Hello and welcome to the Djerriwarrh Financial Results Briefing. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. All questions will be taken via the webcast. If you'd like to ask a question at that time, please enter your questions in the Ask Questions box located at the bottom of the webcast window. I'd now like to hand the presentations over to Mr. Geoff Driver, General Manager, Business Development and Investor Relations at Djerriwarrh Investments. Thank you. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. As I said, my name is Geoff Driver, the General Manager, Business Development for Djerriwarrh Investments. Welcome to this half-year result briefing. Firstly, I'd like to thank those shareholders who have joined us again after the abandonment of last week's webinar. Thank you for your patience. Unfortunately, the difficulties we experienced last week were well out of our control. Actually, this is the first time it actually has happened in many years of doing these briefings with this provider. We are assured it won't happen again. I would like to start the formal part of the presentation by acknowledging the traditional owners and custodians from all the lands we are gathered on today and pay our respects to their elders, both past, present, and emerging.
I have joining me today on the webinar Brett McNeill, who's the Portfolio Manager, Olga Kosciuczyk, who's the Assistant Portfolio Manager, Andrew Porter, our CFO, and Matthew Rowe, our Company Secretary. Just to note that Mark Freeman, the CEO of Djerriwarrh could not join us today given he has another commitment that could not be changed. Before we start, as we've been reminded, the presentation is available on the website. If you're using a computer to access the presentation via the webcast, the slides will change automatically. If you're accessing by phone, the PDFs, oh, actually, no one's accessing by phone, so that's right. Finally, please note that the following presentation, there will be time for questions and answers. You can ask a question via the webcast. I will now move to slide two, which is the disclaimer.
This disclaimer is really just to say that we are not offering personal advice. This is information about the company and how we're managing the company on behalf of our shareholders. So none of the information here should be taken as personal advice for any of those people participating in the webinar. If I go to slide next slide, just an overview of how we'll run today. So I'll give a briefing on the overview and objectives. Andrew Porter, our CFO, will run through the half-year in summary. Brett McNeill will cover the results in detail. Both Brett and Olga will give an update on the portfolio, and then Brett will go and discuss the outlook. So if I go to slide five, just a reminder, Djerriwarrh is one of the largest listed investment companies focusing on income in the Australian market.
It was established quite some time ago in 1989 and listed on the ASX in 1995. Shareholders get the full benefit of all full transparency associated with being a LIC, as well as high governance standards delivered by an independent board of directors. Shareholders own the management rights to the company. Therefore, there's no fee leakage to third parties and no additional fees. What we're basically saying here is no external fund manager running the business or running the portfolio. And so there's no fee leakage like there is across a number of other, I guess, newer LICs in the market, which charge 0.8%-1% in terms of fees plus performance fees. So the next slide covers the investment objectives. So the two main objectives of Djerriwarrh is to provide an enhanced level of fully franked yield, and that's the chart on the left-hand side of the slide.
You can see here that's much higher than what's available from the ASX 200 index, both in terms of the net asset backing, but also in terms of the share price as well, given the share price is trading at a bit of a discount at the moment. That gap's about 1.9%. Brett and Olga will talk a bit later on how that's achieved in terms of the management of the portfolio. The other part of the objective really is to provide capital growth over that longer term. We're not just focused on income. You can see over that sort of five- and 10-year period, we have actually delivered capital growth, albeit below the index, but still delivering that capital growth, which is one of the objectives of the company.
Again, Brett and Olga will discuss a bit later on how that's been managed in context of the very strong market that we've been through more recently. If I turn to the next slide, slide seven, again, this is just a slide that most shareholders will be familiar with. It's where the share price is trading relative to the net asset backing of the company. And you can see there that, in fact, over 12 months ago, we were trading quite a discount. We managed to pull that back a bit. There's probably a few factors behind that. One is that we've certainly increased the marketing around Djerriwarrh over the last 12 to 18 months. We also bought back some shares at particular times through the market cycle, which I think has also probably helped that to some extent.
The other comment I'd make is that typically listed investment companies, there's certainly a lot of them trading at discounts at the moment, even across this group. But in very strong markets, what we tend to find is that the LIC share price does tend to trade a little bit below NTA in terms of trying to keep up with the market. But also investors, I think, are more confident in going and investing in their own right in particular stocks. And therefore, LICs, traditionally traditional LICs, do go out of favour every so often. With that, I'll hand over to Andrew Porter to discuss the half-year in summary. Over to you, Andrew.
Thank you, Geoff. And good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. So we're on slide nine for those of you that are following. And the four boxes there, let me just run quickly through them. So net operating result for the half-year, AUD 21 million. That excludes the open option positions. And we'll have a look at the breakdown of that result later on with Brett and Olga. So that was slightly down from AUD 21.9 million in 2023. As I'm sure you're all aware, the interim dividend was kept at AUD 0.0725 despite the drop in the net operating result. The management expense ratio, 0.46%, that's AUD 0.46 for every AUD 100 that you have invested in the company. We still consider that a very good value. We did say at the AGM the costs were likely to be higher this year.
Because this is the cost for the half-year over the average portfolio, that is why the MER has gone up. Number of reasons for that. The profit from AICS, which is the service company that employs everybody. Djerriwarrh owns 25% of that. The profit was less this half-year than previous years. So that actually impacts the costs of Djerriwarrh. It had a lower refund from AICS this year than it did in the prior years. There's also some one-off costs from share registry transfer. I'm sure you're all aware that the share registry is transferred over to the organization formerly known as Link. And there are some upfront costs associated with that, but it will be cheaper for shareholders going forward once we've got over this hump of the one-off costs.
Also, as you have seen, the portfolio remains, and Brett and Olga will talk about this, ungeared at the moment. The portfolio is less than perhaps it otherwise might have been if it had been fully geared. That also translates into an MER being higher than perhaps would have been anticipated. The portfolio dividend yield, 6.4% against the market of 4.5% when grossed up for franking, and Geoff's been through those figures. Now, one quick thing. We're often asked about this. What is our franking credit reserves? At the end of June, you'll recall if you read the annual report that we had AUD 0.204 after the payment of the final dividend. Because we're paying out slightly less than the net operating result per share, which is just under AUD 0.08, that franking balance has effectively been maintained going forward. That is at a healthy position.
Also, for those of you that have seen the accounts, at the moment we have a tax liability of AUD 5 million. That will also translate into franking credits if and when it is paid to that amount or whatever the amount will be. So with that, I will pass over to Brett. Thank you.
Thanks, Andrew. And good afternoon, everybody. Thanks very much for joining our presentation today. So I'll start on slide 11, where we present a more detailed run-through of the net operating result that Andrew just touched on. So we show here on slide 11 how the profit for this period was derived, so a full breakdown, as well as how the profit per share flows through to the dividend per share. So we can see how that flows through. And just noting again that the focus here is on the net operating profit being what we think a better measure of Djerriwarrh's operating profit performance as well as the basis for the dividend that we declare. So the overall picture for this half-period's result was we had a smaller investment portfolio, which Andrew touched on, and this was given our net cash positions that we held during the period.
