Good morning, everyone, and welcome to another Valentine's Day date with Computershare as we go through our 1H FY24 results and conference call. Nick Oldfield, our CFO, and Michael Brown for our investor relations team are here with me, and as usual, we've released a presentation pack. Now, on this call, we'll take you through the highlights, the outlook for the second half, and through it, an update on our strategies. Nick will then take you through the financials in more detail.
Following the presentation, we will open the line for Q&A. Finally, just to remind you, we will be talking in constant currency and U.S. dollars unless we state otherwise. Okay, so let's begin on page two. As you can see, Computershare has continued to deliver strong growth, with management EPS up 23% compared to the prior corresponding period.
Management revenue was up over 6% to $1.6 billion. Management EBIT ex-MI was up 20%, and margin income increased by almost 25% to a 1H record of $429 million. In the first half, we benefited from growth in core-free revenue, recovery in some of our events and transactional revenues, and with higher yields and stable cash balances, record 1H margin income. Now, the headline results on this page do include US mortgage services. In the PCP, a full 6-month contribution from KCC, our claims administration business. We completed the KCC sale in May 2023, and we're on track to close the sale of the US mortgage services in March 2024. Now, let's turn to page 3. Here we show the results for the continuing business on a pro forma basis.
Put simply, it shows how we would have performed if we had not owned U.S. mortgage services for the first half of FY24 and used anticipated proceeds to pay down debt. As you would expect, there would have been a drop in revenues, and MI and EPS outcomes would be similar at around $0.54 per share. But I think the standout differences are free cash flow and ROIC. So you can see that the simpler Computershare is capital-light and more cash-generative.
And assuming mid-cycle rates of, say, 3%, the new Simpler capital-light Computershare should be able to deliver 30% EBIT margins and 25% ROIC on average, and of course, subject to M&A over the long term. And that's an upgrade and signals a higher quality in the business with the sale of U.S. mortgage services.
I'll now move on to page 4 and give you an overview of each of the three core revenue streams. Now, Computershare's integrated business model, which has that portfolio of recurring fee revenues, cyclical event, and transactional revenues, as well as large client cash balances, which generate margin income, continues to deliver robust returns through the cycle.
Recurring fee revenues increased across all businesses, up around 3%. We have purposely orientated Computershare to benefit from structural growth trends such as equity-based remuneration, bond issuance, and the rising demand for governance services in an increasingly regulated and complex world. These are the long-term tailwinds for us. Now, events and transactional revenues were down 4%. However, if we exclude KCC and the PCP, growth was actually over 9%. The drivers here were strong employee share plans trading revenues and also higher corporate action revenues.
Finally, on margin income, Computershare's overall client balances, including MMF, were up on the prior period at over $76 billion. Along with enhanced yield was the driver behind the record 1H margin income results up almost 25%. Let's now move to page five, where I'll provide some commentary on the core business segments.
Let's start off with issuer services, where revenue was up 14%. We saw higher corporate action fees, more margin income, and our registry was stable, although the shortfall in IPOs did not replenish shareholder numbers in this period, which we would expect to recover as IPOs recover. Management EBIT in this business increased by 25%. Now, corporate actions itself was an interesting story. Unsurprisingly, we managed 17% less corporate action events in the period compared to the PCP.
Within that number, capital raise numbers were pretty consistent, but IPOs and mergers were down. However, the average size and fees in our deals were larger, especially in the US, and this exceeded the volume decline and drove the revenue growth. Governance services revenue was similar to last year. While there was growth in underlying client-paid fees up 14%, this was offset by the timing on recoverable fees, which will come through in the second half.
Moving to employee share plans, that division delivered a record result. Trading revenue recovered well, as I mentioned earlier, and fee revenue increased too as new client wins and fee increases kicked in. Even with the higher number of stock exercises in the half, the value of the book grew up 10% to almost $230 billion.
And as we often talk about, employers continue to use equity more often in remuneration schemes, creating the significant leading earnings power in this business. Our EquatePlus platform is continuing to give us a market advantage. We're continuing to invest to strengthen and grow the business. We acquired Solium Capital UK on the 1st of December and continue to expand our UK and European client base. We also have several new technology developments coming to market, including enhanced client reporting and an upgrade to the mobile app to provide more digital services
. So good momentum here. In the deck, you will see we have consolidated reporting for US CCT with our Canadian trust business. Now, we do provide the usual breakdowns at the back of the pack in the appendix.
Now, we did see continued growth in Canada, although in the US, CCT's performance was slightly lower due to reduced levels of bond issuance, Ginnie Mae custody movements, and temporary higher costs. Now, we planned for these costs to come through as we exited the TSA in October. Through the TSA, we had over 300 staff that did not transfer from Wells Fargo. But as we were exiting the TSA, we had to establish, recruit, train replacements.
And that did include establishing an Indian captive, which will help reduce operational costs in the future. Now, the CCT integration was one of the largest and most time-sensitive projects we've ever undertaken in Computershare. And I'm pleased to say that this highly complex technology and operational transition was finished on time and within budget, with minimal disruption to clients, employees, and other key stakeholders.
Now, this track record really highlights Computershare's technology expertise and major project management skills. Now, I've also said that we will use increased earnings from margin income to invest in and strengthen the group. You were investing in enhanced digitized solutions across the issuer space, and we're creating modern platforms to reflect the relationship issuers want with their shareholders and provide digital foundations for us to find new solutions to meet our clients' challenges.
