Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Djerriwarrh Investments full-year financial results briefing. At this time, all participants are in the listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one on your telephone, or you may also submit your questions via the webcast. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Mr. Mark Freeman, CEO. Thank you. Please go ahead.
Okay, good afternoon, everyone. I'm Mark Freeman, the CEO and Managing Director of Djerriwarrh Investments, and welcome to this full-year result briefing. I have joining me today on the webinar, Brett McNeill, Portfolio Manager from the investment team, Olga Kosciuczyk from the investment team, Andrew Porter, our CFO, Matthew Rowe, our Company Secretary, and Jeff Driver, GM of Business Development. Before we start the presentation, a bit of housekeeping on the webinar. This briefing is based on the material available on the company's website. If you are using your computer to access the presentation via the webcast, the slides will change automatically. If you are accessing by phone only, the PDF of the slides with page numbers is available on the website. Finally, please note, following the presentation, there'll be time for questions and answers. You can ask a question either via the webcast or through the operator.
Before we turn to the presentation, I just wanted to highlight a couple of announcements the company put out today. Mr. John Paterson, the chairman of the company, has advised that he will retire at the conclusion of the AGM on the thirteenth of October. Now, John's been a director since 2002 and chairman since 2013. In the announcement, the board wishes to record its deep thanks to John for his invaluable contribution to the board deliberations over the last 20 years. His deep understanding of the investment industry has been outstanding value to the board, executives, and shareholders of Djerriwarrh Limited. The board has elected Mr. Graham Goldsmith as the chairman with effect from the conclusion of the AGM.
Graham Goldsmith has been a director since 2013 and was appointed deputy chairman in 2020. Graham is currently chairman of SEEK Limited, is deputy chair of the Gandel Foundation and a panel member of Adara Partners. Just pointing out also, Graham was also a partner at Goldman Sachs Australia, which was formerly JBWere, and Graham started in his career in the finance industry as an analyst researching companies, so he has this huge amount of experience in the area in which we operate. Also announced today, the board advised the appointment of a new director, Geoff Roberts. Geoff Roberts has over 35 years of finance experience. He was formerly CFO of SEEK. He was a managing partner at Deloitte and was Group CFO of AXA. We welcome Geoff to the board.
Once again, I think his experiences will be invaluable to all members of not only the board but also the investment team and shareholders. Moving to the presentation before we go to the Q&A. Moving to the slides, there's a disclaimer on page two just to say we're here to talk about what we're doing in the company, not to give advice. Onto slide three. I'll just give a couple of overview and objectives comments. Andrew Porter will talk through the financial year in summary, and then Brett and Olga will take you through the results, portfolio update, and outlook comments. Moving to slide five, just to reiterate, Djerriwarrh's one of the largest income-focused LICs in the market. We were listed in 1989.
Shareholders get the full benefit of transparency that's associated with being an LIC, as well as the high governance standard delivered by an independent board of directors. Djerriwarrh shareholders own the management rights of the company, so there's no fee leakage to third parties and no performance fees. Djerriwarrh is also part of a broader group of LICs, which includes AFIC, AMCIL, and Mirrabooka. This supports a broader research approach and scale of operations. Moving to slide six, the investment objectives. Djerriwarrh primarily seeks to provide an enhanced level of fully franked income that is higher than what can be achieved from investing in the market. We seek to do this at a low cost to shareholders. We also aim to provide attractive investment returns through the access to fully franked dividends and capital growth. We've got a couple of charts, one on the left.
This shows the yield that is achievable on Djerriwarrh compared to the index. When you include franking, based on the NTA, the grossed-up yield, is the term we use, is running at about 6.7% against the market at 5.1%. On the right, you can see the total return of Djerriwarrh. It has been slightly below the market. However, there's always a give and take. A high yield has come with slightly lower total returns, but we believe in over the long term, they are still attractive returns to investors whilst achieving very good income flows. With that, I'll pass over to Andrew to talk about the full-year results.
Thank you, Mark, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Page eight is the slide that we're on. The headline profit for the year of AUD 44.5 million was up 46%.