That led to lower dividend and lower option income. But this was partly offset by higher other income, which was mainly deposit revenue from our cash on deposit, as well as lower financing costs. If we step through the numbers here on slide 11, you can see dividend and distribution income down 8% to AUD 17.9 million, and option income down 21% to AUD 7.5 million. When we include other income, which was mainly the deposit revenue, we saw operating income down 9% to AUD 26.3 million. Working through the costs, finance costs down 71% to AUD 0.8 million from our net cash position, and administration costs up 16%, as Andrew mentioned, to AUD 2.1 million. Income tax expense was up 6% to AUD 2.5 mil. At the bottom line, the net operating result was AUD 21 million, down 4% versus the prior corresponding period.
On a per-share basis, the net operating result down 5% to AUD 0.0796, with the dividend per share flat at AUD 0.0725 per share. Hopefully this gives you a better picture of how we derived the profit for this period, but also pointing out that we can see the dividend of AUD 0.0725 is more than covered by the net operating profit result, which we think highlights the sustainability of the dividend. Quite a good position to be in. The next two slides give some more detail on the two key drivers of our net operating result, which are the dividend and distribution income. This is the income that we receive from the companies we own in the investment portfolio. Secondly, the option income, which is the income we earn from our option writing activities.
Looking at our dividend income on slide 12, on the left-hand side, we show the dollar amount of dividend and distribution income received over the last five half-year periods. The right-hand chart shows how this income looks as a percentage of our portfolio size. So that's the green bar, measured against the dividend yield of the share market, being the ASX 200, and they're the blue bars. And as we can see, the first half 2025 result saw the portfolio's dividend yield well above the market's dividend yield, the ASX 200. And some of the key drivers for our dividend income that we received in the period were from some of our big holdings like Telstra, Transurban, and Woodside. And it was also helped by special dividends from Woolworths and JB Hi-Fi.
From here, we expect that the portfolio's dividend yield will be at or slightly above the market level over the long term on average. Slide 13 shows our option income, so a similar type of analysis. The left-hand chart shows the option income that we've earned over the last five half-year periods. The right-hand chart shows this option income that measured as a yield of our investment portfolio value. The first half 2025 option income yield was about 1.7%. Consistent with how we've described it in recent results, we continue to expect that this option income yield will be around 1.5%-2% on average in the future, noting that this option income yield is a key part of the overall enhanced dividend yield that we aim to deliver for Djerriwarrh. We'll now move to the portfolio update section.
And here, Olga will give some more detail on some of the key moves in the option portfolio during the period. And she'll also talk through the key changes that we've made to the investment portfolio. And then I'll come back to give a summary of the portfolio and make some comments on the outlook.
Thank you, Brett, and good afternoon, everyone. Our main investment objective is to pay our shareholders an enhanced dividend yield, and to achieve that goal, we generate income by writing call options against select portfolio holdings. On this slide, we show the performance of the market as defined by our benchmark, the ASX 200 index, overlaid with the top-down view of our portfolio's call option coverage. We started this financial year with call option coverage of 28%, just below the bottom end of our normal range of 30%-40%. We increased the coverage to 34% in early August in response to the ASX 200 index rising above 8,100 points, and as the market continued to perform strongly during the half, we maintained high portfolio option coverage between 40% and 45%.
This saw us generate a good level of option income, but it weighed on our performance, given reduced exposure to equities, especially major banks and JB Hi-Fi, which we had significant option exercises in. We finished the calendar year with call option coverage of 41% and entered the second half with a good amount of option premium in the book. On slide 16, we show our key recent transactions. We had significant option exercises across banks: Commonwealth Bank, NAB, Westpac, and Macquarie Bank, as well as JB Hi-Fi. We consider these companies to be high quality but expensive in terms of valuation. As such, we chose not to buy these stocks back following the option exercises. As a result, our combined holding across these companies reduced from around AUD 250 million 12 months ago to just AUD 60 million at the end of the first half of financial year 2025.
We also were exercising calls but chose to buy the holding back. We were also active sellers of our small remaining holdings in Ramsay Health Care and FINEOS, both of which have been disappointing investments for us. And finally, during that period, we sold out of Mineral Resources. We were extremely disappointed in the company's corporate governance practices, which saw us lose confidence in this investment. And as a result, we decided to exit the position. We reinvested the capital realized from these sales in what we consider to be high-quality companies trading at attractive prices. We also retained some cash for future opportunities, given our view that the market is looking expensive. Our largest purchases for the first half of this financial year were two large diversified miners, Rio Tinto and BHP. We consider them to have high-quality assets, management, and strong balance sheets.
Both companies have been mainstays of the portfolio for a long time, but we increased our holding substantially, given both companies are trading at attractive valuations on the back of the market's concern about iron ore demand-supply dynamics, given slowing economic growth in China, the key importer of iron ore. We believe that these risks are reflected at those prices and know that both companies offer above-market, fully franked dividend yields of around 8%. We also added to our holdings in supermarkets, Woolworths, and Coles, as they faced intense regulatory and media scrutiny during the year, providing us with opportunities to add to our holding at attractive valuations, which in our view underappreciate the quality of these companies, especially the defensive nature of their earnings. We also increased our exposure to gold via our holding in Newmont Corporation.
Finally, we added one new holding during the period, Ampol, which was formerly known as Caltex. Ampol is Australia's leading vertically integrated energy company. It operates businesses across convenience retail in Australia and New Zealand, as well as the refining, supply, and marketing of fuel. We believe that Ampol is a better business today compared to five years ago. The earnings mix is better, the balance sheet is solid, the quality of the network has improved, and management have demonstrated good capital allocation and discipline. Ampol primarily offers our portfolio an attractive level of dividend income, especially if trading conditions in the refining business improve from the current cyclically low levels.
Thanks, Olga. So turning to slide 17, and we show here a summary of the Djerriwarrh portfolio, starting with some key metrics on the left-hand side as at the end of the period, so end of December 2024. We can see the portfolio's value was AUD 860 million across 45 stocks owned. Call option exposure, as Olga mentioned, finished the period at 41%, and minimal put option exposure of 0.5%. And so this added up to a net tangible asset backing per share of AUD 3.39. And as Geoff mentioned at the start, the share price still trades at a discount, albeit a reduced discount to that AUD 3.39 per share NTA value. On the right-hand side of slide 17, we show the top 20 holdings in Djerriwarrh, starting with BHP, the largest holding in the portfolio by value.
You can see here the impact of the portfolio changes that Olga just discussed, particularly there's no Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, or JB Hi-Fi in our top 20 anymore, whereas they previously were particularly big holdings 12 and 18 months ago. Even stocks that we still own that are core holdings, I guess, for Djerriwarrh, like Wesfarmers, Macquarie Group, National Australia Bank, they're in the top 20, but they're much lower down in terms of the size than they were 12 and 18 months ago. Overall, though, we think the portfolio has got the right balance of income and growth to this point in time, and particularly we see it as defensively positioned.
From that portfolio summary to some outlook comments that we list on slide 19, the backdrop is, as we enter calendar year 2025, that we think the equity markets have had a very good run. 2024 was another strong year for the ASX 200, but we think it leaves the market looking expensive to us, particularly when we look at how the market's trading at the moment versus long-term averages, so 10 years plus on some key fundamental valuation metrics like price-earnings ratio, price-to-book ratio, and especially important for Djerriwarrh, the dividend yield of the market being very low at the moment at about 3.5%. Based on that sort of top-down view, particularly combined with our bottom-up analysis and stock views, we're conservatively positioned at the moment. That's the main thing we'd highlight today.