Moving now to costs, our total costs increased by about 1%. However, excluding KCC, costs were actually up over 6%. And BAU cost OPEX grew by 4%. Now, inflation was somewhat mitigated by some of our cost-out programs, which saved us $18 million. And there are a further $57 million of integration cost synergies in CCT to come, as well as future benefits of Equate Plus rollout and other cost programs.
But in the period, we also had a number of operational expenses and one-offs. We had over $6 million in stranded costs for KCC, for example, which we will be removing. And as I mentioned, temporarily higher costs in CCT. Cost-out, especially with the impending sale of the US mortgage service business, will continue to be a major focus for the team. Finally, cash flow and balance sheet are highlights of the results. Free cash flow was almost $300 million.
Debt leverage now stands at around 0.8 times and is trending lower. By June 30th, and including the sales proceeds for US mortgages and the cost of the buyback, and also assuming no M&A, it should be around about 0.4 times. Now, this balance sheet strength gives us great optionality. Now, we will continue to invest in and strengthen our core businesses, including our digitization strategy and product roadmap.
We will continue our patient approach to M&A, where the pipeline of attractive deals look OK. We will reward shareholders with buybacks and dividends. Today, we also announced an interim dividend of AUD 0.40 per share. Now, that's a rise of 33% versus the PCP and is a new record high interim payment for Computershare. Let's now move on to page 6 and talk a little bit about margin income and provide some commentary on balances and hedging.
Overall, balances were fairly stable, including MMF, and we manage over $76 billion of total client balances. While the total is up, the mix of these balances is driven by cyclical factors such as movements in interest rates, the level of corporate actions, bond issuances, etc. Some of these balances yield more than others, depending on duration, client contracts, and the type of balances they are.
Nick will talk a little bit about that later. I think the other important point is to provide an update on our hedging policy. We have continued to lock in margin income since we last spoke at the AGM. We now have about $1.6 billion of total margin income locked, and regardless of moves in interest rates. Now, over $270 million of MI is locked in for FY2024, and $260 million has been locked in for FY2025. Now, these hedges were all about improving the consistency of our earnings.
As we look forward, let me address a question many of you will have in mind. What happens to Computershare earnings when rates fall? I mean, in isolation, a 50 basis points change in cash rates equates to around $0.05 of management EPS on an annualized basis.
But of course, as ever, there's a little bit more to it than that. When rates fall, we also expect corporate actions and bond issuance levels to increase, for example. And that should drive up our cash balances. In fact, a $1 billion increase in cash balances also generates around $0.05 per share of management EPS. So it's hard to tell when that will happen, but it's not all downward traffic.
Now, let's move to page 7 and talk a little bit about the outlook. With our decent first half, we do have a positive outlook for the rest of the financial year. We're reaffirming guidance, and management EPS is expected to be increased by around 7.5% in FY2024 to around $1.16 per share. Now, that does imply around 11% management EPS growth, 2H versus 1H.
We continue to expect EBIT ex-MI to be up for the year, as I said. In 2H, we assume ongoing growth in recurring fee revenue. That's the quality industrial and Computershare, you might say. We also anticipate similar levels of revenues in corporate actions and also in CCT ex-MI . Now, admittedly, I do see a stronger corporate actions pipeline. However, I think a number of deals may well slip into FY25, which is a minor earnings sensitivity for the group. We also expect margin income to be around $825 million for the group.
As many of you will remember, our guidance methodology is to apply the interest rate curves as they were when we prepare these numbers, which at the moment assumes a U.S. rate cut in May, although that view seems to have changed just overnight.
Of course, we also have to assume that we maintain current levels and mix of balances. As I said in August, guidance is more sensitive to these balances and rates these days, and therefore changes are more meaningful. However, the Treasury hedging policy is designed to soften and smooth the impact. Also for outlook, we still include U.S. mortgage services for the full second half of the year in guidance. We do not include the impact of the buyback on the share count. Once we complete the sale of that business, we will adjust these on completion. Now, Nick, let me hand over to you for a little bit of a deeper dive into the financials.
Thank you, Stuart. Good morning, everyone. I'll start with our financial results on slide 8. Total revenue for the group increased 6.2% over the PCP. Excluding margin income, revenue was broadly flat. Remember, however, these comparisons include KCC in the PCP. Adjusting for this, revenue for the group was up 10.3% and revenue excluding margin income up 4.5%.
As you've heard, this revenue growth was largely driven by an increase in event and transaction fees. Margin income was up 25% to $429 million, largely the result of higher rates. Total costs were up just over 1.3%. Excluding KCC, they're up around 6.5%. These are broken out in a bit more detail on slide 15. In summary, though, BAU OPEX excluding KCC is up around 4%.
This is the balance of the benefits from our cost-out programs of $18 million, offset by inflation across our personnel and third-party expense lines of $47.5 million. In addition, we saw another $23 million of increased costs in the half. These costs were either unusual or less BAU in nature. Around a third of these related to new investments, establishing a new captive back office operation in India, and cost attributable to the Solium Capital UK acquisition.
About half of this is one-off and will not recur. Another third related to stranded costs arising from the KCC disposal. We expect to reduce these in FY 2025. The final third is increased irrecoverable VAT expense in the U.K. Higher margin income means lower proportional VATable revenue, the result of which is that we're unable to recover quite as much VAT as we have in the past.