As long-term shareholders will know, we tend not to look at that particular profit figure because it does include the impact of open options positions. Most of you will be familiar with what we call the net operating result, which was AUD 40.4 million. Now, this itself is actually distorted this year by the fact that we had a non-cash merger dividend caused by the merging of BHP Petroleum with Woodside, and that was given to us in the form of Woodside shares. We still have to account for that as an income, as dividend, even though there was no cash involved. If you strip that out and also strip out the de-merger dividend from the prior years. Apologies for these moving parts. We've had two unusual years in this respect. The profit was actually up 31%.
In terms of earnings per share, it would have been AUD 0.143 this year. The reason why I'm harping on about that is that AUD 0.143 that really the directors look at when considering the dividend for the year, that and the yield objective. The AUD 0.1375 dividend for the year, which is the figures below, that compares to that AUD 0.143, I guess you'd call it underlying earnings, for want of a better word. That does give us a yield on the portfolio of 6.7%, which has grossed up for franking credits on that portfolio. I should note, Brett and Olga will be going through in some of the moving elements of the P&L in more detail, and the figures they use exclude those merger and de-merger dividends.
If anybody does have any more questions on that and is coming along to the AGM, very happy to go through it with them then. Management expense ratio continued at 0.45%. That's AUD 0.45 for every AUD 100 that a shareholder has invested. The MER is based on the average portfolio value. As the portfolio value comes down, the MER would go up. Even if the expenses go down and the portfolio value is lower, that MER can go up. We'll need to keep an eye on that this year for that very reason. Portfolio return as a whole down 6.5%. Again, we'll come on to some of that in more detail later.
Of course, that's meant that the total portfolio value is down to AUD 783 million at the end of June compared to AUD 840 million the year before. One final thing for me before I hand over to Brett. I know many people ask, after we paid that AUD 0.07 final dividend, we have franking capacity to pay roughly AUD 0.245 per share dividend. I would say that Djerriwarrh has a good reserve of franking credits to see us through the short to medium term. With that, I'll hand over to the portfolio manager, Brett McNeill.
Thanks, Andrew. Good afternoon, everyone. Moving to slide 10. Here we aim to give shareholders hopefully a better understanding of the drivers of Djerriwarrh's profit and dividend, the metrics that Andrew just ran through. What we've presented here on slide 10 is a simplified version of our profit and loss statement. The focus being the net operating result, excluding the merger and de-merger non-cash income that Andrew talked about. Really because we believe this is a better profit measure as a basis for our dividend. Stepping through this profit and loss statement and starting with the two key drivers of Djerriwarrh's revenue and net operating result, and we can see the dividend and distribution income was up 41% to AUD 30.7 million, and our option income was up 3% to AUD 12.5 million.
This drove operating income, when you include some other income items, up 27% to AUD 43.2 million. From there, our expense lines only grew modestly during the year, which was pleasing. Finance and administration costs were up 2%, and our income tax expense was up 5%. This produced a bottom-line net operating result, again, ex any non-cash merger, de-merger dividends of AUD 33.9 million, which was up 36% versus the prior year. On a per share basis, the net operating result was up 31% to AUD 0.143, and our full year total dividend was up 25% to AUD 0.1375. Hopefully this slide and stepping through the key items gives a better understanding to shareholders of the components and the key drivers of our net operating results.
We also wanted to show that this year's total dividend of AUD 0.1375 has been set at what we think is a very sustainable level, given it's well covered by the AUD 0.143 of net operating profit per share. The next two slides give some further details on our two key revenue items. On slide 11, we look at our dividend and distribution income. This is the income that we receive from the stocks held in our investment portfolio, and it was up 41% from last year, helped by dividend payments, especially from the banks that recovered from pandemic lows, and also aided by some very strong dividend payments by BHP and Rio, benefiting from high iron ore prices. We also show here the five-year history in the left-hand chart of our dividend and distribution income received.
The right-hand chart shows our income expressed as a dividend yield, which are the green bars, against the dividend yield of the market, which is the blue bars. Just for a bit of further context, our expectation from here is that at the portfolio level, so the portfolio of stocks that we hold and the dividend income that it produces, we think that income yield will continue to be around the level of the market, like we've seen in this financial year. Looking now at the performance of our other key revenue item being our option income on slide 12. This is the income that we generate from writing call and put options against the companies we own in the investment portfolio.