We're conservatively positioned, and you can see that in our higher-than-average call option coverage across the portfolio at 41%, and we've got a net cash position. So we think that gives us the potential to take advantage of some good investment opportunities should they present at some point in the near future. So that's overall our view on markets and how we're positioned.
If we look at the two key drivers of our profit and by extension the dividend that we pay, which is really our dividend income and our option income, you can see in terms of the dividend income, the portfolio changes that we talked through mean that we're a lot more reliant on the top companies listed on slide 17 now for our dividend income, particularly large resource stocks like BHP, Rio, and Woodside, supermarkets, Coles, and Woolworths, as well as stocks that we classify as high-quality defensive stalwart-type companies like Transurban, Telstra, and Region Property Group. And then on the other side, we're significantly less reliant on the banks for our dividend income at this point. In terms of our option income, it's a key part of our enhanced yield, and the option book is in good shape.
We've got a good amount of option income already written for second half 2025 that's not recognized as profit yet, and we've got the flexibility to write more option income, particularly in the latter part of the second half period. So overall, when we think about how we're positioned and the outlook for dividend and option income, we're confident in our ability to deliver on the income and growth objectives for Djerriwarrh. And I'll just reiterate, we're conservatively positioned given current market levels, but still well placed heading into the second half of financial year 2025. So with that, I'll hand back to Geoff to take some questions.
Thank you, Brett. And just to remind people, you can ask a question via the webcast at the bottom of the screen. The first question I've got is about the banks. And you talked about being underweight the banks given the exercise in options. What's the catalyst for you to actually start thinking about re-entering that part of that sector of the market?
Sure. Yeah. It's valuation-driven because we don't have a problem with the quality. And if we go back two years ago when we were big buyers of the banks, we were very confident in the quality of the banks, being things like their balance sheet, the management teams, the boards that were there, the dividend payout ratios, and the like. So we thought the quality was really strong. But back then, two years ago, the valuations were very attractive to us. Sentiment towards the banks was terrible. We go back, it was only under two years ago that there was a banking crisis in the U.S. with Silicon Valley Bank going bankrupt and First Republic. And that sentiment flowed on into our banks, and they were trading very cheaply as a result. So we were big buyers then.
Fast forward to today. In the last six months, we've been the other way. We've been big sellers, as Olga mentioned, through option exercises, through the call options we've written against our bank holdings. And we're comfortable owning a lot less of them today. It feels right. So the catalyst to get back in would really be valuation. We're not looking for any major kind of improvements in the quality. We think they're well managed. They're doing a good job. But the valuations have just gone really well through now, what we consider to be reasonable. And I mean, to put some numbers on that, just comparing like we do because we're able to invest across the whole market. If you look at dividend yields on a so grossed up for franking credit. So fully franked dividend yield, Commonwealth Bank's only 4.5% today.
Some of the stocks we've been buying and that we're more reliant on for our dividend income today, like BHP, Rio, Woodside, Telstra, trade on fully franked dividend yields of over 7%. It's a big difference. We think the quality of those stocks is very good as well. It'd be valuation, Geoff.
Thank you, Brett. What were the disappointments that brought about the sale of Ramsay Health Care and FINEOS? And what would cause you to consider buying either company again?
Yeah, sure. I mean, yeah, buying them again's not on the radar so much at the moment, but we're always happy to revisit things down the track if they change. But we always try and buy things for long-term, obviously, and ideally be buy and hold. But you've always got to revisit things on the way through because clearly not everything works out. Same for any investor in the market. And it just makes sense to chop a bit of wood as you go. And with these two stocks, they've been poor performers for us. That in itself is not the catalyst to sell something, obviously. You can't just sell something because the share price has gone down. It might be temporary. But with Ramsay, we gave it a lot of time.
And it's got a lot of quality attributes, but the industry is extremely tough for them at the moment with the profitability of private hospitals combined with some pretty average returns from the overseas investments that they've made. So at the end of the day, we looked at that, and we can see potential for it, the returns to improve. But really, we always look at what does it offer this portfolio? And broadly, it's got to be growth or income. And it's not a high-growth stock, albeit the potential to turn around. But we weren't getting rewarded with income on the way through either, a low yield. So we thought it made sense to call time on that one and move it on. And with FINEOS, that one was really a mistake. We went into that at the wrong time.
While it had a lot of positive attributes, being an aligned management team, so the founder, Michael Kelly, and an attractive long-term thematic with the product that they sell being software to insurance companies, it was very slow going. And they still weren't profitable at the bottom line, and clearly a long way away from paying a dividend. And it made sense for us just to be frank with that one, revisit it. And again, it didn't offer growth or income. And we thought the potential for it, while it might still be there, was going to take too long to realize. So often in those cases, it's better to cut the losses and move on, which is what we did for both of those.
Great. At the previous presentation, or presentations, I should say, it was mentioned that Djerriwarrh had adjusted the way it invests about three years ago and has been happy with how things have gone the past three years. Can you give us an overview of what, I guess, the strategic adjustments were and what the change in thinking was back then?
Yeah, certainly. And yeah, firstly, we are happy with how it's gone. So it was never going to be a turnaround with short-term benefits. We want to build something that produces a really good long-term track record and rewards investors for being in. We think the premise for Djerriwarrh was always really strong. The enhanced yield component is a unique offering in this market, particularly when you can get it from an LIC that has a low management fee. So those characteristics you touched on, Geoff, about no fee leakage and the like. So you get scale benefits over time. It all accrues to the investor. So low MER. So it's the right structure. The enhanced yield is very attractive, but it's getting that balance of income and growth right.
That's, in a nutshell, the main thing that Olga and I have tried to change since we took over management of the portfolio with the backing of the broader group. We are happy how it's gone. We've delivered a very good level of enhanced yield. We think it's been done in a sustainable manner. That's a key point that we always want to reiterate. While we give that breakdown of the profit and loss, you can see that the dividend per share is more than covered by the net operating profit per share. We've delivered sustainable enhanced yield. The dividend has grown over the time since we've done the strategy reset. It won't grow every single six-month period like it was flat in this one, but it has grown on a yearly basis since then.
The capital growth has been okay, but we think we can do better on that. We can see from the performance slide earlier on that the total return of the portfolio, and of course, it's net of fees sorry, net of costs and taxes, has lagged the market in a strong market. We'd argue that that's because of the conservative positioning of the portfolio at the moment as opposed to any other sort of structural issues or the like. That's the position that we've chosen to be in at the moment, to be defensively positioned. It's how we see the markets, both top-down and bottom-up. We think it's yeah, I think it's a good position for Djerriwarrh to be in at the moment. Overall, we're definitely happy with how it's gone.
But at the same time, we know we've got a lot still to deliver on and to keep proving up because we're here to do it for the long term, not just a short-term turnaround.
Yeah. Thanks, Brett. I guess it's a much more sustainable footing we're on now than we were, say, five years ago. Hand out large amounts of realized capital gains. Just a reminder, and I asked a question via the webcast. You can ask at the bottom of the screen. Will you introduce Sigma Healthcare post-merger with Chemist Warehouse into the Djerriwarrh portfolio?