Going forward, this expense will become BAU in nature until rates come down. EBIT increased 24% to $546 million, and the EBIT margin improved 480 basis points to 34%, both largely attributable to the higher MI and transactional revenue growth. Excluding MI, EBIT was up 21%. As well as the transactional revenue growth, EBIT ex-MI benefited from lower amortization expense because of the longer MSI useful life now being applied. On a pro forma basis, excluding US mortgage services, 1H24 EBIT ex-MI would have been higher by around $19 million at $135 million.
Interest expense was up 60% to $86 million. The average cost of debt was almost 7%. Now, we do expect interest expense to be lower in the second half, reflecting the maturity of $220 million in USPP debt.
Remember, all of our debt is at floating rates, so it's a natural hedge to margin income in the event that rates fall. Tax expense was also higher in the half, up by almost 10% at just over $129 million, albeit the ETR was 230 basis points lower at 28%, reflecting lower levels of Canadian withholding tax payments during the half. We expect the ETR to be similar in the second half.
Management MPAT was up 23% to $331 million. Management EPS was also up 23% to $0.548 per share. Adjusting for the buyback, it was a touch higher at $0.549 per share. During the first half of 2024, we bought back 5.59 million shares at an average price of just over AUD 24. That's in Australian dollars, of course. The actual 1H WANOS was 602,390,548 shares. Statutory results are on slides 49 and 50.
Statutory MPAT was $105 million, down 40%. This was largely attributable to the impairment related to the U.S. mortgage services disposal of $116 million, which we noted in our ASX announcement of October 3rd. This does not impact the expected sale proceeds in excess of $700 million. In addition, the amortization of non-MSI required intangible assets of $34 million, acquisition-related expenses of $60 million, largely the cost of the CCT integration, and $15 million associated with our cost-out programs also impacted the statutory result. Slide 9 bridges the 23% improvement in EPS from 1H23 to 1H24. The sale of KCC cost us $0.008 per share in earnings. But this was more than offset by improvement in both core fees and events in transactional revenue, $0.06 per share between them. MI added almost $0.12.
But as I mentioned previously, the cost of running the business, as well as interest and tax expenses, were all up by $0.046 and $0.023, respectively. After including $0.001 in benefit from the buyback, overall EPS was $0.549 for the half. On slide 10, we show how we expect second half earnings to unfold. EPS is expected to be around 11% higher in the second half.
We'll see the usual seasonality benefits from proxy and AGM season in the northern hemisphere. That's worth $0.053. Stronger employee plans trading driven by client vesting events is the key driver behind the operational revenue growth of $0.043. MI will be a little lower to reflect the anticipated mix of balances plus the US rate cut in May, while costs will be a bit higher.
This is largely the result of salary increases being effective 1 October. So we see a full six months of that in the second half. Interest and tax expense will be a bit lower. We don't anticipate any Canadian withholding tax in the second half, while the forecast rate cut and debt repayment will both help. This leaves us with planned EPS for the second half of just over $0.60 per share. For the avoidance of doubt, we're not factoring in any impact from the ongoing buyback or the sale of US mortgage services.
We'll update the market of the net effects on completion, but we don't expect them to be material. I'll now move on to margin income on slide 11. We're now expecting around $825 million of margin income in FY24.
In the first half, we delivered $429.4 million of MI on average client balances of $28.7 billion. That's a yield of 2.99%. And to be clear, this excludes money market funds. In the second half, we expect slightly higher balances of $29.5 billion, but a lower yield of 2.68%. These higher balances are essentially where we exited January, together with what we have current line of sight to.
The lower yield reflects an assumed U.S. May rate cut in line with the latest curves and other currency rate cuts in Q4. In total, these rate cuts drive around a third of the lower yield. The other two thirds are the result of the expected mix, with the second half balance growth driven by non-exposed balances. Looking at this all in aggregate, we anticipate average balances of $29.1 billion for the year, which are expected to yield 2.84%.
Within this, exposed balances currently yield just under 5%. Hedged balances currently yield just under 3%. Our non-exposed balances yield just over 100 basis points on average. Obviously, yields are driven by the mix between the categories. We're a little bit more sensitive to the mix in CCT, which are largely driven by market factors. Within CCT, the mix of balances is really driven by the volume of bond issuance across the various product categories it serves.
In 1H2024, we've seen strong volumes across high-yield and investment-grade conventional debt, as well as CLOs. These typically drive lower-yielding balances. We do earn more MI on products such as RMBS and CMBS, where issuance levels are at cyclical lows. We do expect they will recover in the future as these markets improve. Outside of client balances, MMF balances are up.
This is mainly due to an increase in new business that drives balances to them, in particular certain structured debt programs. It is not about balances switching from exposed to MMF. Let me be clear on that. As we have stated in fact, MMF balances earn around 10 basis points on average. In the chart on the bottom left of this slide 11, you can see the movements in our anticipated MI relative to our August disclosure. We expected $840 million of MI back then.
However, the curves are now lower, and this reduces MI by $32 million. Balances are also a touch lower for the year on average. Less CCT new business is going into cash versus MMF. And U.S. mortgage services balances are down due to lower refinancing levels. The impact of lower balances is $40 million in MI for the year.
Offsetting this is an improved mix, predominantly in the first half. Non-exposed balances are proportionately lower, with more new business going into MMF, while exposed balances are higher, largely due to improved management of foreign currency balances at CCT. This is delivering $35 million in incremental MI. We have also restructured some of the hedge book, extending out duration to enhance yield. This drives $22 million in extra MI.
Now, going back to hedging, we have currently got around $9 billion of swaps and term deposits in place, covering around 52% of our exposed book, 56% if we adjust for the sale of U.S. mortgage services. Policy-wise, we do have capacity to go higher. But in practice, we will always be conservative. So I do not expect to increase our overall hedge book percentage materially from here. There is more detail about balances on slides 52-56.