The financial year 2022 result for option income was up 3% on the prior year, and we consider this to be a very pleasing result, especially when considered in the context of the five-year history, which we also show here in the left-hand chart, and also when measured in terms of an income yield, which we show in the right-hand chart of slide 12. Moving on to slide 13. This covers the key balance sheet metrics. The value of the investment portfolio fell 8% from the prior year as a result of the fall in the share market, and this translated to an 11% fall in our net tangible asset value, which finished the financial year at AUD 2.95 per share. Again, these metrics can be seen in the context of the last five years in the charts that we've put on slide 13.
Hopefully, this has given some more detail as well as better historical context on Djerriwarrh's key drivers, as well as our key profit and balance sheet metrics. I'll now pass over to Olga, who will give an update on the Djerriwarrh portfolio.
Thank you, Brett, and good afternoon, everyone. On slide 15, we show the performance of the market in the financial year 2022, overlaid with the top-down view of our portfolio's call option coverage. We write call options against selected portfolio holdings and manage these positions daily in response to market conditions and our view on the company's valuation. The market was very strong between July and August 2021, and as such, we were gradually increasing our portfolio call option coverage to 39%. This was mostly driven by increased coverage in banks and selected industrial companies. Between September and December 2021, inflationary pressures were building up, with strong demand outpacing strained supply chains, driving valuations to all-time highs. In response, we started increasing option coverage across selected consumer discretionary and technology companies.
In the first three weeks of this calendar year, the ASX 200 fell 9%, which we used as an opportunity to close out a number of our call option positions to lock in profits. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022 translated to high commodity prices, which saw us increasing option coverage across Woodside Energy, BHP and Santos. Since April, the market has been falling as the RBA began increasing the official cash rate and recession concerns started to build. Our option coverage activity was centered around closing out profitable call option positions and writing put options in selective high-quality companies that we would like to buy more of. We finished the year with portfolio call option coverage at 28%. On slide 16, we show a snapshot of our major transactions in FY 22.
On the left side, we show the key sales, which include both active selling as well as option exercises. During the year, we exited APA, Endeavour Group and AUB Group as our long-term investment thesis for these companies has either changed or played out. We also reduced our weight in Brambles and had to bid farewell to Sydney Airport, one of the highest quality assets in our portfolio, as it was taken over. In FY22, key option exercises included Macquarie Group, NAB, Woolworths, Amcor and ASX. Noting we still hold these companies in our portfolio. Most of these option exercises happened in the first half of the financial year when markets were strong. In the second half, we have been mostly closing out profitable call option positions and redistributing freed-up capital to the companies on the right side of the slide.
As always, the key focus for us is to construct a diversified portfolio of high-quality companies with an appropriate balance of income and growth, so we can deliver on our investment objectives over the long term. During the year, we have bought or added to companies that pay attractive, often fully franked dividend yields at attractive prices. For example, JB Hi-Fi, SCA Property Group, Wesfarmers, Commonwealth Bank and BHP. All these companies are high quality companies with strong balance sheets and competitive positions. We also added to companies that have excellent long-term growth prospects, but below average dividend yields. REA Group, Domino's, Cochlear, James Hardie, and Macquarie Group. On slide 17, we show some of our portfolio's key statistics and key holdings as of 30 June 2022.
On the left side, we show that we finished the year with a call option coverage of 28%, which is lower than our long-term average coverage. This is because we have been very active in closing out profitable call option positions before their expiry dates, as the market has been selling off since April. We have been selectively rewriting option coverage in response to higher volatility we have recently experienced. Higher volatility translates to higher option premiums we receive as call option sellers. However, this benefit is somewhat offset by the market remaining at lower levels as compared to last year. We also have AUD 13 million of put option exposure, which is around 2% of our portfolio. We write put options in high quality companies we would like to buy more of at attractive prices. On the right side, we show our top 20 holdings.
We own a good mix of companies spread across different sectors. Our companies have above average dividend yields and solid long-term growth prospects, which positions us well to deliver on our objectives in a variety of market conditions. With that, I will now hand back to Brett.
Thanks, Olga. Moving to slide 19. Here we aim to give some insights into really how we're seeing things at the moment, especially in terms of Djerriwarrh's two key revenue items, being the dividend and distribution income as well as the option income. As we know, equity market conditions have changed dramatically recently. We saw some sharp falls at the start of this calendar year, that continued on in the last couple of months, and as a result, we've had a significant downward repricing of equities. Against this backdrop, we remain really confident in the quality and the diversification of our investment portfolio. Our outlook for dividends is actually quite positive, especially over the medium term, particularly when we look at the positioning of balance sheets and dividend payout ratios across the companies in our portfolio.
