Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today, and to those joining us virtually as well. I'm Rowena Causley, the head of Listed Investor Relations at Dexus. We would like to begin today by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the lands on which we operate and pay our respects to their elders, past and present. I will now hand over to Darren for his introductory remarks.
Thanks Ro, and good afternoon, everybody. Over the past decade, Dexus has evolved considerably, and following the AMP Capital transaction, we considered it appropriate to host today's event to outline our strategy and detail our aspirations and path forward from here. Today, you'll hear from Jonathan Hedger. Jonathan, maybe just stand up and wave for the people that are here. On our group strategy, Ramana James on our sustainability strategy, Deb Coakley and Michael Cummings on our funds business, and Ross Du Vernet on transactions and development. We'll then take any questions you might have. Here in the room today and joining us for Q&A, our CFO, Keir Barnes. I think you all know Keir. Co-Head of Infrastructure, Michael Bessell, and our Chief Operating Officer, Mel Bourke. Also in the room is Andy Collins, our EGM of Office. Andy. Peter Morley, our Project Director of Atlassian Central.
Pete's not here yet. Brenton McEwan, our Head of Transactions and Development. Brenton, you're here? No. Hopefully, he's working hard. And those guys will be hosting the tour of the site following today's session. We're also pleased that Ric Wang, Head of Real Estate, Design and Development for Atlassian, will also be joining us on the tour. So you'll be able to ask him plenty of questions about their work from home policy, eh, hey Ross. Our purpose is to unlock potential to create tomorrow, and we'll do this through our lived values: rally to achieve together and build trust through action. The talent of our people is one of our top assets, and the passion and commitment that these values communicate, underpin and differentiate our culture at Dexus. We have a clear vision to be globally recognized as Australasia's leading real asset manager.
We have created a real asset group of scale with capability across all major Australasian real estate and infrastructure sectors. Our AUD 61 billion fully integrated platform includes a AUD 17 billion high-quality investment portfolio and a substantial AUD 44 billion dollar funds management business. We now have circa 50,000 investors across the platform. These are the key attributes that we value in our investment proposition. We are putting effort into having the right systems and processes that set up an efficient and scalable platform, and creating an agile culture that is focused on solutions for our customers, driving performance for our investors. Fundamental to being an investment manager is we value investment performance. Our long-term relationships with a broad range of capital partners gives us a diversified access to capital to act on opportunities and further expand our funds business.
Balance sheet strength is both prudent to navigating cycles while providing capacity to access investments of scale. Underpinning our approach is our commitment to sustainability, which is considered as part of all investment decisions. As I said before, we're on a path to becoming Australasia's leading real asset manager and over the past decade, we've taken deliberate actions to drive growth. We started by establishing capability in the key real estate markets, with a focus on building office leadership. We expanded that capability as we moved into healthcare and embedded our development track record. We continued to accelerate our funds management business through the acquisition of APN in 2021, diversifying our listed product and retail investor base. The AMP Capital transaction that we completed earlier this year has given us scale in funds and a meaningful infrastructure business.
In total, these transactions have more than doubled our third-party funds under management, and this all sets us up as a market-leading real asset manager and unlocks further opportunity for the group, as well as our third-party investors. To conclude this part of our presentation, our vision is to be Australasia's leading real asset manager. What you'll hear from the team today is our investment management model will unlock the large real asset opportunity by matching capital and investments. This will drive capital-efficient returns for Dexus investors. The Funds Management business has broad and deep access to diversified sources of capital, and the platform is capable of sourcing a wide range of investment opportunities for Dexus and our capital partners. Thank you. I now hand you over to Jonathan.
Thanks Darren, and good afternoon everyone. Over the next 15 minutes or so, I will look to cover off on three things. One, delve a little bit deeper into the strategy. Two, the opportunity in front of us, and finally, how we'll look to unlock that through our business model. Starting from the foundations, we've all seen this before in some way, shape, or form. Dexus's strategy is to provide superior risk-adjusted returns for investors through investing in high-quality real estate and infrastructure assets. We'll do that through two objectives: delivering resilient income streams through investing in a high-quality, diversified portfolio of assets, and being identified as a third-party investment manager of choice. This is enabled by a fully integrated platform and our commitment to sustainability and prudent capital management.
