Welcome everybody to the Computershare FY 2022 half year results. Following the presentation, we will open the call for questions. To ask a question during this time, please press star one. I'll now hand over to our first speaker, Chief Executive Officer, Stuart Irving.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Computershare's 1H FY 2022 results conference call. I'm joined today by Nick Oldfield, our Chief Financial Officer, and Michael Brown from our investor relations team. On this call, I'll take you through the key highlights of our results and the outlook for the second half of FY 2022. We did release a presentation pack to the ASX, and it's also on our website. There's a lot of information in the deck for you, and as usual on these calls, I'll focus my remarks on the opening pages of the presentation. Nick will then take you through the slides on the financial results. After some concluding remarks, we'll open up the call for questions. As a reminder, we will be talking in U.S. dollars and in constant currency unless we state otherwise. Let's get started on page 2.
Now, there are a number of highlights I'd like to call out. First, the momentum we enjoyed in the second half of last year has clearly continued. Management earnings per share has increased by 4.5%, and this includes the dilution from the rights issue. Excluding the rights issue and the contribution from CCT, EPS increased over 10% in the legacy business. Growth was led by an increase in management revenue, careful cost controls driving margin expansion and outperformance in our recently acquired Computershare Corporate Trust business in the U.S. EBIT ex-MI, which really reflects our operating performance, increased strongly by over 16%, with this margin expanding by 150 basis points to over 14%. I'm pleased to see the operating leverage come through and also the rejuvenation in the legacy business.
That's an impressive performance by the team, and I'm grateful for the dedication to execution to deliver such strong numbers. Moving to slide 3, let me summarize the first six months' performance. The main highlight is that our global growth businesses are driving the strong operating performance. As you know, we have been investing for some time now to strengthen and scale our key global growth businesses. These investments are delivering the anticipated returns. I'll call out Issuer Services and Employee Share Plans. They're performing well. We are winning market share with our proprietary technology platforms and improved customer experience, and we are benefiting from strong equity markets. Register Maintenance, our largest business, delivered higher revenues and profits. We delivered a 22% increase in new client wins versus 1H FY 2021. We also now manage over 38 million shareholder accounts around the world.
That's up over 1.5 million accounts since this time two years ago. I'm encouraged by these lead indicators. They reflect the investments we have made in the front office, client experience, and product innovation. Governance Services revenues also reported 30% growth. The results demonstrate our improving traction in this large and complementary market. However, Corporate Actions revenues was down, with lower participation in Hong Kong IPOs and less rights issues, which had both been meaningful contributors in the year before. Employee Share Plans delivered the fastest rate of profit growth across the group, with management EBIT excluding margin income up 122%. Now, I have waited a while to report a triple-digit organic earnings growth number. Pleasingly, recurring client paid fees, higher transaction volumes, and the contribution from cost synergies all added to the impressive performance.
Now, I will call out there is an equity market sensitivity in this business with share prices and transaction fees. But our book is well-balanced, and as we have seen before, there is an interesting countercyclicality in this business. When equity markets are weak, employees typically over-issue new equity to compensate. Now we have had to delay the rollout of the EquatePlus software in some jurisdictions. Cross-border travel restrictions prevented us from getting the teams in country to execute the upgrades. This has meant a longer period of running dual systems, which leads to a higher cost to achieve synergies. Employee share units under administration increased versus the PCP, which will provide latent earnings power for the group. More companies are issuing more equity as remuneration. That's the structural growth trend we are increasing our leverage to.
Over in U.S., Mortgage Services still remain subdued, although industry fundamentals are beginning to improve. Rising interest rates should increase the value of the MSRs we own and reduce portfolio run-off rates. With the lifting of regulatory restrictions, we do expect an increase in loan servicing activity in the second half of the year, with further recovery in FY 2023. We are reducing the capital employed in this business. We spent a net $9.5 million on MSRs and also increased sub-servicing in UPB by 21%. With our commitment to improve ROIC, we are managing our costs carefully too. We're putting in place initiatives to improve servicing and fulfillment efficiency and reduce our costs. Now across the Atlantic, we have returned our U.K. Mortgage Services to profitability. We've also completed a strategic review of the business and a sale process is underway.
Now, as you would know, the challenger bank landscape, which was supporting the growth strategy, changed in the U.K. during our ownership. I think the business would be better served by an owner willing to deploy more capital via originating or acquiring asset groups to build scale. Computershare Corporate Trust, the business we acquired from Wells Fargo in November, is exceeding our expectations. Now we have the keys and are fully immersed in the business. We are delighted with the acquisition. The timing of the deal, given the new outlook for rising interest rates, should benefit shareholders. Growth in trust fee revenues drove the beat in the half, and we've made a good start with integrating the new business and are working towards delivering the expected synergy benefits and 15%+ post-tax return on invested capital. Now let's move to business services.
