, will be sold. The other assets, we still haven't, we haven't spoken to investors for till later in the year.
Okay, that's clear. Can you talk a little bit about what the banks are doing in terms of terms, margins for office syndicates versus other asset classes for, for new syndicates, in this, in this instance?
Look, I think the important thing here is it really is a conversation with the bank. There are banks that have different views on how they look at office. To give a specific answer is not really going to be a fulsome answer. I think what we have seen is we have managed to maintain our margins throughout the period. We have seen some increases in margins, but not as probably significant as we were expecting to see.
As Simon mentioned, you know, we've got 24 different lenders into the platform. There is a variety of, of appetite. You know, one good point is obviously, COF did a AUD 225 million refinance during the period, we didn't see any material changes in terms. That was a very good sign.
Yeah, okay. That's great. One final one, if I may. Just curious, have the Primewest founders left the business now? Just curious.
It's John, James. Look, look, they've still got a big involvement in the platform. I think their personal holdings are circa AUD 500 million on the platform. They collectively, and I'm not suggesting they act in unison, but they collectively own over 30% of the headstock in Centuria. While they don't have a hard line, day-to-day, executive tasks within the company, you know, I could, I could tell you, they're still very involved in the business. We've got a great relationship with them. We find in certain of the sectors, particularly ones where we weren't involved with prior to the merger, for example, Perth office, and, and some of the retail activities, they are very, very useful contributors to the pipeline meetings.
You know, I wouldn't like to be misleading. They're certainly not 8:00- 5:30 employees of the business. I think they're major stakeholders and partners in every sense of the word, but we don't regard them to be employees. Is that helpful?
Yeah, no that's very helpful. That's it for me. Thank you.
Yeah.
This brings to a close our Q&A session. I'd like to hand back over to John for closing remarks.
Oh, thank you. look, yeah, I think firstly, thanks, everyone, for, for participating today. You know, we've put a lot of thought into the presentations and the releases we've made today. I can, you know, undertake you, we'll be trying to wring the most out of our platform, if we can, over the next 12 months. We're certainly not fearful of the conditions, in no way, and we're just hopeful that some of the opportunities that are supposed to be on the way actually arrive. Thank you very much.