Yeah. Thanks, Geoff, for the question. So last year, ACCC approved the merger between Sigma and Chemist Warehouse, and it's expected to finalize next month. So Chemist Warehouse really doesn't need any introduction. It's a world-class retailer. It operates in a high-growth, low-cyclicality sector. It has high barriers to entry. So it truly translates to very healthy cash flow and strong, resilient revenue growth, which we think can be double-digit over the next few years. And this is further supported by an opportunity to further roll out stores here in Australia, but also abroad. So we think it could translate to a strong dividend yield. So it certainly ticks a lot of boxes for us. It's a high-quality business. I think the only so that means that it's firmly on our watchlist. The only thing that really stops us from buying it straight away is the valuation.
It's currently trading at almost 65 times price to earnings, which is a very hefty valuation. But it's something that's on our watchlist, and we'll continue to monitor it.
Thanks, Olga. Telstra is now a large part of the portfolio. What's attracted you in particular to that particular investment, given track record of Telstra in a sense hasn't been high growth in that way?
Yeah. No, we think it's a standout amongst the large caps in terms of quality and value. On the quality side, and I know if you look back over the long term like we do, looking back at what returns businesses have produced and the like, it's extremely underwhelming. But we think things are actually going to be different and better for them, let's say, the next five to 10 years than they have the last five to 10. We think they're in an unsustainable position with the dividend payout policy that they had, hence you saw it being cut. A one-off structural impact in their industry, being the introduction of the NBN and the impact on Telstra's business.
But today, you've got all that stuff behind them, a sustainable dividend payout policy, and we think the dividend can grow from here again over time, largely because you've got a very strong business now, industry-leading mobile business, and some very good assets in the infrastructure space as well with back management. We think management are doing a really good job. And it's just something that, in terms of the share price, it'll take time, I think, for the market to reward them for the results that we're backing them to deliver. And we do have confidence in the management team to do that. So you've got AUD 4 share price. The dividend yield, even before franking, is 5%. So gross it up, you're over 7%.
And the important difference is we think Telstra can grow that dividend from here over time if they deliver on the opportunities in front of them. So there's always going to be threats from different technologies and the like. And it's not as if we aren't aware of that. But often, these things can turn out to be fleeting rather than permanent. So we've still got confidence that the business is very well positioned, particularly in mobile for this point.
So there's a follow-up question here. Brett, do you think Telstra is under threat from Starlink and others who offer, I guess, remote services?
Yeah, and that probably falls in the bucket of we're always attuned to these things, of course, and testing management on the like. That's something that we intend to talk to them about after the upcoming results when we get the chance to meet with them about those type of potentially competitive technologies, but I think it's always something at this point to be aware of rather than necessarily kind of worried about in terms of it structurally impacting the business, I would say.
Comment about the property trusts within the portfolio. There's sort of been a couple of them in the top 20 region and Mirvac.
Yep. No, and we've continued to hold those companies. We also own BWP Trust, which owns Bunnings Warehouses. And Goodman Group is in the REIT index but doesn't run like a REIT or certainly not perform like a REIT. It's been a stunning success story in industrial real estate and increasingly into data centers. But yeah, no, we've continued to hold the REITs primarily in there for income. So we expect modest growth from those. But if they can grow over time, you take the case of Region. They own supermarket-anchored neighborhood shopping centers. So I think they're very low-risk defensive asset class. We like the structure. It's internally managed, no fee leakage, and a dividend yield of about 6.5%, albeit not with franking. So that includes a level of franking. So 6.5% equivalent grossed-up yield with a good management team and a good structure.
We think it's the right stock for Djerriwarrh at this point in time. Mirvac's been disappointing, though. We've held that throughout the period. And they've had a couple of poor results, particularly from the resi side of their business. So at this point in time, we think it offers good value, and the yield's reasonable. But management definitely need to deliver on the potential within that business for that value to be realized. But for now, we continue to hold it.
All right. Thanks, Brett. I've only got one more question here on the screen. But please, if anyone wants to ask a question, put them through now. There's obviously, with the latest inflation figure, the talk of falling interest rates. So how does that potentially impact the portfolio and the option writing activity within Djerriwarrh?
It's not the biggest determinant of the option writing activity or the income that we receive from option writing. So the biggest determinant of option prices, this is in the market, is volatility levels. And despite all the talk about instability in markets and around the world and the like, realized volatility in equity markets has actually been really low. And it's trading about as low as it's ever been. So that's something that's actually held back our option income. So if that was to change in the future, that could be a benefit to the option income. But it's not something we bake in. So the volatility's been more important. Things like interest rates in a macro sense, hard to tell. The U.S. market didn't react well last night to the Fed not cutting rates over there, which is a reasonable sign.
The market here is assuming that the RBA largely will cut rates in Fed. I don't know, and it doesn't dictate our portfolio strategy other than trying to factor it in in our bottom-up company analysis where it's important. I mean, more than ever, this is always the case, but particularly at this point in time, I think with rates being high, potentially cut these investing companies with strong balance sheets. It's one of the best defenses there.
I've got a question here about Transurban. And how do you see that investment?
Yeah. Yeah. No, we continue to like Transurban. It's a very high-quality company. You think about their basically monopoly position in Australian toll roads. They would never use that word, monopoly, but it effectively is. And they're companies that we love to invest in. So they have a great network. They've got good structure to the toll price increases, basically to inflation. So you've got that inflation hedge in there. The balance sheet's good with debt management. They've got some embedded growth in the portfolio plus potential further development opportunities and the like. And at around AUD 13, the yield's pretty good. Again, albeit like a property trust without franking credits, but a dividend yield of about 5%. And again, we think that can grow. Historically, that's grown around mid-single digits. So you add that growth on top of the dividend yield, and it's a good attractive return.
So it continues to be one of our biggest holdings.
That's been a long-term holding too.
Long-term holding, large holding at the moment. And also, it's a good stock for us to write options against. Despite the stability and defensiveness of that company, the share price moves around quite a bit within a band. And those companies can be good to write to further the profit and loss statement with some good option income.
So observation here, there are no insurance companies or insurance brokers in the top 20. Where do you stand on the insurance sector?
Yeah. On the general insurers, like say, Suncorp and IAG, and then you add in, say, QBE as well. Broadly similar to the banks. We think they're expensive, albeit I don't think they're as high quality as the banks. So the observation's right. We don't own any. We used to own IAG not that long ago, but we sold out. And that was a mistake. We sold out too early. It was a combination of option exercises and active selling. But we were out of that too early. And then on the brokers, we used to own AUB, but we sold out of that one too. So it's not something we're looking at getting back into anytime soon. We think it's more of a cyclical sector rather than structural growth. And so with our view on valuations, we're comfortable not owning any at the moment.
But of course, we could revisit it down the track if the cycle turned and valuations became more attractive.
Okay. Well, thank you. I have no further questions here coming through online. So with that, I think we'll close the webinar. So again, thank you everyone for participating. And again, thank you for your patience following last week. We look forward to seeing you at our shareholder meetings, potentially around the major capital cities in March and April. And we'll be holding a results webinar in July when the full year results are announced. So again, once again, thank you very much for your participation and for your questions.