With a little bit of a mixed bag. Revenue was down nearly 30% and EBIT ex-MI half. Canadian Corporate Trust delivered a consistent result. We won new trust mandates and debt under administration continued to grow. However, the Chapter 11 bankruptcy claims market was tough, with less case filings as companies found ways to refinance. Like class actions, it relies on large lumpy projects, and we're working hard on what we can control there. Now that's a summary of the first half. Let's move along to slide 5 for the outlook. We are upgrading our full earnings guidance for the year. In August, we expected full year earnings to be around $53.4 cents per share.
That was an increase of around 2% versus the PCP, and that included the eight months contribution from CCT and the full impact of the additional shares that you all got cheap from the rights issue, which completed in April. FY 2022 management EPS is now expected to increase by around 9%. EBIT ex-margin income, reflecting our operating performance, is now expected to increase by around 13% compared to the original guidance of 3%. Legacy EBIT ex-MI has been upgraded by 2.8% to $ 359.7 million. The more meaningful change is the $22 million increase in CCT EBIT ex-MI. Now, about a third of this reflects anticipated increased fee income from mandates that we have won. Another third from the two months benefit from the higher level money market fees that we anticipate in Q4.
These fees are driven by interest rate assumptions, but are generally capped at around 10 basis points. The remaining third is temporary cost savings, which most will come back into FY 2023. To be clear, it does not include any synergy benefits at this stage because they are ahead of us. Also, just to be clear, guidance assumes a full year of ownership of the UK mortgage business. What is really driving the upgrade? Well, the results for the first six months of the year are ahead of expectations. Our global operating businesses continue to perform well. CCT's earnings contribution is running ahead of plan. We expect to benefit from a 25 basis point interest rate rise in the United States in Q4. Beyond this year's guidance, expectations are also firming for further interest rate rises. Computershare is well placed to benefit.
A simple sensitivity analysis suggests a 100 basis points increase in interest rates on our 2H-exposed average balances would equate to an annualized EPS increase of $0.26 per share. Now let me hand over to Nick, who will take you through the earnings bridge starting on page 4.
Thank you, Stuart. Good morning, everyone. Let's begin. Let me start with that earnings bridge for the first half on slide 4. In 1H 2021 we generated $21.8 per share of management EPS. Note this is shown on a pre rights issue basis. Now, moving through the legacy business. In 1H 2022, as Stuart mentioned, we've seen a reduction in our event-based revenues. Collectively they reduced earnings by $5.48 per share relative to the PCP. Other headwinds included the impact of inflation and U.S. tax. On the former, we have seen a fair amount of wage pressure together with certain key supplier costs increasing during the half. Together, this totaled $1.95 per share.
We implemented a general wage increase in October, so there's a slightly larger impact of inflation to come in the second half. On the latter point, our U.S. profits were a bit higher than expected, driving our BEAT expense up. This reduced EPS by $0.72 cents. On the positive side, we did benefit from some non-recurring items, the largest of which was an insurance claim receipt. There were some non-recurring items in 1H 2021 also, and taking the two together, the net benefit was $2.69 cents in the half. To our cost out programs. Positively, they delivered $3.46 cents per share, more than offsetting the impact of inflation. I'll provide a bit more detail on these later. Operational growth, earnings growth for the half was $4.31 cents per share.
Register Maintenance, Governance Services, and Employee Share Plans were the key contributors here. These all combined to deliver 10.6% growth of EPS in respect of the legacy business. Before taking into account the rights issue, management EPS would have been $ 24.1 per share. Finally to CCT. In the two months of ownership, we got a $1. 16 per share contribution from that business. We then deduct the dilutionary impact of the rights issue, which was $2. 5 per share, to generate $ 22.76 per share of management EPS in total. This is an overall increase of 4.5%. I'll now move to the overall financial results on slide 10. Group revenue ex-MI was at 4.5%.
Adjusting for the CCT acquisition, organic operating revenue growth was down 2.2%. Excluding event-based revenues in CCT, operating revenue, excluding margin income, was up 3.6%. Including margin income as well as CCT, total revenue for the group rose 4.6% over the PCP. There's more detail on revenue on slide 27, including revenue and margin income across each business stream. EBIT increased 14.2% to $217.9 million, whilst EBIT excluding margin income increased 16.7% to $157.8 million. Adjusting for CCT, it was up 15.5% to $156.1 million. The EBIT excluding margin income margin was up 150 basis points to 14.4%.