In the short term, the factors that have caused the equity market to fall this year being really inflation and the prospect of much higher interest rates, do mean that there's a risk of reported results and outlook statements disappointing, particularly in the case we think of consumer discretionary companies. For this reason, the upcoming company profit reporting season, which takes place next month, will likely provide us with a number of insights into the likely impact on company profits and dividends. For that reason, we expect to be in a better position to assess the impact on an outlook for our dividend and distribution income post this reporting season.
In terms of our option income, equity market volatility has increased this year, and that, as well as higher interest rates, are positive factors for our ability to earn option premiums as a seller of call and put options. Balancing that out somewhat is the likelihood that we might have lower call option coverage, particularly if the market remains at these lower levels compared to last year. That's the, we think, the key moving parts in the short term. Long term though, we really believe that the current portfolio settings that we've got, as well as, that quality and diversification of the investment portfolio that we've highlighted, should set us up really well to deliver on our long-term objectives.
With that outlook, I'll now pass to Jeff, who's going to cover slide 20, which looks at the share purchase plan that we announced today.
Thanks, Brett. Just a quick word before we go to questions and answers. The board has decided to announce a share purchase plan, which is announced today. The details are there on the slide. I guess the key features of it really are that the shares that issue under the share purchase plan will rank equally for future dividends. It will rank for the upcoming interim dividend. The issue price will be the lower of AUD 2.78, which was set as of yesterday, or the discount of 2.5% prior to the close, using the volume-weighted average price of the five ASX trading days up to and including the day on which SPP is scheduled to close.
The board believes it's a good opportunity to put additional funds into the market, make the company bigger, help lower the MER, which Andrew spoke about earlier on. You can see the offer closes on the Thursday, the eighteenth of August. The shares are expected to be issued towards the end of August, which again gives us a good opportunity to put those funds into the market at what we think is an opportune time. With that, we'll finish the formal part of the presentation, and we'll go on to any questions that may have arisen. Just quickly, got a question here about interest rates. In terms of interest rates and the
How it interacts with the option activity, how do you see that sort of playing out over the next 12 months if interest rates continue to rise as they are, have been recently?
All else being equal, higher interest rates result in higher option premiums. If we move into a higher interest rate environment, which, everything that the market's pricing and we're seeing would suggest that we will, all else being equal, that should be a positive for our ability to earn option income. The two key kind of macro influences on option premiums are interest rates that we just covered, but also, and more importantly, volatility levels. If both of those move higher, all else being equal, our ability to earn option income, being a seller of call and put options, should be improved.
Got a question here about the outlook for China and potentially a slowdown in China. How do you see that potentially impacting the portfolio?
Yeah, I can start with that one. I mean, the main impact for our portfolio is clearly the resource companies that we own. BHP and Rio, they've been big beneficiaries of some terrific iron ore prices, and that has led to great dividends and really strong balance sheets at the moment. I'd say a slowdown is certainly in the market's thinking at the moment. I don't think the market is pricing at all iron ore prices staying as high as they are. Market's expecting them to revert downwards over time, and by extension, for BHP and Rio's dividends to fall over time. Of course, that is before they do anything with their strong balance sheets at the moment.
It's always out there as a factor and a risk, but both companies are positioned well at the moment, and I'd say it's a big part of it is priced in.
The other thing you mentioned in terms of dividends was the banks, clearly. What do you sort of see as the outlook for the banks potentially over the next 12 months? We've got rising interest rates and potentially a slowing economy. How do you see that playing out in terms of banks' performance and potential dividends?
Yeah. Yeah, always an issue for our market and the portfolio. A bit of context, the banks at the moment are about 14% of our investment portfolio, so they're a good contributor to our dividend and distribution income, but also our option income, because we do write options very actively against the big four banks. At the moment, we think they look fine because they've been sold off a lot in the last couple of months, as the market's been concerned about, you know, macroeconomic concerns on the housing market, what interest rates will do. Of course, offsetting that, the banks are actually a beneficiary of higher interest rates through their net interest margins. They've got that to offset that somewhat. I'd say all.