In pursuing this plan, the business has experienced meaningful change and growth, and this growth has only been possible due to the breadth and skill base of the Dexus team. We're more than just an office REIT. Simplistically, we're seeking to leverage the breadth of our capabilities to source opportunities alongside capital partners that will unlock increased capital efficiency for Dexus security holders. Our progress in this regard can be seen by total funds under management increasing by seven times over the last decade, third-party assets under management increasing by five times, and the sector and risk exposures provided to our third-party partners expanding meaningfully. For example, circa 50% of our third-party business at this point in time is invested in industrial, healthcare, and infrastructure. A very different situation to only five years ago.
This means that the business has more opportunity to provide investors with opportunities than ever before. In setting the strategy, we think very deeply about aligning with tailwinds wherever we can and there's four key trends that we think will drive sustainable growth for the business over the medium to long term. Firstly, population growth and urbanization. The Australian population is forecast to grow at over 50% over the next 50 years - sorry, 40 years. This growth is expected to be concentrated in major Australian cities and will drive investment demand for real estate and infrastructure. Be that demand for workspace, health, social facilities, transport, energy and living, Dexus is well-positioned to benefit from this growth across our exposure to these different thematics. Further bolstering this trend, the population is not only growing, it's also aging.
Pension capital and private capital demand is expanding to service this growing population and the sustainability revolution is only gaining its initial momentum. Our platform and capability set is diverse and provides multiple ways to benefit from these trends. Demonstrating the depth and multiple levers we have available, we have leading positions, as Darren mentioned, across each of the core real estate asset classes. By AUM we have a top five position in each of office, industrial, retail, and healthcare, and a meaningful infrastructure sector. We also have substantial embedded growth within the real estate business through our development pipeline. Additionally, our multi-sector real assets platform incorporates transactions, product creation, capital raising, asset management, and development capability, all of which strongly positions us to secure investment opportunities for both the balance sheet and our third-party platform. It also positions us to capitalize on a very substantial growth opportunity.
The current collective size of the sectors that we plan is estimated at circa AUD 2 trillion, a big number, and one that will only expand as the population growth continues. Simplistically, the scale of this opportunity for Dexus can be demonstrated by thinking about 1% expansion of market share in each segment. 1% in each segment would add AUD 20 billion to our funds business, and within that, we view the industrial, healthcare and infrastructure sectors as particular areas of opportunity. And as we've done with healthcare and infrastructure, we may from time to time look to add new verticals. In assessing those sectors, we look for the following factors: large markets, resilient and sustainable demand drivers, and the ability for Dexus to be a meaningful player with scale. We want to be a leader in what we do, not a participant.
Finally, opportunities to leverage our skills, existing skill base to unlock adjacencies. In unlocking this opportunity, matching third-party capital with appropriate investments is critical, and our ability to do this has been transformed in recent years. On the capital side, we have coverage now across institutional, retail, high net worth, and listed investors, and a broad set of products for those investors to allocate capital into. From an investment perspective, we're able to source investments not only from broadly across the real estate and infrastructure sectors, but also the risk profiles within those sectors, core development, and even opportunistic. Deb, Michael, and Ross will provide more color around this later in the presentation. We view the balance sheet, the Dexus balance sheet, as an important competitive differentiator in unlocking this. Broadly, allocation decisions can be thought of in two buckets: core investment exposures and growth initiatives.
Core investment exposures, which is the vast majority of the balance sheet and will be on a go-forward basis, takes the form of high-quality real estate and infrastructure investments. These investments are expected to provide resilient income streams over the long term. They include direct investments and investments in funds and JVs alongside partners. Growth investments are investments that support the execution of longer-term strategic initiatives. Those could be: underpinning development projects where Dexus intends to sell down a share to a partner, warehousing of assets on behalf of the funds or trading businesses, or investments that add additional capability to the platform, access new sources of capital, or allow us to enter new growth verticals. Various examples of this type of activity are provided on the slide. On a go-forward basis, our bias in allocating incremental capital will be to do that alongside partners.
This enables Dexus to gain exposure to the underlying investment while generating an improved return through fees and ensuring a high degree of alignment with our investment partners. We're already well progressed in deploying capital in this way, with circa 40% of the balance sheet invested in funds and JVs. In making incremental capital to allocation decisions, we also highlight the following guidelines: Every investment is allocated on its own merits against an appropriate benchmark. Over the medium term, Dexus will seek to have no more than 50% of its balance sheet invested in any single asset class, and development exposure is targeted at no more than 15% of the investment portfolio at any point in time. As mentioned, we want to deploy capital alongside our partners. What does that mean practically?