Again, largely due to the growth in employee share funds supported by our cost management initiatives. Interest expense was slightly lower, reflecting the lower net debt for much of the period prior to the completion of the CCT acquisition. Our income tax expense was higher at $53.9 million, and the ETR was slightly higher for the period too, at 28.2%. As you've heard, this was largely reflective of profit mix. Less earnings in Hong Kong, more in the United States. We expect this trend to continue through the second half with a slightly higher ETR range for FY 2022 of 27%-29%. Management NPAT overall was up 16.5% at $137.4 million. Our statutory results are shown on slide 46.
Statutory NPAT was $ 92.1 million, with the difference attributable to the amortization of non-MSR acquired intangible assets of $20.4 million. Acquisition related expenses of $20.4 million, which was largely attributable to CCT and the ongoing Equatex integration, net of a $ 12.5 million gain on sale related to the disposal of our investment in the Milestone Group. $3.7 Million associated with our cost out programs, the main contributor being the U.K. Mortgage Services restructuring. I'll now jump back to slide 8 to talk about margin income, which was broadly in line with expectations at $ 62.1 million at actual rates. This includes a $7.5 million contribution from CCT.
Average deposit balances for the legacy business were $21.4 billion, while for CCT they were around $19 billion. This averages to $6.4 billion on a weighted basis for 1H 2022, reflecting the two months of ownership. Total average deposit balances for the first half of FY 2022 were therefore around $28 billion. Now, in here, legacy balances were around $3 billion in the PCP, reflecting the growth in stack funds we saw in 2H 2021. Now, note, these balances do not typically generate any yield due to the fee arrangements in place for these transactions, and so we classify them as non-exposed. This helps explain why the yield on our legacy balances is around 13 basis points lower compared to the PCP.
As you heard from Stuart, we're upgrading our margin income expectations for the year to be around $152 million, with $41.3 million of this coming from CCT. This improved outlook is largely driven by rate rises. We're assuming a 25 basis point rate rise in the U.S. in the fourth quarter. We've also seen two rate rises in the U.K. since the end of 2021, albeit these are less meaningful as more of our GB pound balances are hedged. This drives a higher yield expectation in 2H 2022 on the legacy book of around 59 basis points on balances of around $19.7 billion. While the CCT book yield is anticipated to increase to around 33 basis points.
The lower yield on the CCT book reflects the current lack of tenor and hedging within this portfolio. We do expect the CCT yield to rise in time, albeit not to the levels of the legacy book, due to the nature of the underlying clients and agents. There's more detail about balances on slides 49 to 53, including some new disclosure on the future average weighted yield on our hedge book on slide 52. Next, I'd like to talk about our operating expenses. On slide 16, we show the bridge in operating costs between 1H 2021 and 1H 2022. We've drawn out the reduction in underlying operating expense so you can see how the cost-out programs are having an impact. They realized $23 million of benefit in 1H 2022, more than offsetting the impact of underlying inflation.
$17 million of this came from the ongoing restructuring program in U.K. Mortgage Services. This program is expected to complete in second half, with increased total anticipated savings of $81.5 million. You can see this on slide 17. The remaining $6 million comes from our other cost out programs, the largest contributor being the synergies arising from the Equatex integration. Overall, operating expenses for the half were $654.5 million. This reflects $65.3 million of new expense from CCT. Note, we are yet to deliver any meaningful synergies here. It also reflects the benefit of $9 million associated with delayed recruitment due to ongoing market challenges. This should unwind in the second half.
You'll also note the cost of sales reduced from $202.9 million to $189.2 million. This is largely driven by the sales and exchanging. Total operating expense is detailed on slide 48. On slide 17, we show the impact of all our cost out initiatives. You can see we're reducing our cost out savings for the period through to FY 2024 by $1.5 million relative to our prior estimate. This reflects an $8.3 million deferral in the synergies we anticipate from the global EquatePlus rollout. Note, we still expect to deliver these. They will just be delivered later than FY 2024.
It also reflects an increase in the benefits from the U.K. Mortgage Services restructuring program of around $6.5 million, taking the overall saving here to $81.5 million. At the same time, we have increased the expected cost to achieve by $25 million. This is attributable to the delays in the global rollout of EquatePlus driven by the pandemic and our ability to deploy global resources onto the program. The total gross multi-year benefit target out to FY 2024 is now estimated to be $275 million relative to cost to achieve of $225 million-$230 million. I'll finish with some comments on our balance sheet and cash flow on slide 18.
In the period, we generated $203.3 million of net operating cash flow, representing an EBITDA to cash conversion rate of around 66% at actual rates. The net cash outflow was $633.4 million after spending $713 million on acquisitions, net of disposals, and $101.9 million on dividends. Net MSR spend was $9.5 million. We completed five capital recycling transactions over the half, generating receipts of $114.8 million, which netted off our purchase expenditure of $124.3 million. This is reflective of our intent to build a capital lighter U.S. mortgage servicing business, and was key to helping drive the increase in our sub-servicing portfolio over the half.