That does conclude today's webinar. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Hello and welcome to the Djerriwarrh half-year financial results briefing. At this time, all participants are in the listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. All questions will be taken by the webcast. If you'd like to ask a question at that time, please enter your questions in the Ask Questions box located at the bottom of the webcast window. I would now like to hand the presentation over to Mr. Geoff Driver, General Manager, Business Development and Investor Relations at Djerriwarrh Investments. Thank you. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, everyone. My name's Geoff Driver, the General Manager, Business Development for Djerriwarrh Investments. Welcome to this half-year result briefing.
Firstly, I'd like to thank those shareholders who have joined us again after the abandonment of last week's webinar. Thank you for your patience. Unfortunately, the difficulties we experienced last week were well out of our control, and actually, this is the first time it actually has happened in many years of doing these briefings with this provider. We are assured it won't happen again. I would like to start the formal part of the presentation by acknowledging the traditional owners and custodians from all the lands we are gathered on today and pay our respects to their elders, both past and present and emerging. I have joining me today on the webinar, Brett McNeill, who's the Portfolio Manager, Olga Kosciuczyk, who's the Assistant Portfolio Manager, Andrew Porter, our CFO, and Matthew Rowe, our Company Secretary.
Just to note that Mark Freeman, the CEO of Djerriwarrh, could not join us today given he has another commitment that could not be changed. Before we start, as we've been reminded, the presentation is available on the website. If you're using a computer to access the presentation via the webcast, the slides will change automatically. If you're accessing by phone, the PDFs, oh, actually, no one's accessing by phone, so that's right. Finally, please note that the following presentation, there will be time for questions and answers. You can ask a question via the webcast. I will now move to slide two, which is the disclaimer, and this disclaimer is really just to say that we are not offering personal advice. This is information about the company and how we're managing the company on behalf of our shareholders.
So none of the information here should be taken as personal advice for any of those people participating in the webinar. If I go to the next slide, just an overview of how we'll run today. I'll give a briefing on the overview and objectives. Andrew Porter, our CFO, will run through the half-year summary. Brett McNeill will cover the results in detail. Both Brett and Olga will give an update on the portfolio, and then Brett will go and discuss the outlook. If I go to slide five, just a reminder, Djerriwarrh is one of the largest listed investment companies focusing on income in the Australian market. It was established quite some time ago in 1989 and listed on the ASX in 1995.
Shareholders get the full benefit of all the full transparency associated with being a LIC, as well as high governance standards delivered by an independent board of directors. Shareholders own the management rights to the company. Therefore, there's no fee leakage to third parties and no additional fees. What we're basically saying here is no external fund manager running the business or running the portfolio. And so there's no fee leakage like there is across a number of other, I guess, newer LICs in the market, which charge 0.8%-1% in terms of fees plus performance fees. So the next slide covers the investment objectives. So the two main objectives of Djerriwarrh are to provide an enhanced level of fully franked yield, and that's the chart on the left-hand side of the slide.
You can see here that's much higher than what's available from the ASX 200 index, both in terms of the net asset backing, but also in terms of the share price as well, given the share price is trading at a bit of a discount at the moment. That gap's about 1.9%. Brett and Olga will talk a bit later on how that's achieved in terms of the management of the portfolio. The other part of the objective really is to provide capital growth over that longer term. We're not just focused on income. You can see over that sort of five and 10-year period, we have actually delivered capital growth, albeit below the index, but still delivering that capital growth, which is one of the objectives of the company.
Again, Brett and Olga will discuss a bit later on how that's been managed in the context of the very strong market that we've been through more recently. If I turn to the next slide, slide seven, again, this is just a slide that most shareholders will be familiar with. It's where the share price is trading relative to the net asset backing of the company. And you can see there that, in fact, over 12 months ago, we're trading at a discount. We managed to pull that back a bit. There's probably a few factors behind that. One is that we've certainly increased the marketing around Djerriwarrh over the last 12 to 18 months. We also bought back some shares at particular times through the market cycle, which I think has also probably helped that to some extent.
The other comment I'd make is that typically, listed investment companies, there's certainly a lot of them trading at discounts at the moment, even across this group. But in very strong markets, what we tend to find is that the LIC share price does tend to trade a little bit below NTA in terms of trying to keep up with the market. But also, investors, I think, are more confident in going and investing in their own right, in particular stocks. And therefore, LICs, traditionally, traditional LICs do go out of favour every so often. So with that, I'll hand over to Andrew Porter to discuss the half-year in summary. Over to you, Andrew.
Thank you, Geoff. And good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. So we're on slide nine for those of you that are following. And the four boxes there, let me just run quickly through them.
Net operating result for the half-year, AUD 21 million. That excludes the open option positions. We'll have a look at the breakdown of that result later on with Brett and Olga. That was slightly down from AUD 21.9 million in 2023. As I'm sure you're all aware, the interim dividend was kept at AUD 0.0725 despite the drop in the net operating result. The management expense ratio, 0.46%, that's AUD 0.46 for every AUD 100 that you have invested in the company. We still consider that a very good value. We did say at the AGM the costs were likely to be higher this year. Because this is the cost for the half-year over the average portfolio, that is why the MER has gone up. A number of reasons for that. The profit from AICS, which is the service company that employs everybody.
Djerriwarrh owns 25% of that. The profit was less this half-year than previous years. So that actually impacts the costs of Djerriwarrh. It had a lower refund from AICS this year than it did in the prior years. There's also some one-off costs from share registry transfer. I'm sure you're all aware that the share registry is transferred over to the organisation formerly known as Link. And there are some upfront costs associated with that, but it will be cheaper for shareholders going forward once we've got over this hump of the one-off costs. Also, as you have seen, the portfolio remains ungeared at the moment, and Brett and Olga will talk about this. So the portfolio is less than perhaps it otherwise might have been if it had been fully geared. And that also translates into an MER being higher than perhaps would have been anticipated.
The portfolio dividend yield, 6.4% against the market of 4.5% when grossed up for franking, and just been through those figures. Now, one quick thing. We're often asked about this. What is our franking credits reserve? At the end of June, you'll recall if you read the annual report that we had AUD 0.204 after the payment of the final dividend. Because we're paying out slightly less than the net operating result per share, which is just under AUD 0.08, that franking balance has effectively been maintained going forward. So that is at a healthy position. Also, for those of you that have seen the accounts, at the moment, we have a tax liability of AUD 5 million. That will also translate into franking credits if and when it is paid to that amount or whatever the amount will be. So with that, I will pass over to Brett. Thank you.
Thanks, Andrew. And good afternoon, everybody. Thanks very much for joining our presentation today. So I'll start on slide 11, where we present a more detailed run-through of the net operating result that Andrew just touched on. So we show here on slide 11 how the profit for this period was derived, so a full breakdown, as well as how the profit per share flows through to the dividend per share. So we can see how that flows through. And just noting again that the focus here is on the net operating profit being what we think a better measure of Djerriwarrh's operating profit performance as well as the basis for the dividend that we declare. So the overall picture for this half-period's result was we had a smaller investment portfolio, which Andrew touched on, and this was given our net cash positions that we held during the period.