However, we have inadvertently not disclosed the same level of detail around exposed, hedged, and non-hedged MI as previously. I am sorry about this, and we are looking to rectify it. We will update the deck on our website shortly. I will now wrap up my comments with a look at our balance sheet and cash flow on slide 16. In the period, we generated approximately $370 million of net operating cash flow. That is an EBITDA to cash conversion rate of around 60% at actual rates.
Free cash flow was $296 million. Net spend on MSIs was $56 million. This was higher than intended, as we did not complete a recycling trade given the impending disposal. Instead, the MSIs will be sold with the business when it completes. Net debt is $1.31 billion at the half, around $94 million higher than at year-end.
This reflects the impact of the increased dividend as well as the buyback. Last week, we repaid $220 million of maturing USPP debt and will continue the buyback post-results. The interim dividend is set at the same level as the final. So expect another $155 million or so of outflow there. Just on the dividend, you will note that it is franked at 20%. This is the maximum amount we can frank right now. We expect franking credits to be back at zero in September. With the proceeds from the sale of US mortgage services, overall net debt will be much lower still at year-end. I will now hand back to Stuart.
Thank you, Nick. Now, let me wrap up with some brief comments on our priorities and also our strategies.
Operationally, in the second half, we are going to be focused on continuing to deliver the planned CCT synergies, our digitization projects, and continued rollout of EquatePlus, along with a range of existing and new cost-out initiatives. To complement our organic growth, we will also continue to patiently evaluate our pipeline of acquisition opportunities and continue with the buyback.
Now, as I said, we have the balance sheet capacity to self-fund our growth, strengthen our businesses, and also reward shareholders. We will continue to execute our strategies to build a simpler Computershare with higher quality earnings and better returns. And it is the execution of these strategies that lay the foundations for future growth. Now, we have shown you more about what that Computershare looks like today.
It took a little bit of leap of faith to see the core strength when we first spoke to you about it back in 2022. The simpler Computershare will be capital light, more cash generative, and will deliver higher returns for shareholders. We should also have more consistent earnings with our increased hedging. And that is important in an uncertain rate environment.
But just on that rate environment, perhaps a simpler way to look at this would be on a mid-cycle basis. I still think that if we assumed interest rates were at 3%, margin income in the group should still be around $600 million per annum, with over $250 million of that locked in each year. So, as you can see, Computershare is performing strongly, has multiple growth options, and a strong financial base.
We are well placed to continue to grow recurring revenues, benefit from cyclical recovery in some of our events and transactional-based businesses, and capitalize on attractive M&A opportunities. It has been an extremely busy, productive, and rewarding time at Computershare. Before we open to Q&A, I would like to thank all of our loyal customers and all of my colleagues for their outstanding contributions in what was one of our most intense but rewarding six months that I can remember.
Now, I also have to offer some apologies. I do believe that there were some technical sound issues for those on the phone conference, not so much the webcast. I would be happy to recap at any point anything that may have been missed. The script from today will be shortly released onto the ASX. Let us now move on to questions. Thank you.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press pound and two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask us your question. Your first question comes from Kieran Chidgey from Jarden. Please go ahead.
Morning, Stuart and Nick. Just starting on core revenues, there were two areas there I was just interested in a bit of color on. Firstly, on CCT. Sequentially, there was quite a significant drop in the revenue ex-margin income from $250 in second half, $23 down to $226. Clearly aware there is lower issuance moving through US debt markets, but still surprised by the extent of that half-on-half change. So just wondering if you can unpack kind of what drove that.
Hi, Kieran. look, there are a couple of things moving on deep in the weeds a little bit in terms of all the different revenues. Probably one of the largest components of that is really our document custody revenues. I am sure you will remember that we needed to be an approved document custodian.
We were having some challenges with Ginnie Mae approving Computershare as a document custodian in the marketplace. As a result of that, we had to move the Ginnie Mae documents out, which took place in April 2023. As a result of that, when you go into the PCP, the Ginnie Mae revenue was still in there in FY23 first half. It was not in there in FY24 first half. That is probably one of the major drop-downs as far as when you look at some of these comparisons. Yeah.
There is sort of there was lower market activity. I think both myself and Nick touched on that. But we have seen market share improve in a number of categories, et cetera. And I think that the business is still well placed to continue. It is always useful reminding ourselves that when we acquired that business, it did not make any money on an EBITDA ex-MI basis.
And we have been putting amending fee structures, working on the efficiencies there. But it was probably that the Ginnie Mae stuff was probably the biggest issue. I mean, that was a reduction of 13% or so of our document custody revenue. That is really the weeds behind that line there.
OK. And the other segment, issuer services, just on the issuer paid numbers, I think down to around similar like 3% on PCP, similar to what the account numbers did year-on-year. How much of that do you attribute at all to the lack of IPO activity in the market at the moment? Just wondering what your view of more sustainable through-cycle trends are in that business moving forward.
Yeah. So I mean, from an issuer services perspective, you are right. I referenced on the call that just Computershare maintained market share for its IPOs. But the number of IPOs we processed in the first half of 2024 compared to 2023 was down 50%, half the number of IPOs.
We do have a little bit of a reliance on the IPO market to replace and replenish shareholder numbers for companies that disappear off the bourses, bankruptcy, M&A, being taken private, et cetera. IPOs were down.