Free cash flow after CapEx and net MSR spend was $181.5 million. Net debt almost doubled from the prior half, reflecting the use of the rights issue proceeds from the completion of the CCT acquisition in November. We also took the opportunity to restructure our debt during the half, issuing $800 million of public debt and extending our maturity profile to 4.6 years. The net debt to EBITDA ratio increased to 2.02x , still within our neutral zone. Looking ahead, we expect this ratio to organically repair, and it should be around the bottom of our neutral range by the end of FY 2022. I'll now hand back to Stuart for some closing remarks.
Thank you, Nick. Now let's move on to conclusions. We've started the year well. 1H FY 2022 has been better than we originally expected. You can see that in the first half results and the upgrade to full year guidance. Our key global growth businesses have momentum and are winning market share. Of course, our job is to outperform the positive growth trends in these sectors and deliver the expected operating leverage. Now event activity will fluctuate in our smaller, more cyclical businesses, but we continue to look for and execute plans to strengthen these businesses and also improve the performance. We are very pleased with the CCT acquisition and the combination of growing long duration recurring fee revenues and increased leverage to rising rates that provide us with.
There's a lot of work to do, but there's also a great deal of upside. Finally, I'm encouraged that we're executing on our stated strategy to build a simpler, stronger Computershare with higher returns. Our goal is to have high quality global businesses with scale and strong recurring revenues that can deliver sustained performance. We'll continue to invest our free cash flow in growth and new technology and balance this with a conservative capital structure and also returns for shareholders. Now, thanks very much for your time. I'll now hand back to the operator to open the lines for questions.
Thank you, and welcome to the Q&A session. To ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. We'll now pause a moment to assemble a question queue. Our first question comes through from Nigel Pittaway from Citigroup. Please go ahead, Nigel.
Good morning. First of all, just a question on mortgage servicing in the U.S. Can you make some comments on what's driving down the base servicing fee in that business? Is that due to mix or what's sort of occurring?
Nick, I'm gonna ask you to take that question, please.
Yeah. Absolutely, Michael. Nigel, it's all about mix. What you'll see in the portfolio is that while the portfolio was up a little bit, the mix between sub-servicing and owned MSRs has changed with a large increase in sub-servicing. Typically sub-servicing attracts lower revenues than owned MSR, and that's why that base servicing fee has declined during the half.
Okay. Obviously the UPB for non-performing loans has come down. I mean, how much of that is due to the transactions you did in the half? When do you expect that to start trending up? I mean, you've obviously talked before about a wave of NPLs, which has probably got a little less likely, but can you make some comments about how you're expecting that to t rend?
The rundown in the special servicing on the non-performing servicing is all really due to the moratorium that's been in place. You know, our special servicing portfolio has run down during the normal course. There's just been no new volume to replace it to offset that because with the moratorium in place, no one has been moving distressed assets. No one has been really buying or being able to do too much with non-performing loans. We do anticipate there will be special servicing opportunities in time. You're right. There isn't going to be the wave that perhaps we thought there would be 12-18 months ago when we were in the height of the pandemic.
You know, our forbearance portfolio, as an example, has run out or run down significantly with a lot of borrowers being able to take advantage of, you know, strong job markets, rising property values and lower interest rates to refinance. We do think the fundamentals are good over the medium term for special servicing. There's still significant numbers of borrowers in forbearance. Foreclosures are at a, you know, the lowest point they've been since the year 2000. We do anticipate with the moratorium lifted, things will start to improve there. It will just take time for it to come through.
Okay. Maybe just to finish off with a sort of bigger picture question. I mean, obviously, Stuart, you talked about the rejuvenation of the legacy business. I mean as you went through, you did say obviously revenue ex margin income and ex- CCT was down 2.2%, albeit obviously transaction revenues have played their part. I mean, you know, if you're really to sort of fully rejuvenate the business, does that envisage a period where that revenue could grow more strongly? I mean, I know it's unfair to strip out margin income really, but can you maybe just make some comments on that?
Look, I mean, the term rejuvenation is also a little bit of recovery in that, to be perfectly honest, in these businesses. I think you know, I mean, what's really pleasing for me, if you look at Register Maintenance, you know, these are the revenues that, you know, that we have a little bit more control over. I mean, obviously the event-based revenues have come off a little bit in Stakeholder Relationship Management, Corporate Actions and also in bankruptcies quite significantly.