Trying to balance it out, we do take a bit of comfort at the moment from the way the banks are positioned. They've got strong capital levels. They've got good bad debt provisioning. I think the quality of the loan book is better. They haven't had supercharged loan growth over the last couple of years, so they go into this really from a position of strength. On all the data that we see and talking to management teams, the average customer of the bank is actually well ahead on mortgage repayments, and has quite a low loan-to-value ratio. We think they're pretty well positioned from here, certainly in the short term. I'd say the dividends from the banks the next 12 months look reasonably solid.
Just, test if there's any questions on the phone at this point of time, operator.
If you wish to ask questions on the phone, please slowly press star then one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced.
Thank you. With the market the way it is, where do you see the opportunities potentially in the next 12 months for further investment or what sectors are you sort of looking at in terms of potential opportunities?
Yes. Where we sit right now, share purchase plan proceeds we get in late August. The market, if it remains around these levels, we'd look to put it to work pretty quickly. We think it's a good time to invest in quality companies. Valuations are much more reasonable now, with the market having come back. In terms of priorities, we might add one or two new stocks to the portfolio, but the focus is to increase our existing holdings, the investments that we've got in a number of our existing holdings. We'd probably look to add, you know, in a meaningful way to between 10-20 of the companies that we own in the current investment portfolio.
Thanks, Brett. Got a question here about Reece and Fineos, which clearly the share prices have come down quite substantially. How do you rate those particular companies?
Yeah. Reece we think is a really high-quality company. It's got a great track record, founder-led business, which is what we like. They've made a move into the U.S., which clearly carries extra risk, but huge opportunity if they can get it right. They're doing it in a very measured way. They've had some good results to date, and the share price has come back a lot. That would be one that would fall into the bucket of when I say we'd look to add to, we might look to add to some of our key existing holdings. I think that could fit the bill there.
Thanks, Brett. Fineos is an owner-driver business that was listed in 2019, but the company really was founded almost three decades ago. Just as a reminder, it's a leading global provider of software for the life, accident and health insurance sector. The global opportunity for Fineos is really large as the insurance sector shifts from legacy systems to modern cloud-based operating systems. COVID-19 delayed the pipeline of new deals for the company, and the company got caught up in a market sell-off that.
Punished companies that are yet to be profitable. Despite this weak share price performance, we are really comfortable with our long-term investment thesis for the business, noting that CSL CEO has been buying shares from the market himself as well.
Thanks, Olga. Just a reminder, participants, you can ask a question using the question tab at the top right-hand side of the screen. We have a question on the phone, I understand. Operator, can you pass the question through, please?
Sure, Tommy. We've got a question from the line of Darrell Simpson of W.B. Simpson. Please go ahead.
My question is, if the Reserve Bank keeps increasing the interest rates, the effect of that will be depressing on the portfolio and therefore likely to reduce the NTA. Hello?
Yes. It's Mark Freeman here. Look, that's possible. The market, the share market tends to price in ahead of time events to the extent you can see it. Obviously, if you look from its peak, the Australian market's fallen probably 13%-14%. The U.S. market's from its peak probably off about 20%. Now, I think fundamentally, both markets were overvalued, but I think the catalyst for that pullback has been the expectation of these rate rises. The market therefore will probably move more in terms of their expectations on rates if that changes from what it is or from what it is at the moment.
If you look at the forward curves, I think it's 3%-3.5% is where the market's expecting rates to get to, which is obviously a substantial lift from where we are now.
Yes.
I think probably the other factor, though, that might drive the market more is what happens with earnings as a result. If rising rates impacts businesses, whether it's through its inflationary costs or because sales of products have slowed and companies have to downgrade profits. That always has an impact on share prices. Brett talked about that we're seeing fairer value in the market, but we wouldn't say it's necessarily cheap. That pullback, when we look at price to sales or price to book or even PE indicates a fairer market value. In this environment, you know, we wouldn't be surprised if we actually get opportunities lower than what we are seeing at the moment.