That also has a little bit of a knock-on effect on some of the other registry maintenance revenues there. As you can imagine, in a post-IPO period, you have a little bit of lock-up on some of the employees. And when that frees out, you have the ability for them to actually trade out. DWAC fees, et cetera, et cetera. That is really what the story was on that front in terms of shareholder numbers, et cetera. It is hard to guess what a normalized environment, I think. It has been five years since I have seen a normalized environment. It feels like that sometimes.
But I mean, normally, we would expect low single-digit growth in that register maintenance area. And I think that as IPOs come back a little bit, et cetera, we will see that return to growth. But clearly, a focus for us as a business as well, just in terms of pricing and other things that we can do to shore up that line.
Excellent. Just one last question on U.S. mortgage services on the sale. Just comparing your pro forma EPS you provided against your actual EPS, about 1% low, which is a bit of a change from the October commentary around the transaction being EPS accretive. So just wondering what is altered there. And maybe that is more a temporary factor around performance of that business at the moment.
And then associated with that, assuming the sale does complete, how we should be thinking about the potential for stranded costs for that division moving into FY2025?
Yeah, Kieran. So you are right. Based on the figures that we disclosed last night, it does look marginally dilutive based on first half 2024 actuals. When we disclosed in the past, we were looking at FY2023 performance. And the reality is that the performance of that business was better in the first half of 2024 than it was in FY2023. And that really explains the difference in that impact. You will recall that we have had an ongoing cost-out program in that business for the last 18 months. And we really saw costs come out in the first half. And so that is really what has happened. That is really what has happened there. In terms of.
Just on the stranded costs. Yeah. So in terms of stranded costs, yeah, there will be stranded costs for the U.S. mortgage services business. In addition to the stranded costs we have already got from KCC, we are putting a program in place now to address those over the course of the next 12 months or so. We do obviously have TSA arrangements in place with the buyer for U.S. mortgage services. So that gives us a little bit of time to get our plans in place and to start addressing those. But we know what we have got to do and how much we have got to take out. And we are pretty confident that we can deliver on that.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Andrew Buncombe from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Just two from me, please.
The first one, I suppose, is in the context of your strong cash generation position and your exceptional gearing. How are you thinking about the M&A pipeline for the next 12-24 months? Thanks.
Hi, Andrew. Thanks for the question. Yeah. Thanks for pointing out the balance sheet, the optionality that it gives us. When we discuss that at the board at Computershare, we always try to find the balance between returns to shareholders, investments in the business, and then inorganic opportunities from an M&A perspective. As we have said in the past, the areas of M&A we are particularly looking at are really in the core businesses that we have just now, particularly through governance services. They tend to be slightly smaller-based acquisitions and bolt-ons, and then also in the corporate trust space. I am fairly confident from looking at that pipeline.
I said that corporate trust felt to me a little bit like share registry in the '90s. I kind of emphasized how large that project was extracting out of a large U.S. bank, a very complicated business, over 100 technology platforms, and moving that across and finding solutions to these challenges. I think now we are knocking on the doors of other institutions because we have these credentials. We can prove that it can be done. So our pipeline is looking reasonable. We are in discussions and diligence on a number of items. It is still a long way to go. But I am positive that there are opportunities out there to deploy capital at suitable returns. So it is an exciting time.
Excellent. Then my other question was in relation to, I suppose, the book mix of the CCT business.
There seems to be a bit of misunderstanding around how that book mix is balanced. Can you just give us some color around whether the majority of that book is actually skewed towards residential mortgage-backed securities or commercial mortgage-backed securities? Thanks.
Yeah. So yeah. I mean, from a market share perspective, you would say that it is skewed towards commercial. But if you look at overall number of deal sizes and bond issuance, it is actually more on the residential mortgage-backed securities just in terms of the number of deals and number of transactions. We have a very high market share of CMBS. But I think that market has been pretty down over the last 12 months. But we have more skew towards RMBS. And we do on CMBS just in terms of the different products.
I mean, CCT itself is made up of 12 to 15 or so different products. We are fairly balanced throughout that. There is a lot of third-party material out there talking about relative market sizes, et cetera. I am really pleased that through the transition with our clients and them having new platforms and other bits and pieces that we have been able to maintain or enhance the vast majority of our market positions across all these products.
Excellent. That is it from me. Thank you.
The next question comes from Nigel Pittaway from Citi. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. I was just trying to understand a bit more about the impact of this skew towards larger transactions in issuer services and the impact that is having on the numbers in that division.
I mean, do those larger transactions typically have a higher skew towards margin income? Are they lower EBITDA ex-margin income deals? Can you maybe just give us a bit of color about that?
Yeah. Sure. So just to recap on that one, Nigel, I talked about our overall corporate action events being down around about 17% globally. In 1H23, Computershare processed just over 900 individual corporate action events. And in 1H24, we processed just over 750 corporate action events. And that is really the drop there. But despite that volume reduction, our revenue from corporate actions was actually up. A lot of that was in the U.S.
There was a number of above-average-size events. And we did events for Johnson & Johnson, Highlands Real Estate Investment Trust, Black Knight, Broadcom, AMC Entertainment. And they kind of drove higher revenues. And I think then you then have that look forward.
Well, what does that actually mean? Again, looking at pending M&A, which are global deals announced as pending, the report at the end of the year was pending deals are actually up 180% compared to December 2022. And there are some pretty meaty transactions in the U.S., especially, that have been announced. You have Exxon looking to acquire Pioneer Natural Resources, Chevron looking to acquire Hess, Cisco Systems with Splunk. You have got KKR.