You know, the ones where we're working hard in terms of our offering, you know, our front office, you can see that really coming through in the Register Maintenance, which has been a fairly reasonable story over the last few reporting periods in terms of what we've been able to do and then obviously in an employee share plan. Like, as I said on the main call, you know, the event-based businesses can be a little bit cyclical, and they go up and down. I think what's important to me is continuing to have exposure to some of these structural growth trends in our issuer services business, also our Employee Share Plans business, our new CCT business with the strong recurring revenues. You know, that's what I'm particularly pleased about.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you, Nigel. The next question comes through from Ed Henning from CLSA. Please go ahead, Ed.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Just further on Nigel's questions on the U.S. mortgage servicing business. You know, you touched on there that the, you know, the margin's falling due to the mix. Can you just talk about the growth in that business if you do get continued growth in sub-servicing, which pushes down your margin, albeit it helps your capital, and then, you know, the potential growth for UPB or is the growth gonna come through any other revenue lines like fulfillment and foreclosure? If you could just touch on the growth, where it's coming through from the U.S. mortgage servicing business would be great.
Nick, why don't we stay with you on that question?
Yeah, no problem. Thanks, Michael. So Ed, look, the growth will come from a combination of an increase in the portfolio, so which will drive base servicing fees higher. So we do anticipate the portfolio starting to grow in the second half. Just to give you a feel, you know, runoff volumes are currently much slower than they were a year ago. So January 2022 is about 40% slower than January 2021 which gives you a feel for the impact of runoff, the impact of sort of a rising rate environment. We've always said that a rising rate environment is the best one for us in this business line.
You know, it slows runoff, it drives up, helps with margin income perspective, and it increases the value of the MSR portfolio as well. We anticipate that the portfolio will start to grow again in the second half of 2022, so we're at the bottom now. That growth will largely come from sub-servicing. It'll largely be on the prime side in the near term. We did, as I said, in response to Nigel's question, there are, w e are confident there will be special servicing opportunities, but they will just take a bit longer to come through. It's more sort of FY 2023 in our minds rather than second half of 2022.
The other servicing, other fees line, which includes things like fulfillment, we also anticipate improvements there in the second half as well. We've got some clients in the pipeline where we're anticipating stronger volumes in the second half. It'll be a mixture of base service fees and other fees.
Okay. Thank you. Then just a second question. Can you just touch on a little bit more about your decision looking to sell the U.K. mortgage servicing business? Then, you know, thinking more broadly about, you know, your other businesses, you know, and your portfolio, what are your return hurdles to think to potentially sell other business units that you're currently holding?
Stu, why don't I ask you to take that, question? Thank you.
Thanks, Ed. I mean, U.K. mortgage servicing, when we entered into that business, it was a period where there was a range of challenger banks coming into the market, looking to take market share for mortgages off the traditional high street banks in the U.K. Computershare was fairly successful in getting, you know, a fair number of them as our clients and working with them to bring their products to the market. However, during our ownership, clearly the market changed. It had a number of challenges. You know, Brexit and other bits and pieces. You then got to think about where's that growth coming from. The market, you know, the challenger banks away.
You know, the growth that we've had has really been you know, asset acquirers who are buying sort of large portfolios of loans and need a servicer. When we were sort of looking strategic review of the business, you know, we felt that you either had to try and obtain more scale or the business may be better owned by someone who had a willingness to deploy capital to acquire these assets or indeed create their own origination flow. That was really just sort of the determination of you know, why we'd want to exit that business. You know, we have a sale process ongoing at the moment and no guarantees that anything will close, of course, but we'll go through that process. That's really the thinking behind it.
Just more broadly on your, the rest of your business portfolios, how should we think about, you know, return hurdles? Or is it just about, you know, really the growth outlook? You know, if you can't see that then, you know, you might have some business reviews of the other divisions.
Yeah. We regularly sort of review the portfolio. It has been a little bit of a, you know, if you look back over the last 24 months, it has been a little bit of an up and down. There have been parts of the portfolio that perform really well, but only for sort of six-month periods, and then it has sort of tailed away, et cetera. Look, we will always look. I mean, we have a stated objective of trying to invest in businesses that give us, you know, these exposure to long-term structural growth trends, the recurring revenues, et cetera. That's very much where we want to deploy the capital. Look, we will continue to review the group portfolio. We said that, you know, we are trying to simplify the group in some shape or form.
You know, that starts with our disclosures there. You know, at the moment, it's only the U.K. Mortgage Services business that we're in a process and looking to exit. We'll continue to look and refine as time goes by.
That's great. Thank you, Stuart. Nick. Cheers.
Thank you for your question, Ed. The next question comes through from Andy Chuk from Macquarie. Please go ahead, Andy.