That led to lower dividend and lower option income. This was partly offset by higher other income, which was mainly deposit revenue from our cash on deposit, as well as lower financing costs. If we step through the numbers here on slide 11, you can see dividend and distribution income down 8% to AUD 17.9 million, and option income down 21% to AUD 7.5 million. When we include other income, which was mainly the deposit revenue, we saw operating income down 9% to AUD 26.3 million. Working through the costs, finance costs down 71% to AUD 0.8 million from our net cash position, and administration costs up 16%, as Andrew mentioned, to AUD 2.1 million. Income tax expense was up 6% to AUD 2.5 million. At the bottom line, the net operating result was AUD 21 million, down 4% versus the prior corresponding period.
On a per-share basis, the net operating result down 5% to AUD 0.0796, with the dividend per share flat at AUD 0.0725 per share. Hopefully, this gives you a better picture of how we derived the profit for this period, but also pointing out that we can see the dividend of AUD 0.0725 is more than covered by the net operating profit result, which we think highlights the sustainability of the dividend. Quite a good position to be in. The next two slides give some more detail on the two key drivers of our net operating result, which are the dividend and distribution income. This is the income that we receive from the companies we own in the investment portfolio. And then secondly, the option income, which is the income we earn from our option writing activities.
Looking at our dividend income on slide 12, on the left-hand side, we show the dollar amount of dividend and distribution income received over the last five half-year periods. The right-hand chart shows how this income looks as a percentage of our portfolio size. So that's the green bar measured against the dividend yield of the share market, being the ASX 200, and they're the blue bars. As we can see, the first half 2025 result saw the portfolio's dividend yield well above the market's dividend yield, the ASX 200. Some of the key drivers for our dividend income that we received in the period were from some of our big holdings like Telstra, Transurban, and Woodside. It was also helped by special dividends from Woolworths and JB Hi-Fi.
From here, we expect that the portfolio's dividend yield will be at or slightly above the market level over the long term on average. Slide 13 shows our option income. A similar type of analysis. The left-hand chart shows the option income that we've earned over the last five half-year periods. The right-hand chart shows this option income but measured as a yield of our investment portfolio value. The first half 2025 option income yield was about 1.7%. Consistent with how we've described it in recent results, we continue to expect that this option income yield will be around 1.5%-2% on average in the future, noting that this option income yield is a key part of the overall enhanced dividend yield that we aim to deliver for Djerriwarrh. We'll now move to the portfolio update section.
And here, Olga will give some more detail on some of the key moves in the option portfolio during the period. And she'll also talk through the key changes that we've made to the investment portfolio. And then I'll come back to give a summary of the portfolio and make some comments on the outlook.
Thank you, Brett, and good afternoon, everyone. Our main investment objective is to pay our shareholders an enhanced dividend yield. And to achieve that goal, we generate income by writing call options against select portfolio holdings. On this slide, we show the performance of the market as defined by our benchmark, the ASX 200 index, overlaid with the top-down view of our portfolio's call option coverage. We started this financial year with call option coverage of 28%, just below the bottom end of our normal range of 30%-40%.
We increased the coverage to 34% in early August in response to the ASX 200 index rising above 8,100 points, and as the market continued to perform strongly during the half, we maintained high portfolio option coverage between 40 and 45%. This saw us generate a good level of option income, but it weighed on our performance, given reduced exposure to equities, especially major banks and JB Hi-Fi, which we had significant option exercises in. We finished the calendar year with call option coverage of 41% and entered the second half with a good amount of option premium in the book. On slide 16, we show our key recent transactions. We had significant option exercises across banks: Commonwealth Bank, NAB, Westpac, and Macquarie Bank, as well as JB Hi-Fi. We consider these companies to be high quality but expensive in terms of valuation.
As such, we chose not to buy these stocks back following the option exercises. As a result, our combined holding across these companies reduced from around AUD 250 million 12 months ago to just AUD 60 million at the end of the first half of financial year 2025. We also were exercising calls but chose to buy the holding back. We were also active sellers of our small remaining holdings in Ramsay Health Care and FINEOS, both of which have been disappointing investments for us. And finally, during the period, we sold out of Mineral Resources. We were extremely disappointed in the company's corporate governance practices, which saw us lose confidence in this investment. And as a result, we decided to exit the position. We reinvested the capital realized from these sales in what we consider to be high-quality companies trading at attractive prices.
We also retained some cash for future opportunities, given our view that the market is looking expensive. Our largest purchases for the first half of this financial year were two large diversified miners, Rio Tinto and BHP. We consider them to have high-quality assets, management, and strong balance sheets. Both companies have been mainstays of the portfolio for a long time, but we increased our holding substantially given both companies are trading at attractive valuations on the back of the market's concern about iron ore demand-supply dynamics, given slowing economic growth in China, the key importer of iron ore. We believe that these risks are reflected at those prices and know that both companies offer above-market fully franked dividend yields of around 8%.
We also added to our holdings in supermarkets, Woolworths, and Coles, as they faced intense regulatory and media scrutiny during the year, providing us with opportunities to add to our holding at attractive valuations, which in our view underappreciate the quality of these companies, especially the defensive nature of their earnings. We also increased our exposure to gold by our holding in Newmont Corporation, and finally, we added one new holding during the period, Ampol, which was formerly known as Caltex. Ampol is Australia's leading vertically integrated energy company. It operates businesses across convenience retail in Australia and New Zealand, as well as the refining, supply, and marketing of fuel. We believe that Ampol is a better business today compared to five years ago. The earnings mix is better, the balance sheet is solid, the quality of the network has improved, and management have demonstrated good capital allocation and discipline.
Ampol primarily offers our portfolio an attractive level of dividend income, especially if trading conditions in the refining business improve from the current cyclically low levels.
Thanks, Olga. So turning to slide 17, and we show here a summary of the Djerriwarrh portfolio, starting with some key metrics on the left-hand side as at the end of the period, so end of December 2024. We can see the portfolio's value is AUD 860 million across 45 stocks owned. Call option exposure, as Olga mentioned, finished the period at 41%, and minimal put option exposure of 0.5%. And so this added up to a net tangible asset backing per share of AUD 3.39. And as Geoff mentioned at the start, the share price still trades at a discount, albeit a reduced discount to that AUD 3.39 per share NTA value.
On the right-hand side of slide 17, we show the top 20 holdings in Djerriwarrh, starting with BHP, the largest holding in the portfolio by value. You can see here the impact of the portfolio changes that Olga just discussed, particularly there's no Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, or JB Hi-Fi in our top 20 anymore, whereas they previously were particularly big holdings 12 and 18 months ago, and even stocks that we still own that are core holdings, I guess, for Djerriwarrh, like Wesfarmers, Macquarie Group, National Australia Bank, they're in the top 20, but they're much lower down in terms of the size than they were 12 and 18 months ago. Overall, though, we think the portfolio has got the right balance of income and growth to this point in time, and particularly we see it as defensively positioned.
From that portfolio summary to some outlook comments that we list on slide 19, the backdrop is, as we enter calendar year 2025, that we think the equity markets have had a very good run. 2024 was another strong year for the ASX 200, but we think it leaves the market looking expensive to us, particularly when we look at how the market's trading at the moment versus long-term averages, so 10 years plus on some key fundamental valuation metrics like price-earnings ratio, price-to-book ratio, and especially important for Djerriwarrh, the dividend yield of the market being very low at the moment at about 3.5%. Based on that sort of top-down view, particularly combined with our bottom-up analysis and stock views, we're conservatively positioned at the moment. That's the main thing we'd highlight today.