They have got multiple deals in excess of $20 billion, et cetera. So the pipeline of some of these larger transactions, which it really depends on the type of transaction. If it is all stock, then there is no real MI component. It is all fees. If it is a cash-type deal, then that is really where MI comes into it.
And when I look at some of the larger deals that are coming off, that is basically fee-based, not just MI-based because they are more stock deals. Now, I think some of these transactions may well slip into FY25, not necessarily the second half. It always takes a little longer these days, it seems, to get some of these regulatory and competition approvals. But I think the prospect is positive.
OK. Thanks for that. I mean, I guess I was just really trying to drive into the fact that, obviously, if you look at the EBX margin income margin in issue of services, it is at a low that has not been seen before. Now, is that I mean, I was just trying to understand, is it the skew towards larger deals that is partly driving that?
Or is it just simply because IPOs more broadly are more subdued than that ended up where it is?
Yeah. Bigger deals. Yeah. Not so much IPOs. Bigger deals.
Yeah. OK. Fair enough. And then just my second question. Oh, sorry. Yeah. And then just the second question is on digitization. And I was just wondering if you could maybe give us some overview of how much opportunity you think there is in digitization, both in terms of revenue opportunity and cost saving?
It is probably a long answer to that because you have got to break it down by the divisions and the types of products. When we have talked about digitization in the past, we have talked about robotic process automation and the ability to automate tasks that were done manually before. Computershare were a fairly early adopter of that technology, et cetera.
You have now got other technology that is coming out that we will be able to take advantage of a little bit in the AI space without getting all marketing AI on you, Nigel. But a number of our digitization projects that we have got just now is really about moving some of the friction in some of our markets with customers and their ability to actually affect certain transactions from a digital perspective rather than, in some cases, a paper-based perspective.
I think that there is also going to be opportunities with some new products that we will be able to roll out with some partnerships, especially in the issue of services space around expediting of payments and other bits and pieces there.
So it is a combination of using digitization not only to just drive lower costs but actually to provide more value to our customers, allow them to have greater insights to what is happening on their register or their employee share plan, et cetera, and really to continue to be at the forefront of some of that innovation. So it is going to be a mix of cost out and enhanced functionality, which will increase retention, its ability to be used as far as switch business, et cetera. So it is always a bit of a balance. It is not just all cost out.
OK. Great. Thank you.
The next question comes from Andrei Stadnik from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Thank you. And good morning. Can I ask my first question around that over 30% EBIT margin target, even assuming 3% cash rates? That seems like a new target.
Can you talk a little bit about that? And maybe what kind of additional M&A would CPE need to do in order to deliver those EBIT margins even with low rates?
Yeah. Morning, Andrei. So first of all, in that margin target, we are not assuming any M&A. We are just taking the business as it is on a pro forma basis, excluding US mortgage servicing. And we are saying, well, if we have got interest rates of 3%, then based on our current book, that should drive margin income of about $600 million at least. And then if you look at our EBIT XMI today, it is around on a full-year basis, it is close to $300 million. And then if you overlay that with our cost out programs, so you have got, as we have said, we have got another $50-odd million to come from CCT synergies.
There are other cost programs in train. Collectively, that gets you to what I would say is a long-term sustainable EBIT level of around $1 billion. So if you look at that, that should give you about 30% in long-term margin before you get to any benefits or otherwise from further investments in M&A.
Thank you. My second question, can I ask around the corporate trust? So can you talk a little bit more about the revenue dynamics there? Because 1H 2024, it seems like it was well down or clearly down on the second half of 2023. So can you talk about some of the revenue dynamics there, maybe the mix of business, and also just how important are new volumes in debt capital markets for you?
Yeah. So I mean, just looking at CCT, fee revenue was down.
I think it was around about CCT in isolation was probably around about down between $7 million and $8 million versus 1H23 just on fee revenue. As I mentioned, probably about 60% of that was really the document custody fee reduction, which is really about the Ginnie Mae-related custody files where we actually had to transfer them to a successor document custodian in April 2023. So we didn't have that revenue. That was a little bit there.
But overall, trust fee revenue was also down a little bit, but around about 1%-1.5% in 1H24 versus 2023. Now, trust fees were lower than anticipated. And that really just reflected deal volumes across some product categories, probably with the exception just saw some of the environment. Certainly, the MBS categories continue to be impacted by the environment, so the resi and the commercials, right?
But we also did see some most of our other categories just did see some year-over-year growth as far as new deals were concerned. But some of them are margin income-related, specialized asset servicing, corporate debt, Small Business Administration categories continue to experience a little bit of growth in fee revenue. So it is a little bit of a mix as far as that.
But I think we are well placed in terms of growing it. It is always difficult just analyzing a top line in a six-month period, especially when we are coming right through that transition and the ability to get out there and onboard certain things. So I think that we are still pretty confident that corporate trust, as we have seen for many, many years in Canada, should be able to provide solid growth going forward.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Julian Braganza from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Just a couple of questions for me. Firstly, following on just at EBIT margin target that you have there, just wanted to understand how you are thinking about that in terms of how it applies across the different business units, and particularly in terms of just the conversation around issuer services and where you can get that business in terms of EBIT XMI, in terms of the margins. Thanks.
So Julian, you are talking about balances across the different business units or earnings across the different business units?
Yeah. Well, look. Yeah.
Sorry. This is just about the earnings, the EBIT margins XMI, just for the different divisions in the business.