We think the share purchase plan will give us an opportunity to capture that, either paying fair value or hopefully buying cheaper prices going forward. You know, we're a long-term investor. You know, we've seen these ups and downs in the cycles over time. This is nothing new. It does make us cautious in the short term, but these are the normal ups and downs of markets. This is what equity markets go through all the time. Despite that, companies get on and run the business. They're always driven to improve profits despite what the economic settings are. The companies will come through this period. This has been proven time and time.
That's why being a long-term investor in equities has been a rewarding experience for the patient investors and those that are steady enough to buy when they see sell-offs.
Yeah. To pick up on that and give a couple of examples of actual companies in the portfolio. The bottom-up view, I suppose, to complement Mark's top-down view. We picked two of the more interest rate sensitive sectors, so real estate and infrastructure. I mean, the stocks that we own in those sectors have, we think, strong balance sheets. That's been a key consideration throughout all of this. We never went into, for instance, real estate stocks that have the highest dividend yields, but the riskiest balance sheet, quite the opposite. You know, our holding in BWP Trust is a prime example of that. I mean, it owns Bunnings Warehouse, high quality tenant covenant, very low gearing. The lowest gearing in the real estate sector, and they haven't chased the cost of debt down as much as they could have.
They've got a really healthy buffer to absorb interest rate increases, and it won't affect earnings much, we anticipate. On the infrastructure side, I'd say Transurban has definitely carried more debt as it expanded over the last few years. Again, they've set their cost of debt at a level that has a clear buffer to the record low interest rates that we've seen over the last few years because they've deliberately wanted to run a strong balance sheet in case this sort of environment happened.
Thanks, Brett. Pass this one to Andrew, if I can. Please, can we comment on the liabilities you carry and how these are justified, especially in the falling market? Also, will the share purchase plan process be used to reduce liabilities?
I think by that, we're probably talking about the bank debt, which was AUD 89 million at the end of June, compared to AUD 65 million. That's a little bit up on average, but certainly not out of the ballpark from what we've historically had. Djerriwarrh has always been a geared portfolio. We seek to use gearing to drive those higher returns. You can borrow and then invest in something that is paying you more than the interest cost. That helps with the gearing. The other thing I'd say, as the market comes down, of course, that is exactly the time that you want to be borrowing or raising money in order to be able to invest in the market, in order to be able to drive your average cost lower, and invest.
In answer to the second part of the question, yes, that's why we have liquidity facilities. We're nowhere near tapping those out, but we have them so we don't need to sell when we need to buy. In the short term, yes, some of that SPP proceeds may be used to pay back the gearing, until such time as we can find something else that we want to invest, in which case it might go up. I would say we are always modestly geared in terms of the broader picture. The levels may change about, but I would describe those gearing levels as modest.
Thank you. Question on gold. Is gold on our radar at this point in time?
Yeah, it is on our radar. We don't own any gold stocks in the portfolio. It doesn't mean we never will. We're doing some work on it at the moment because gold price where it is, but also the gold stocks, particularly the large cap, have been sold off. I can see how they might have a place in our portfolio. They do pay a reasonable dividend yield. Newcrest and Northern Star, two of the, you know, the large cap Aussie gold stocks have dividend yields of between sort of 2%-4% with some franking on top. They might have a place in the portfolio, but it's one that we'll do more work on, particularly at this point in time. We think it is on our radar. It's quite a pressing question.
We'll see if any of the SPP proceeds go into stocks in that sector.
Thanks, Brett. Still got a couple of related questions here. One was about any comments on the proposed takeover of Suncorp by ANZ? I guess the other part of that question is, do we anticipate taking up any of the ANZ new rights issue?
Yeah. No, very topical with the takeover yesterday. ANZ is the smallest of our holdings in the banks. We don't have a huge exposure, and at this stage we won't be taking up our rights. The raising has been structured as a renounceable rights issue, which I think to credit to the board at least, if you don't take up your rights, you can get some value given the renounceable structure, which I think is a positive. That's our position now. Look, we can see what ANZ are trying to do, but it's not hugely compelling to us, particularly with the price that they've paid. They're very adamant that they can deliver on a lot of cost synergies and if they can make that work, then the acquisition definitely washes its face.
At the moment, we've elected to pass.
Thanks, Brett. Question here on Woodside. Do you hold any Woodside as it seems you have a solid, large percentage of the BHP petroleum demerger? What is your opinion regarding Woodside over the next few years?