We're conservatively positioned, and you can see that in our higher-than-average call option coverage across the portfolio at 41%, and we've got a net cash position, so we think that gives us the potential to take advantage of some good investment opportunities should they present at some point in the near future, so that's overall our view on markets and how we're positioned.
If we look at the two key drivers of our profit and by extension the dividend that we pay, which is really our dividend income and our option income, you can see in terms of the dividend income, the portfolio changes that we talked through mean that we're a lot more reliant on the top companies listed on slide 17 now for our dividend income, particularly large resource stocks like BHP, Rio, and Woodside, supermarkets, Coles, and Woolworths, as well as stocks that we classify as high-quality defensive store-type companies like Transurban, Telstra, and Region Property Group. And then on the other side, we're significantly less reliant on the banks for our dividend income at this point. In terms of our option income, it's a key part of our enhanced yield, and the option book is in good shape.
We've got a good amount of option income already written for second half 2025 that's not recognized as profit yet, and we've got the flexibility to write more option income, particularly in the latter part of the second half period. So overall, when we think about how we're positioned and the outlook for dividend and option income, we're confident in our ability to deliver on the income and growth objectives for Djerriwarrh. And I'll just reiterate, we're conservatively positioned given current market levels, but still well placed heading into the second half of financial year 2025. So with that, I'll hand back to Geoff to take some questions.
Thank you, Brett. And just to remind people, you can ask a question via the webcast at the bottom of the screen.
The first question I've got is about the banks, and you talked about being underweight the banks given the exercise in options. What's the catalyst for you to actually start thinking about re-entering that part of that sector of the market?
Sure. Yeah. It's valuation-driven because we don't have a problem with the quality. And if we go back two years ago when we were big buyers of the banks, we were very confident in the quality of the banks, being things like their balance sheet, the management teams, the boards that were there, the dividend payout ratios, and the like. So we thought the quality was really strong. But back then, two years ago, the valuations were very attractive to us. Sentiment towards the banks was terrible.
We go back, it was only under two years ago that there was a banking crisis in the U.S. with Silicon Valley Bank going bankrupt and First Republic, and that sentiment flowed on into our banks, and they were trading very cheaply as a result. So we were big buyers then. Fast forward to today, in the last six months, we've been the other way. We've been big sellers, as Olga mentioned, through option exercises, through the call options we'd written against our bank holdings, and we're comfortable owning a lot less of them today. It feels right. So the catalyst to get back in would really be valuation. We're not looking for any major kind of improvements in the quality. We think they're well managed. They're doing a good job, but the valuations have just gone really well too now, what we consider to be reasonable.
I mean, to put some numbers on that, just comparing like we do because we're able to invest across the whole market. If you look at dividend yields on a so grossed up for franking credit. So fully franked dividend yield, Commonwealth Bank's only 4.5% today, and some of the stocks we've been buying and that we're more reliant on for our dividend income today, like BHP, Rio, Woodside, Telstra, trade on fully franked dividend yields of over 7%. It's a big difference, and we think the quality of those stocks is very good as well. So it'd be valuation, Geoff.
Thank you, Brett. What were the disappointments about the sale of Ramsay Health Care and FINEOS, and what would cause you to consider buying either company again?
Yeah, sure.
I mean, yeah, buying them again's not on the radar so much at the moment, but we're always happy to revisit things down the track if they change. But we always try and buy things for long-term, obviously, and ideally be buy and hold, but you've always got to revisit things on the way through because clearly not everything works out, same for any investor in the market. And it just makes sense to chop a bit of wood as you go. And with these two stocks, they've been poor performers for us. That in itself is not the catalyst to sell something, obviously. You can't just sell something because the share price has gone down. It might be temporary.
But with Ramsay, we gave it a lot of time, and it's got a lot of quality attributes, but the industry is extremely tough for them at the moment with the profitability of private hospitals combined with some pretty average returns from the overseas investments that they've made. So at the end of the day, we looked at that, and we can see potential for it, the returns to improve. But really, we always look at what does it offer this portfolio, and broadly, it's got to be growth or income, and it's not a high-growth stock, albeit the potential to turn around, but we weren't getting rewarded with income on the way through either, a low yield. So we thought it made sense to call time on that one and move it on. And with FINEOS, that one was really a mistake.
We went into that at the wrong time, and whilst it had a lot of positive attributes, being an aligned management team, so the founder, Michael Kelly, and an attractive long-term thematic with the product that they sell being software to insurance companies, it was very slow going, and they still weren't profitable at the bottom line, and clearly a long way away from paying a dividend. And it made sense for us just to, frankly, that one, revisit it. And again, it didn't offer growth or income, and we thought the potential for it, whilst it might still be there, was going to take too long to realize. So often in those cases, it's better to cut the losses and move on, which is what we did for both of those.
That's great.
At the previous presentation, or presentations, I should say, it was mentioned that Djerriwarrh had adjusted the way he invests about three years ago and has been happy with how things have gone the past three years. Can you give us an overview of what, I guess, the strategic adjustments were and what the change in thinking was back then?
Yeah, certainly. And yeah, firstly, we are happy with how it's gone. So it was never going to be a turnaround with short-term benefits. We want to build something that produces a really good long-term track record and rewards investors for being in. We think the premise for Djerriwarrh was always really strong. The enhanced yield component is a unique offering in this market, particularly when you can get it from an LIC that has a low management fee.
So those characteristics you touched on, Geoff, about no fee leakage and the like, so you get scale benefits over time. It all accrues to the investor, so low MER, so it's the right structure. The enhanced yield is very attractive, but it's getting that balance of income and growth right. So that's, in a nutshell, the main thing that Olga and I have tried to change since we took over management of the portfolio with the backing of the broader group. And we are happy how it's gone. So we've delivered a very good level of enhanced yield. We think it's been done in a sustainable manner, and that's a key point that we always want to reiterate. So while we give that breakdown of the profit and loss, you can see that the dividend per share is more than covered by the net operating profit per share.
We've delivered sustainable enhanced yield. The dividend has grown over the time since we've done the strategy reset. It won't grow every single six-month period like it was flat in this one, but it has grown on a yearly basis since then. The capital growth has been okay, but we think we can do better on that. We can see from the performance slide earlier on that the total return of the portfolio, and of course, it's net of fees sorry, net of costs and taxes, has lagged the market in a strong market, but we'd argue that that's because of the conservative positioning of the portfolio at the moment as opposed to any other sort of structural issues or the like. That's the position that we've chosen to be in at the moment, to be defensively positioned.
It's how we see the markets, both top-down and bottom-up. And we think it's a good position for Djerriwarrh to be in at the moment. So yeah, overall, we're definitely happy with how it's gone, but at the same time, we know we've got a lot still to deliver on and to keep proving up because we're here to do it for the long term, not just a short-term turnaround.
Yeah. Thanks, Brett. I guess it's a much more sustainable footing we're on now than we were, say, five years ago. Yeah. Hang out large amounts of realized capital gains. Just a reminder, and I asked a question via the webcast. You can ask at the bottom of the screen. Will you introduce Sigma Healthcare post-merger with Chemist Warehouse into the Djerriwarrh portfolio?