Yeah. But I mean, we don't really talk about, I mean, EBIT XMI, especially in a business like Issuer Services. A number of the contracts are all to do with MI, et cetera. And I mean, that business, including margin income, has margins of around about 36.5%. Margin income is really part of that business, especially through corporate actions and retaining that. We have strategies to go out with companies in terms of pre-funding of dividends because we can share rates, et cetera.
So it is really part of that model. I mean, obviously, if you look at it just on an XMI basis, then the margins would actually drop below 30%. I mean, at the moment, they are running it around about north of 35%, including margin income. That is really how we look at it.
OK. Great. In terms of just the other divisions, in terms of how you look at it through the cycle relative to that 30% target, I know that includes that margin income. But I mean, we can work it out. But if you back it out, just trying to understand that.
Yeah. Well, as Nick mentioned, and I also talked about, even in a mid-cycle rate environment, we still expect $600 million of margin income. Our global corporate trust division still delivers margin, including MI, north of 50%. And our employee share plans business, which doesn't have a huge amount of margin income in it but a little bit, at the moment, its margins are 34%.
So as a business, just looking at these from a margin perspective, these are very, very healthy and strong numbers and really in a privileged position to be working hard on these businesses, delivering margins of that rate. And when we talk about ongoing margin, because MI is part of the model and that model is factoring in perhaps mid-cycle rates, et cetera, we don't look specifically at it on an XMI basis. But across all our businesses, we are looking to grow. Part of that will be cyclical. Part of that is going to be development of new products, new client wins, et cetera. We have got pretty good margins at the moment. But that is, again, margin expansion, right? That is what we are trying to do.
Great. Thank you for that. And in terms of just the EBIT XMI, in terms of the skew between first half and second half, are we still expecting that to be similar to FY 2023 in terms of just the drivers for that?
Yeah. Look, you can see from the bridge in the deck, Julian, that we do expect EBIT XMI to be much stronger in the second half. In part, that is because of the normal seasonality that we see in the issuer services business and also because we typically have a stronger second half in employee share plans because of client vesting events in the second half. And of course, we have also got the benefit of the Solium Capital UK acquisition in December, which will obviously benefit the second half as well. So we do anticipate a better second half.
And overall, as we said in August, we anticipate that EBIT XMI will be around 10% up over FY 2023. And we still expect to be there or thereabouts, if not a little bit north of 10% up for the year.
OK. Great. Thanks so much for that, guys.
The next question comes from Ed Henning from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Two from me, please. Nick, before when you were talking about the target of 30%, you mentioned cost out. If we think about ex-divestments and acquisitions on, I guess, a steady state, you have got synergies coming through. You have got cost out. You have also got investment. Are you saying over the medium term, you expect cost to go backwards or just run below inflation, which helps you get to that target?
Yeah. I expect cost growth with the cost out targets that we have got, Ed, and with the cost out targets that we have got, I expect cost growth to run below inflation over the medium term. Yeah. Absolutely.
OK. No, we are not talking about absolute costs falling because of the continued investment, just below inflation.
No. That's right.
Yeah. OK. That's great. And then secondly, just on your guidance, and you have run through a lot today, and you have got a line of sight on a number of things, can you just talk about some of the things that you don't have line of sight on in your guidance, the transactional revenue coming through? Do you have line of sight on the proxies that have a seasonality coming in and then the balances as well?
Is there any? I guess what I am trying to get at is what do you see as the risks to your second half guidance? Because obviously, you have run through a lot of the stuff on the underlying momentum. But I am interested in the risks that you see.
Yeah. So look, I think that risks across issuer services are generally pretty low. If anything, it is going to be in the upside in the closing of some of these corporate action transactions, employee share plans. The risks are really if equity markets completely crap themselves in the second half. That is really roundabout some of the trading, et cetera. So there is always a risk of some of the timing of that.
But the busy time for them is really as you come through March and April for vesting there, just in terms of where equity markets are. And then obviously, one of the things that we track is going to be what is happening with rate cuts, et cetera. We normally just take whatever the curve says. And I know that the curve changed overnight, which is typical just as we go and do that.
We were anticipating a rate cut. The commentary today is saying the likelihood of that is a little bit less. But that will change next week, Ed. I am not going to get sucked into threading about that. And then it is just going to be some of the balances questions in terms of things coming in and for us to be able to deliver some of the cost outs.
The mortgage servicing closing, I mean, obviously, we anticipate it toward my view is towards the end of March. That is really down to regulatory approvals and when that will happen. As you can see, that is not having a huge impact from an EPS perspective. But it is just one of the unknowns as we head into the second half in terms of when we will actually the buyer will get these regulatory approvals. But we have got decent confidence going into the second half.
That is great. Thank you, Stuart. And just on the balances part, while I understand for legacy business, you can kind of see the pipeline coming through, what is the visibility on the pipeline on the CCT business? Because you are obviously a little bit more dependent on market activity. Is that a lot more short-term?
Or do you have any line of sight on that coming through?
Look, I mean, obviously, we know there is fee revenue and balance revenue on the backbook, right? So we know when redemptions are happening, et cetera. So we have got a pretty good view on that. And then also, we have a reasonable outlook as far as deals in the pipeline in terms of new issuances, et cetera, et cetera, and just breaking that down by deal volume across all the various products. So it is reasonable. It is consistent.
It is also a business that we are learning. I mean, obviously, with our legacy business, we know that we have a bit of seasonality. Our business has been fairly consistent in terms of the revenue drivers for a while. And we understand it more.