The balance sheet investment portfolio should be expected to gradually diversify as the platform unlocks new opportunities alongside partners, and a portion of the existing investments will be recycled to provide funding. Ultimately, we're an active manager of capital, and we're continually seeking to increase the resilience and return generation of the investment portfolio. So looking to bring this all together, we're seeking. As mentioned, we're seeking to leverage the overall capabilities of the platform to unlock investment opportunities alongside our partners, to drive increasingly capital-efficient returns for Dexus security holders. And a measure that's been mentioned previously around capital efficiency is the ratio of third-party funds under management to the balance sheet. This ratio has increased over the past 10 years from about 0.8 to 1 to 2.5 to 1.
An investment in Dexus now provides a baseline exposure to a high-quality portfolio of investments with exposure to an investment management business of scale and relevance. We believe this provides greater capital efficiency, growth potential, and ultimately returns than a standalone capital-heavy investment model, and while providing lower volatility and cash flows than a pure-play funds manager. As part of the next phase of the journey, we're looking to expand this ratio towards 5 to 1. This is gonna take some time, and achieving this will involve securing investments in a capital to support growth in our existing products, leveraging the broader Dexus platform to create new products, and introducing capital into our development pipeline alongside Dexus. Successful execution of this would result in substantial expansion of the funds business and material value creation in the management platform.
But I'd also say, in undertaking this expansion, we will not grow fund for fund's sake. From Dexus's perspective, it's important that this growth is profitable and focuses on unlocking efficiencies from the Dexus platform. While for our investment partners, first and foremost, is delivering returns while delivering on our sustainability and governance commitments. So in summary, our investment management business model and broad capability set provides exposure to significant long-term growth opportunities across a range of real asset classes. We'll maintain an investment portfolio of quality and scale. However, we will continue to deploy incremental capital alongside partners across a broader range of opportunities. And our third-party funds business will increasingly contribute towards the growth of the overall group as Dexus seeks to drive increased capital efficiency. In closing, we've taken a number of deliberate actions over the past 10 years to evolve the business.
We believe we're well-positioned and are excited about the future. Thank you for listening and I will now pass to Ramana James to talk through our sustainability strategy.
Thanks Jonathan, and good afternoon, everybody. You already know my name, but I've actually joined Dexus in February of this year, so relatively new to the team as the Head of Sustainability. I have led sustainability teams in ASX-listed companies for probably 23 years, and in doing that, I was really excited to be coming across to Dexus because of the size and scale of the platform, but also because of the sustainability opportunity this platform provides as well. Since I've joined, I've been working with the management team, but also the board on a new sustainability strategy, and I've been really impressed by the level of engagement and the culture of belief in the role that sustainability and ESG can play in the commercial success of the organization.
As Jonathan outlined, a commitment to sustainability outcomes underpins the Dexus strategy and it's critical to support the delivery of additional value to you as investors. Our sustainability aspiration is unlock the potential of real assets to create a more sustainable tomorrow. The addition of the AMP Capital assets to the platform, including infrastructure, creates a unique opportunity for scale and impact through sharing knowledge and capability across our different asset classes. A great example of this is how we're able to achieve net zero with the AMP Capital integration. With about 30-odd assets coming into the platform, we're able to achieve net zero on Scope 1 and 2 within 3 or 4 months of that acquisition being concluded.
We've also got great examples of taking experience and knowledge from the work we've done with Taronga Ventures around cybersecurity and real estate assets, and sharing that knowledge with some of our infrastructure assets, facilitated by Michael and the team. So our aspiration recognizes that Dexus plays an important role in delivering environmental and social outcomes, and with this expanded platform, if you think about it, a customer could have multiple touch points with Dexus investments and assets. So whether that be from the energy they use through investments in wind farms, through to the water they drink through desalination plants, to their place of work, or to where they shop. So we see sustainability as not only risk management for our business, but also a growth opportunity. Our third-party capital partners seek a proven track record in sustainability performance as a non-negotiable.
Otherwise, they're not going to invest with us. In the current operating environment, we've seen a flight to quality assets, and sustainability performance is increasingly a critical component of quality. Customers' demand for sustainability design are increasing, and these assets are attracting premium rents. A close to five-star NABERS rating across our office portfolio and a continued focus on improving this over time will support the achievement of resilient income streams through the cycle. Our new sustainability strategy identifies three priority areas which align to our group strategy to drive co-commercial value. So we believe we can create a competitive advantage with the new strategy, and particularly the focus on customer prosperity, where we're creating a point of differentiation in the market.