Yeah. Thanks, Geoff, for the question.
Last year, ACCC approved the merger between Sigma and Chemist Warehouse, and it's expected to finalize next month. Chemist Warehouse really doesn't need any introduction. It's a world-class retailer. It operates in a high-growth, low-cyclicality sector. It has high barriers to entry. It truly translates to very healthy cash flow and strong, resilient revenue growth, which we think can be double-digit over the next few years. This is further supported by an opportunity to further roll out stores here in Australia but also abroad. We think it could translate to a strong dividend yield. It certainly ticks a lot of boxes for us. It's a high-quality business. I think the only, so that means that it's firmly on our watchlist. The only thing that really stops us from buying it straight away is the valuation.
It's currently trading at almost 65 times price to earnings, which is a very hefty valuation, but it's something that's on our watchlist, and we'll continue to monitor it.
Thanks, Olga. Telstra is now a large part of the portfolio. What's attracted you in particular to that particular investment, given track record of Telstra in a sense hasn't been high growth in a way?
Yeah. No, we think it's a standout amongst the large caps in terms of quality and value. On the quality side, and I know if you look back over the long term like we do, looking back at what returns businesses have produced and the like, it's extremely underwhelming, but we think things are actually going to be different and better for them, let's say, the next five to 10 years than they have the last five to 10.
We think they're in an unsustainable position with the dividend payout policy that they had, hence you saw it being cut, a one-off structural impact in their industry, being the introduction of the NBN and the impact on Telstra's business. But today, you've got all that stuff behind them, a sustainable dividend payout policy, and we think the dividend can grow from here again over time, largely because you've got a very strong business now, industry-leading mobile business, and some very good assets in the infrastructure space as well with their management. We think management are doing a really good job, and it's just something that, in terms of the share price, it'll take time, I think, for the market to reward them for the results that we're backing them to deliver. And we do have confidence in the management team to do that. So you've got $4 share price.
The dividend yield, even before franking, is 5%. So gross it up, you're over 7%. And the important difference is we think Telstra can grow that dividend from here over time if they deliver on the opportunities in front of them. So there's always going to be threats from different technologies and the like, and it's not as if we aren't aware of that, but often these things can turn out to be fleeting rather than permanent. So we've still got confidence that the business is very well positioned, particularly in mobile for this point.
So there's a follow-up question here. Brett, do you think Telstra is under threat from Starlink and others who offer, I guess, remote services?
Yeah. And that probably falls in the bucket of we're always attuned to these things, of course, and testing management on the like.
That's something that we intend to talk to them about after the upcoming results when we get the chance to meet with them about those types of potentially competitive technologies. But I think it's always something at this point to be aware of rather than necessarily kind of worried about in terms of it structurally impacting the business, I would say.
Comment about the property trusts within the portfolio. There've sort of been a couple of them in the top 20 region and Mirvac.
Yeah. No, and we've continued to hold those companies. We also own BWP Trust, which owns Bunnings Warehouses, and Goodman Group is in the REIT index but doesn't run like a REIT or certainly not perform like a REIT. It's been a stunning success story in industrial real estate and increasingly into data centers.
But yeah, no, we've continued to hold the REITs primarily in there for income. So we expect modest growth from those, but if they can grow over time, you take the case of Region. They own supermarket-anchored neighborhood shopping centers. So I think they're very low-risk defensive asset class. We like the structure. It's internally managed, no fee leakage, and a dividend yield of about 6.5%, albeit not with franking. So that includes a level of franking. So 6.5% equivalent grossed-up yield with a good management team and a good structure. We think it's the right stock for Djerriwarrh at this point in time. Mirvac's been disappointing, though. We've held that throughout the period, and they've had a couple of poor results, particularly from the resi side of their business.
So at this point in time, we think it offers good value, and the yield's reasonable, but management definitely needs to deliver on the potential within that business for that value to be realized. But for now, we continue to hold it.
All right. Thanks, Brett. I've only got one more question here on the screen, but please, if anyone wants to ask a question, put them through now. There's obviously, with the latest inflation figure, the talk of falling interest rates. How does that potentially impact the portfolio and the option writing activity within Djerriwarrh?
It's not the biggest determinant of the option writing activity or the income that we receive from option writing. So the biggest determinant of option prices, this is in the market, is volatility levels.
Despite all the talk about instability in markets and around the world and the like, realized volatility in equity markets has actually been really low, and it's trading about as low as it's ever been. That's something that's actually held back our option income. If that was to change in the future, that could be a benefit to the option income, but it's not something we bake in. The volatility's been more important. Things like interest rates, in a macro sense, hard to tell. The U.S. market didn't react well last night to the Fed not cutting rates over there, which is a reasonable sign. The market here is assuming that the RBA likely will cut rates in February. I don't know. It doesn't dictate our portfolio strategy other than trying to factor it in in our bottom-up company analysis where it's important.
I mean, more than ever, this is always the case, but particularly at this point in time, I think with rates being high, potential cuts, investing in companies with strong balance sheets. It's one of the best defenses there.
I've got a question here about Transurban, and how do you see that investment?
Yeah. Yeah. No, we continue to like Transurban. It's a very high-quality company. You think about their basically monopoly position in Australian toll roads. They would never use that word, monopoly, but it effectively is, and they're companies that we love to invest in. So they have a great network. They've got good structure to their toll price increases, basically to inflation, so you've got that inflation hedge in there. The balance sheet's good with debt management. They've got some embedded growth in the portfolio plus potential further development opportunities and the like.
At around AUD 13, the yield's pretty good. Again, albeit like a property trust without franking credits, but a dividend yield of about 5%. Again, we think that can grow. Historically, that's grown around mid-single digits. You add that growth on top of the dividend yield, and it's a good attractive return. It continues to be one of our biggest holdings.
That's been a long-term holding too.
Long-term holding, large holding at the moment, and also it's a good stock for us to write options against. Despite the stability and defensiveness of that company, the share price moves around quite a bit within a band, and those companies can be good to write to further the profit and loss statement with some good option income.
Observation here, there are no insurance companies or insurance brokers in the top 20. Where do you stand on the insurance sector?
Yeah. On the general insurers, like say Suncorp and IAG, and then you add in say QBE as well, broadly similar to the banks. We think they're expensive, albeit I don't think they're as high quality as the banks. So the observation's right. We don't own any. We used to own IAG not that long ago, but we sold out, and that was a mistake. We sold out too early. It was a combination of option exercises and active selling, but we were out of that too early, and then on the brokers, we used to own AUB, but we sold out of that one too. So it's not something we're looking at getting back into anytime soon. We think it's more of a cyclical sector rather than structural growth.
With our view on valuations, we're comfortable not owning any at the moment, but of course, we could revisit it down the track if the cycle turned and valuations became more attractive.
Okay. Well, thank you. I have no further questions here coming through online. With that, I think we'll close the webinar. Again, thank you everyone for participating, and again, thank you for your patience following last week. We look forward to seeing you at our shareholder meetings, potentially around the major capital cities in March and April. We'll be holding a results webinar in July when the full year results are announced. Again, once again, thank you very much for your participation and for your questions. That does conclude today's webinar. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.