Good morning, Stu and Nick. First question is on the U.S. mortgage servicing business. Can you provide some color around the UPB growth for the second quarter? On my numbers, it shows about 3% compared to the first quarter. Maybe just an update on JV partners as well.
Good. Nick, off to you.
Sure. Look, the growth in the portfolio was probably a little bit more pronounced in the second half than second half of the half. The fourth quarter of 2021 versus the third. We did see runoff start to slow as we went through the half. We saw better growth in the you know towards the back end of the half relative to the front end, Andy. You know, I think that's how I would look at that. As I said in response to an earlier question, that runoff has continued to slow through the start of this half.
You know, that's really a reflection of mortgage rates going up and in January in particular, they bounced quite considerably in the U.S. In terms of capital light, you know, we've been in discussions with the partners for some time. You know, where we've got to is that as we've worked through that, the financial outcomes of that opportunity, we don't think are as attractive as actually doing standalone deals in their own right. In the half, we did five capital light transactions where we were selling MSRs, converting them into sub-servicing. That's certainly contributed towards that rise in sub-servicing that you see during the half.
It's been, i t's clear to us that at the moment, we've got plenty of partners who want to work with us. We've got, you know, as I said, big demand to acquire those MSRs. The financial outcomes for doing those as standalone deals far outweighs what having a permanent vehicle in place to partner with constantly would deliver. For the time being, we're doing capital light. We're doing those transactions. We're just not doing it through a capital permanent vehicle. I'm sure we'll probably get there in time, but we need to work through the financials a bit more to make sure we get the right outcomes. As I say, we are delivering on a capital light basis through these standalone transactions for now.
Great. Thanks for that. Next question is just around margin income balances. Just checking, have all the CCT margin income balances been transferred over yet? And if not, how much more is there to go and how long would you expect that to take?
No, they've not all transferred over to directly into Computershare. The vast majority of them are still sitting with Wells Fargo. You know, the treasury teams are actively planning the transition of some of these assets. You know, part of that is almost, you know, a little bit client by client. You know, some of them have moved over and are in the sort of Computershare bank network of partners. The vast majority of these balances at the moment, given that we've, you know, we said that it would probably take six-12 months to transition the balances. We're only three months in. There's only a small amount that's come across.
Okay. Got it. Just the last question around the yields. How long should we expect it to take to optimize the yield on those CCT balances to be in line with Computershare's yield?
Look, that's a good question. You know, I mean, you can quite clearly see from the table that the achieved yield on the Wells book is lower than the achieved yield that you've got on the Computershare legacy book. I think we have to be a little bit careful in the Computershare legacy book. We've got, you know, in some, in many cases, you know, many billions which are three, four, five -year money. Right? Which, you know, you can put duration into, you can get yield enhancement, and then when you average that out, that's why the Computershare legacy book would appear higher. So I don't think you can assume that the yield of the balances coming over from Wells, because you don't have as much ability to put duration into some of our other assets in our legacy book will exactly match.
We are confident that, you know, these balances within Computershare, we can work the balances harder and get yield enhancement, notwithstanding anything happening with interest rates. Don't just assume that they'll eventually match exactly what you see in the Computershare world because, you know, it's all to do with duration and different times.
Sure. That is helpful. That's all from me. Thank you. Thanks, guys.
Thank you for your question, Andy. The next question comes through from Kieren Chidgey from Jarden. Please go ahead, Kieren.
Morning, guys. I just have a couple of follow-up questions. Firstly, on U.S. Mortgage Services, I understand obviously the mix impact that's coming through with sub-servicing being lower margin, and obviously there's a bit less non-performing UPB in there as well. Sort of as you stand back and you're obviously targeting a bit more sub-servicing mix ahead, do you think the cost base is appropriately primed for this changing mix, given we do sort of have a negative EBIT around that business?
Yeah, Kieren, you're right. I mean, look, I mean, it was obviously a negative EBIT, you know. I mean, obviously, you know, we think that we can do sort of better from that perspective. I mean, you know, I think it's, you know, the business itself is still cash flow positive, although, as you point out, the EBIT is disappointing. You know, look, there is, you know, a range of sort of improvement strategies. You know, we're not just sitting back waiting for the macro environment to come back, you know. Part of that was some of these capital light transactions where we sell MSR own, but we switch that into captive servicing, which reduces the, you know, a little bit more on the capital light. We've got cost outs.
You know, we have a targeted program to reduce the average cost per loan sort of servicing costs that we have internally by about a year. We're a fair way down the track in terms of doing that. Look, we do have more to do, but you know, the business actually came in pretty much very close to our expectations in the first half. But you know, I think as we sort of more importantly look forward in that business with some of these strategies that we've got, you know, you will see a sort of cautious return to some of the foreclosures, you know. You know, I think also rates will help.