This focus enables us to leverage Dexus's expertise and high-quality portfolio to deliver sustainability performance for customers who are increasingly setting their own sustainability goals and objectives. We've done this through our Green Power Buyers Club, which provides our retail and office customers the chance to access renewable energy at rates or in ways they may not be able to do themselves. And we've got many of our industrial customers signing up to solar power as part of a support and an offer for them, close to a third of our platform now in industrial. Both of these initiatives drive great commercial outcomes for our customers, but ultimately for Dexus and for our investors. With our real asset platform, we also have unique opportunities for climate action.
So from emissions reduction and net zero, to addressing the impacts of climate change on our assets, to investing in energy transformation, as Jonathan outlined. We know that climate impacts will increase on assets and the work we have done to assess scenarios across the portfolio, but also more than 21 site-based, site-level risk assessments on climate risk, are helping ensure we create greater resilience in our assets and ultimately ongoing leasing and asset values. In our third area, enhancing communities, we acknowledge the positive impact our assets have on local communities. Good design and placemaking will support engagement with and the success ultimately of those assets. Underpinning these priority areas are a series of foundations, things like nature and biodiversity or First Nations indigenous engagement.
They're critical we get those in order and that we focus on ensuring we manage and support our social license to operate through those, but they also give us the license to focus on those three priority areas that we've identified. Our new sustainability strategy is delivered at the asset level through initiatives that our teams own and are held accountable for. Building on the progress we have made, we see significant future opportunities across all three areas that we've just outlined. We will continue to work alongside our customers to help them achieve their own sustainability goals, while looking at the leasing process and space design to achieve more sustainable fit outs.
In climate, we'll continue to expand beyond Scope 1 and 2 address Scope 3 emissions but also look to unblock potential through both investment opportunities in the energy transition and also the installation of our own renewable energy solutions. While we're starting from a lower base with our community programs, we're building out a national framework to deliver consistency across our placemaking, with a stronger focus on the commercial activations within our assets to drive value.
To conclude, there is growth and opportunity in sustainability. Our sustainability strategy is strongly aligned to the group strategy, and it will focus on delivering commercial value for our customers, communities, and investors. Initiatives are embedded across our business operations with clear accountabilities, and while we have brought together highly complementary sustainability skill sets from the AMP Capital integration, it is still driven and owned and executed by teams across Dexus.
So not a siloed sustainability team looking to drive the programs of work. This ranges from our asset managers to development planners, to investment decision makers. We're building on a strong track record as a global sustainability leader, and that's been recognized through indices and benchmarks for many years, but we're setting up to respond to the sustainability revolution that Jonathan outlined. Thank you. I'll now hand over to Deb.
Thanks Ramana, and good afternoon everyone. Just to break it up a little bit, we thought we would kick off with a video, and, a warning, you may recognize some of the talent.
From delivering performance to unlocking opportunities like no other, what we do at Dexus comes to life through our proven track record. As a leading Australasian real asset manager, we've been delivering returns for investors for over 35 years.
The Dexus difference is a high-quality, diverse real estate and infrastructure portfolio.
It's having the scale and platform to deliver exclusive access to customers, leasing and transaction deal flow, and market intelligence. It's being able to tap into specialist expertise and draw strength from our operational experience, so we can move on the right opportunities at the right time.
The Dexus difference is also the fact that we've got skin in the game. We invest capital alongside our partners, and that unlocks a unique opportunity for our investors.
Our deep access to capital, combined with our platform strength and multi-sector capability, provides a competitive advantage on executing large-scale deals that transcend individual sectors. We have a broad offering, and we're intentionally broadening this. Our asset classes, investor channels, and capability set make us fit for purpose to fulfill the diverse needs of our investor strategies.
Underpinned by best practice corporate governance, recognized as a global leader for sustainable performance, and supported by full service in-house team, we are poised to continue growing and evolving.
The past year has galvanized our identity as a trusted long-term investment manager. With AUD 1.6 billion raised across 14 vehicles, a new wholesale airport fund launched, 23 new institutional and private wealth groups onboarded, a Singapore office opened, and AUD 275 million of fund developments completed. As we step into the next year and beyond, we are positioned for growth.