We were limited in the historical data that we had when we certainly acquired the Wells Fargo business. So we have got lots of decent insight up in Canada on first half, second half, a little bit less so on the US business. It is a bigger piece. And we will learn that over time. Yeah.
OK. Thank you. That is great.
The next question comes from Siddharth Parameswaran from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi, gentlemen. Just three questions, if I can. Firstly, I just wanted to just get your views on the yields. Firstly, just on the non-hedged exposed balances, I think you have reduced the guidance for FY 2024 from 5.13% down to 4.86%. I just want to make sure whether that is due to changes in conversion efficiency.
I know you flagged that you are expecting a drop in cash rates, I think, later this year. But it seems like quite a sharp drop just for a very late change in the cash rates. So just hoping you could give us some idea about what is happening with what the banks are actually paying at the moment and how we should think about that going forward.
Yeah. Thanks, Siddharth. I mean, the real as I said, the drop between what we saw in the first half, the 2.99% in the first half and the 2.68% that we called out for the second half, yes, some of that is about the rate cut in May. But that is really only about a third of that. So it is about 12 basis points we are attributing to the rate cut.
The rest of it is really coming from the mix of balances. So we do see the balance growth and the book in the second half swinging a little bit more towards non-exposed, which yields a little bit less versus exposed. And that is really because of the balances that we see coming in or the type of balances that they are. Put another way, they are client transactions where the client is expecting a higher level of return or give back on the balances that we are managing. And it just dilutes the yield that we can generate. That is all it is.
Specifically, what you are getting from the banks on the exposed non-exposed.
Yeah. Explicitly. In terms of what we get from the banks on our exposed balances, on average, we are probably around 95% of cash rates.
In some cases, we might even be a little bit higher. Now, we obviously deal with a range of counterparties. Some of them pay us pretty much 100% of cash rates. Some of them pay us a little bit less. It depends on the amount of money that we have got with them, what market we might be in, et cetera, et cetera. I think if you use 95% as a proxy, it is not unreasonable.
OK. Thank you. Just on the exposed hedge rates that you are getting, I think you are guiding to 2.91% for FY 2024. I am still surprised, given the amount of new hedges you have taken on in the last 12 months in a higher interest rate environment, that it still lags so far against the spot cash rates and what you are getting on the exposed non-hedge.
So I was just wondering if you could once again just clarify why that rate is. I mean, it is higher than what you guided before, but only marginally higher. And it still lags very significantly versus the cash rates.
Yeah. The exposed hedge rate is about 3% at the moment or will be for the second half. It is really a weighted average across a large book of hedges. We have got something like 100 different instruments in place that have been put in place at various times. And we have still got some legacy hedges in place or legacy fixed-rate term deposits, which yield below current swap rates. And so that is really the answer. As those expire and we replace them with newer hedges at more current swap rates, then I would expect that to the overall hedge yield to go up.
So it should still keep going up from the 3. That is basically what you are saying. OK. OK. And just one other question, just on the balances. I think maybe carrying on from Ed's question, I think you indicated that the exposed balances have been dropping for a little while. And you indicated that mainly that is a mix issue, I think, on corporate trust. I was just wondering if you have any visibility on where we are now, whether that is mid-cycle, whether we are at a high point versus a 5-10-year view on the mix of balances that you typically get in this business by the different lines. Where are we? Are we mid-cycle? Are we at a high point? Are we at a low point in terms of the exposed balances?
Yeah. Look, we think that we are towards the low point in the market.
If we look over the last six months, the balances have dropped off a little bit. But they are much more stable than they were. The large decline really that we saw was between first half and second half FY 2023. Over the course of the last couple of months, if anything, we are seeing positive signs of balance improvement. So we think that we are towards the bottom of the cycle here.
So are you saying it is positive signs of balance improvement, but you are guiding to the exposed balances reducing again in the second half?
No. No. That is not what I said, Stuart. I said that we are towards the bottom of the cycle in terms of where exposed balances are. From here on in, we would expect them to start to pick up.
And in fact, we have seen a little bit of that over the last couple of months.
OK. OK. And just a final question, just from the I think, Stuart, you mentioned that you were seeing market share improvements in corporate trust in particular segments. I was hoping you could just flesh that out. Which segments are you seeing some improvements? And can you give us some numbers?
Yeah. Look, there are independent reports that are published that breaks down all the various products. If I look around the SAS CLO marketplace, our market share has improved 6% from 2022 and into 2023. Our CMBS bond admin role, the market share has improved from 90%-98%. But I think one of the things is, I mean, in this market, you build relationships with issuers. And unless you stuff up, these issuers generally stay with you, right?
And unless you are being creative and doing new products, which is one of the things that we are actually doing. So some of the market share numbers then look at whether that particular issuer has been doing bonds, et cetera. So look, I think that the point that I was making was the organization went through a significant change project as we went through that integration. We may have been able to maintain, and as I said, increased market shares across a couple of areas. And that is a pretty strong achievement with all the change. And our goal is to continue to provide the excellent service that our corporate trust division provides along with new technology to grow market share. Yeah. And there is plenty of headroom to do that.
OK. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen.
There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Mr. Irving for closing remarks.
Well, finally, I will wrap up. Thanks, everyone, for joining on the line today. Really appreciate. As you can see at Computershare, we have got some very clear strategies to simplify, strengthen, and grow the group. I think we are executing well. I am really delighted that we can share the higher earnings and better returns with the shareholders. Look forward to seeing many on the road over the coming days. Thanks very much.