Obviously, you know, we lost north of $25 million in margin income just in that business alone with the rates coming down. We do have a path to profitability, improve margins and also that higher ROIC that we're doing. You know, we're just really at the start of that recovery at the moment.
Okay, thanks. Secondly, just on CCT, and thanks for sort of the decomposition earlier around the improved profitability outlook. Just on the third sort of you highlight coming through, I guess, mandate wins is, maybe you can unpack that a little bit more just in terms of what you're seeing across the broader market. My understanding is CCT sort of is it probably has a stronger market share in some of the securitized end of the market and sort of, whether or not it's just a general uplift in market conditions there coming out of COVID or whether or not the business is actually gaining a bit of market share.
There's no doubt that market conditions have been positive, and we've been able to take advantage of that. I think that even though that is just the overall market lifting a bit these particular products, there's always a risk when there's a new owner. We're not a big American bank that some of that work may not come our way. It is pleasing to see that that is continuing to grow with that uplift. It is a little bit of general market conditions. We've been able to benefit from that and win these mandates, which will give us these recurring revenues.
I hope that it was just sort of clear in terms of that, you know, $20+ million uplift. You know, a third was the general market conditions, a third was the MMFs, another bit, a little bit of timing and cost, which will come back in sort of 2023 and 2024. Hopefully that was helpful.
Yeah. The money market sort of opportunity shifting the $6 billion that you'd identified when you announced that deal, can you give us an update on your current thinking around the timing of that, and the current quantum?
Look, you know, when we were going through diligence and we had to identify you know the balances that were in there because the previous owner had a strategy of moving balances off their balance sheet and then putting them into MMFs world because it didn't come into the balance sheet, right? That was their stated goal. You know, we sort of identified, you know, roughly around about $6 billion of balances that over time we'd actually be able to move in. Look, our first priority is, you know, on these MMFs balances is, you know, trying to get up to the upper end of the fee, you know, the 10 basis points, right?
That's our priority in terms of, you know, taking advantage of proposed rate increase and getting that uplift in the MMF fees. Then, you know, generally from a timing perspective, you know, we will work through FY 2023 and a little bit into 2024 in terms of trying to get these balances out of MMF and then into our, you know, high balances pool, right? It's gonna be sort of, you know, split sort of over 2023, 2024. That's probably the best estimate that I can give you at the moment.
Okay. All right. Maybe just a final question around cost inflation. You know, you've clearly highlighted there was a $9 million benefit from some delayed hiring initiatives this period, and it sounds like you're flagging, you know, a bit of a return or bounce back of that in the second half of the year. Just wondering sort of, you know, how you're thinking about the AU cost growth outside sort of what you're able to offset through your cost programs for the business overall, just given, you know, we are seeing higher wage inflation and particularly I think in some of those lower cost jurisdictions, where you rebased yourselves in the U.S.
Yeah. No, you're right. Look, I don't want to be, you know, flippant in terms of the risk of inflation and Computershare. I think, Kieren, we're pretty fortunate in terms that we had sort of, you know, we had deployed a range of cost out programs and strategies that were already in train that had given us certain protection against, you know, the rising costs that we do see in our organization. You know, if you look at some of the legacy business, you know, ultimately roughly being flat as we go into 2022, you know, part of that will be the flow through of the wage inflation pressure. There's only a few months of that in the first half of 2022.
We'll have six months of that in the second half of 2022. We are also seeing you know, we called it out quite clearly. There's around about 9 million of sort of the spared hires, which is just really the delay in hiring into the marketplace. That's not a permanent you know, benefit that will flow through at some stage. I think attrition will remain higher. We're also seeing you know, certain costs of materials, insurance costs going up. You know, we still distribute a lot of documentation to shareholders around the world. You know, I can't get guaranteed pricing on an envelope more than one month out. It just changes it. You know, it is a challenge.
You know, certainly we've had some protection with our established programs. You know, we're certainly working hard. We've got a team actually in our U.S. Mortgage Services business at the moment, looking at other ways we can take costs out. We're trying to find other ways because, you know, we're not immune to inflation, and it will impact us, and it's up to us to try to find ways to get the group more efficient, so it has, you know, as small impact as possible.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Thank you.
Thank you, Kieren, for your questions. The next question comes through from Matt Dunger from Bank of America. Please go ahead, Matt.
Thank you very much, Stuart. I just wondered if I could ask a question on the second half 2022 guidance, bridge from slide 6. You're noting a small improvement in the operational earnings growth. Is it fair to say you're expecting some improvement in the second half in event-based businesses? Understanding you know, there is some seasonality there, but Issuer Services in first half of 2022, the revenue there being down by about $ 80 million versus the second half of 2021. What sort of seasonal uplift are you expecting and what sort of recovery in event-based businesses are factored in?