Our network and knowledge base is unparalleled. The strength of our development pipeline continues to provide opportunities to grow portfolios and enhance future returns, and we are uniquely placed to capitalize on underlying fundamentals of urbanization and social and demographic change. At Dexus, we focus on what matters most to investors, and together we've built a platform positioned for growth. I would ask for applause, but we'll leave it at that. But I think the accents won there, and you can see we're a diverse platform on many levels. Dexus has been an active fund manager, creating value for our capital partners for decades. The strength of our platform lies in the Dexus difference, a combination of platform features that delivers very clear value proposition, positioning Dexus as an Australasian asset fund manager of choice.
When we ask investors to describe us, they tell us that our long-standing track record of delivering strong, risk-adjusted returns is delivered by a highly experienced management team. We have a strong reputation for corporate governance that is independently assessed, and that our ESG performance is highly regarded, as Ramana has already commented on. We have a demonstrated commitment to maintaining meaningful alignment with our capital partners and creating risk-reward profiles, as Jonathan has outlined. And we have access to premium opportunities through the Dexus Investment and Development portfolio. These characteristics support the resilience of our business in the current environment and stand us in good stead for growth. At the heart of our funds management business is the performance of each fund. It is a key enabler of our success, and it is the number one focus for our fund managers.
The financial outcomes are driven by our ability to enhance the performance of our assets, seize development opportunities, and ensure that market-leading fund managers focus on performance and stewardship. As both Romana and Jonathan have already highlighted, a commitment to sustainability underpins the Dexus strategy, and for investors in the funds platform, it's a key priority area for them when considering their investment partner. We use GRESB as an important global benchmarking tool to monitor our investments and our performance against our ESG principles. Importantly, we have achieved a perfect score of 30 in the management component for all our rated funds in the GRESB 2023 ratings. Turning to our retail funds, they are well-regarded by the research houses, endorsing management team and the quality of the investments, as demonstrated by individual ratings for the funds.
Pleasingly, we were recently included in the real asset category for the 2023 Zenith Investment Fund Partner Awards. The number of institutional investors on our platform continues to grow, from 77 in 2020 to over 130 today, despite the cyclical nature of investors periodically rebalancing their portfolios. These relationships are important to the success of the platform, and I see it as a vote of confidence in our capabilities and product mix, that two-thirds of our top 30 investors are invested across multiple products. I just want to take this opportunity to revisit a transaction that occurred during COVID, that delivered substantial value for the funds platform and for Dexus, and highlights our ability to execute complex transactions and deliver value for investors.
After six months of engagement with the AMP Capital Diversified Property Fund, we were able to demonstrate the benefits of the Dexus platform and the value and performance that could be delivered for their unit holders. In April 2021, AMP Capital Diversified Property Fund merged with the Dexus Wholesale Property Fund, and this deal successfully delivered close to AUD 5 billion in new funds to the funds platform. It importantly facilitated redemptions for those investors who required liquidity. It diversified the investor base for DWPF, and it reduced the overall fee structure and operating costs for the merged fund investors. This decision by unit holders signaled confidence in Dexus and our ability to professionally manage what was a very complex fund transaction, and now a complex fund, delivering economies of scale from a management, procurement, and leasing perspective for those investors.
But this transaction would not have been possible if we did not have the deep relationships that we do with investors, across the platform. More than two years later, this transaction has proved to be an overwhelming success, driving value for unit holders and growing DWPF into Australia's pre-eminent diversified property fund with more than AUD 14 billion under management. This slide seeks to illustrate how we've achieved our growth which is through a mix of new product and M&A activity, which Jonathan touched on. Dexus has a track record of success in developing new products aligned to future market trends, creating growth for the platform.
In addition to the DWPF, a DPF merger that we just discussed, I want to highlight our early conviction-led investment in healthcare which supported the establishment of the Dexus Healthcare Property Fund, DHPF, which has grown into a AUD 1.8 billion fund today. This was a deliberate and purposeful approach to product development, and DHPF is now has a high potential for scalability and a relevance to a broad investor base. More recently, we have expanded the product range across the risk-return spectrum through the opportunity product series. The second fund, recently announced, reflects strong investor demand for this product type. And it's interesting to note that the healthcare expertise we delivered, we developed for DHPF, has already been used to help on the investment strategy and in, actual investments for the DREP series.