Thank you, Jeff. Yes, we do hold Woodside in our portfolio. Our weight is around 1.2%. In terms of selling, we have been exercising Woodside shares as the share price has performed really strongly this calendar year following the invasion in Ukraine, and we also have trimmed some of our holdings. In the short term, our outlook for oil and gas and oil and gas companies, including Woodside, is very positive. We see supply pressures on the back of the war in Ukraine and sanctions based on Russia really supporting these prices. This is despite the market's concern around demand erosion due to a potential recession. That will be really beneficial for Woodside, and that should translate to really strong cash flow.
Also, following the merger, Woodside's balance sheet is in a much better position to support their growth projects going forward. In saying that, we do recognize that commodities prices are mean reverting and shareholder returns in this sector have been poor if you look for the cycle. We do have option coverage that is quite high in Woodside and in the long-term view in the long term, we actively monitoring that trade-off between our contrasting short-term and long-term view on the sector, and we'll adjust our weight accordingly.
Thank you, Olga. We might start wrapping up the questions here. I've got a couple more. What do we see in Macquarie as we increase the investment in that part of the, in that particular company?
Yeah, really high quality company. It's got exposure to some terrific trends and fundamentals such as, the energy transition towards renewables, where Macquarie has got a market-leading position and one that they've built over a number of years, as opposed to just coming in and acquiring something now. The asset management business has been a wonderful performer, particularly MIRA. You know, again, a market leader in infrastructure funds management, and they've taken a lot of market share through their banking and financial services business in the Australian mortgage market. And then the big driver the last couple of years, the commodities and global markets business has benefited hugely. So overall, it's a high quality, diversified global investment bank/asset manager, and we rate the management team led by Shemara really highly.
It was a terrific performer for a lot of the last 18 months as the share price ran up to reach a high of AUD 220. We got exercised on a number of our call options, hence our weighting in the portfolio was reduced. As the share price has come back to AUD 160 recently, we've taken that opportunity to add to Macquarie and start to build the position up because we think it's a great long-term investment.
Thank you, Brett. A quick question on this investment company, capital gains in the dividends. Is there any, Andrew?
Not this year, no. There are two ways we can get LIC gains. One is by realizing the gains ourselves, and we've still got some realized losses from prior years that we need to utilize. When we actually receive LIC gains from other LICs that we've got shares in. We managed to get some out.
last time, but, we don't have enough through that particular channel yet to attach anything to this dividend. The answer is not this time.
Thanks, Andrew.
Question. Sometimes with these questions about agricultural stocks, do we hold any in the portfolio? Yeah. No.
No. Agriculture can be a good theme. Historically, in the equity market, it hasn't been a great investment in a lot of cases. It's tended to be more of a trading opportunity, given that it is so cyclical. For us, that's less compelling, given we're much more a buy and hold investor. Certainly, the reasons why we add stocks to the investment portfolio, and yes, our positions can change a lot, but that's really because of the option exercises rather than us actively trading positions of that option. It's not a huge focus for us at the moment, no.
Olga, you mentioned about exiting Endeavour in the presentation. I guess the reasons behind that?
Thank you, Jeff. Just as a reminder, Endeavour Group came to our portfolio via its demerger from Woolworths last year. It's the leading retail drinks and hospitality business in Australia. We think that Dan Murphy's is a high-quality business and a category killer. Our main concern really for the company is their exposure to gaming machines, which we think will face further structural and ESG pressures in the long term. Because of that, we had a really high option coverage in the company, around 100%. We got exercised multiple times in this company, and then we chose to sell the remaining weight in our portfolio. It was very small.
Thank you, Olga. Well, we don't have any further questions, so Mark, I will hand over you just to wrap up.
Okay. Just want to thank everyone for joining this call. Our interaction with shareholders is a really important part of our role, and at this point planning to have our AGM in Melbourne, Matthew?
Yes.
Yes. This will be our first chance to interact with shareholders in a couple of years now, so we're really looking forward to that. Hopefully it goes ahead, and encourage you to please come and attend and join in.
Note, Mark, we have the shareholder meetings hopefully happening around the country as well, so.
Yeah, that's right. We're hoping to get around to each of the major cities, again, to make ourselves accountable to shareholders. With that, we thank you again for your attendance, and look forward to meeting you soon.
Thank you.
Thank you.
That does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may dis-