From an event-based businesses perspective, I'm not sure I'm gonna see any particular recovery. You know, we were coming off, you know, some tough comps. You know, FY 2021, Corporate Actions were particularly buoyant. There was a lot of rights issues, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. Very large, very complicated rights issues. You know, they've been kind of replaced by some, you know, very large corporate restructures or acquisitions, right? You know, you tend to get paid more for a rights issue than you do, you know, a cash-based or, you know, M&A. We think that there isn't going to be a strong recovery in, you know, that you'll see in Corporate Actions. You know, stakeholder relationships, you know, that's always been a little bit lumpy.
You know, again, I think that will remain, you know, pretty flat. You know, I think the continued growth will be, you know, some of the new client wins that we have. You know, if equity markets remain roughly at the same levels that they are today, you know, our plans business should continue its momentum through, and that's really where the, you know, the operating earnings sort of growth is going. As I say, it's relatively flat, as we sort of factor in some of the full six months of some of the cost pressures that we're seeing around the group. I don't think bankruptcy is gonna come back in the second half either. You know, class actions remain subdued.
You know, as I say, that will be offset by some of the momentum that we've got in the, you know, the Registry business, the Governance Services businesses, our Corporate Trust businesses, et cetera. We also expect a slightly better performance in U.S. Mortgage Services.
Excellent. Thank you very much. Just if I could confirm on the CCT synergies. You previously talked about $17 million of the $80 million being achieved by year two. You know, slide 15 looks at the separation and integration plan. That implies there's a lot being done in 12-24 months post-acquisition. Is there any potential to accelerate some of those synergies?
Well, it's not easy dealing with some of these big American banks, let me tell you. We'd love to move it forward. You know, struggling to get access to some of the platforms at the moment. Like, I don't think there'll be an opportunity to accelerate while it's still in their environment. You know, what we did say was, you know, we'll spend the first of 18-24 months pulling out the existing platforms out of the Wells Fargo environment, and getting it into Computershare. And that will deliver us some synergies because, you know, we should be able to do that, you know, a little bit more efficiently and a little bit more nimbly.
Some of the business transformation, some of the investment in some of the new systems and products really kick in sort of, you know, year three, four, and five, and that's really where the biggest synergies will actually come through. The first 18 months is really about the lift and shift of that business out of the bank. You know, I'm not hugely confident even you know in bringing forward synergies. Even though we can see that the business is performing better, you know, which goes to the second half earnings upgrade, etc., that's not because of synergies being pulled forward at all. Yeah.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Matt. The next question comes through from James Cordukes from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead, James.
Morning, guys. Look, just a question on Corporate Trust. You've got the $50 billion of money market funds there. You're flagging the rate is going from 3 basis points to 10 basis points, hopefully from 1st of May. You know, should we expect that, you know, rather significant benefit to fall to the bottom line in FY 2023 as you cycle that full period benefit from the higher rate? Or are there any other offsets?
Nick, why don't you take that one?
Yeah, no problem. Thanks, Michael. So James, the uplift in the money market funds in the fourth quarter, so the increase to 10 basis points. We expect that to be consistent through FY 2023. The money market balances should be about the same, subject to any that we can recapture and put into client deposits, as we talked about earlier. Now, they should get a full 10 basis points for the full year as opposed to just the last couple of months through this half. Yes, they will drop to the bottom line.
Yeah. Thank you. Look, just, another question on Corporate Trust. You've got about $10 billion of balances that are not exposed to rates. Historically, Wells Fargo generated some income on those. In first half, you generated no income. You know, two questions around that. Should we expect that to recover in time? Two, how does that impact your recapture opportunity given you're recapturing from a 10 basis point spread on money market funds to not much on, based on the first half spread that you're generating on those non-exposed balances?
Well, the money market funds, if we recapture them, we would re-capture them to exposed rather than non-exposed. That's the first thing.
Right.
The non-exposed balances in CCT. The key reason that they're not earning very much in the way of yield at the moment is simply because of where rates are. A little bit like our own legacy book. As rates rise, we would expect the yield on non-exposed balances to improve. You know, albeit it just won't be at the same level as we should be able to generate on the exposed book.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you, James. We have no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Stuart Irving for any additional or closing remarks.
Well, thanks very much everyone for joining the call today. I look forward, along with Nick and Michael, to meeting many of you over the coming days. Much appreciated. Cheers.
That concludes the Computershare FY 2022 half year results presentation. Thank you once again for joining us today. You may disconnect.