This table shows our current product offering, with third-party capital investments demonstrating the relevance across all the key capital pools. The diversity of our product suite offers varying exposure across the risk-return spectrum. Over AUD 40 billion on the platform, we have broad, broad and deep access to capital in Australia and offshore, with demonstrated ability to raise new capital through the cycle. The breadth of the opportunity for future growth is incredibly exciting. With the scale and capability of the Dexus platform, we remain confident in being highly competitive. The graph to the left shows the current breakdown of third-party capital by type. Over the past five years, we have diversified the capital base, ensuring we remain relevant to each investor type and reducing our reliance on any one. The graph on the right shows the forecast growth in global wealth capital pools.
The market is substantial and growing, with global wealth forecast to reach $367 trillion in 2027, and 40% of that is due to be managed by wealth and asset managers like Dexus. Utilizing the talent of our people, our best practice governance approach, our strong relationships with investors in each capital pool, we are well-positioned to take advantage of this trend. Over time, the platform has consistently driven organic growth, even through challenging operating environments. The organic growth complements Dexus's capital raising capabilities, with over 20 dedicated distribution and capital raising team members, growing the size and diversity of our investor base and consistently bringing new equity to the platform. We continue to invest in this capability and ensure we remain close to our investors.
We have recently established an Asian presence, which you saw in the video, by opening the Singapore office, reflecting the importance of that market to us. At the same time, we're investing in systems and processes, data management, and analytics to ensure we are easy to do business with. As Jonathan flagged earlier, we see several areas with strong macro tailwinds that support the long-term outlook for these sectors. The key themes of urbanization, population growth, and energy transition support the long-term demands in sectors such as healthcare and transport. The table shows that the key themes, shows the key themes and the relevant Dexus product. It also highlights our near-term opportunities, and Dexus is well-positioned to execute on these.
Taking a deeper look at the real estate growth areas we see in the sectors, these are broadly characterized by strong underlying sector performance that is likely to benefit from those macro tailwinds and strong investor appetite for those asset classes. For Dexus, while these represent a small percentage of our overall funds under management, with proven capability, existing relationships, and high-quality assets, that will help drive our success and growth in these sectors. We have a variety of products to meet the needs of investors, offering exposure to high-quality real estate assets, ranging from shopping centers to hospitals and premium office towers. You will see the more recent fund, DREP, is targeting high-net-worth individual investors, while our listed vehicles, Dexus Industria REIT and Dexus Convenience Retail REIT, offer sector-specific exposure.
Each fund though can be characterized as investing in high-quality assets with potential to unlock value through the cycle. I'll now hand you over to our Co-Head of Infrastructure, Michael Cummings, who will take you through the infrastructure business.
Good afternoon everyone, and yes my name is Michael Cummings, and yes, I'm one of the ones with the accent, so it's an Irish, Scottish, New Zealand accent. Hopefully, we'll be able to get through with all of the words intact, but we'll give it a go. So I'm Co-Head of Infrastructure, along with my colleague, Michael Bessell, in the second row. We both have extensive experience in this sector for more than 30 years each, across global infrastructure investments. So my role is more focused on the active investment management of our assets and our commingled funds, whilst Michael's role focuses on managing our origination pipeline and our separately managed account relationships. We are incredibly excited about the potential the Dexus platform offers us to further enhance the performance of our assets.
So infrastructure assets are real and tangible, with characteristics that make them different and attractive in the wider investment landscape. They provide essential services to our communities, typically monopolistic in nature, with high barriers to entry. Importantly, over the last 18 months, we have seen the sector's resilience as revenues are often linked to inflation, offering a level of valued downside protection. Unlisted infrastructure investors, as a result, have enjoyed an investment that offers lower volatility, reliable income, and portfolio diversification, with a low correlation to other asset classes. Turning now to our current product offering, with around AUD 11 billion in infrastructure assets under management, there's a range of products that meet the differing needs of retail, wholesale, and institutional investors. These funds have investments in tightly held world-class assets, from airports, schools, stadiums, rolling stock, and electricity distribution.
Importantly, they all encapsulate the key benefits of infrastructure to an investor's portfolio. I wanted to take this opportunity to give you a taste of the high-quality real assets we have in our platform. We have significant investments in 26 assets across every state and territory in Australia and in New Zealand, ranging from the 65,000-seat Perth Stadium to the 3,000,000 passengers per month, Melbourne Airport. We are also the largest investor in on-campus student accommodation, with over 7,000 beds in our portfolio at leading universities, including the ANU, the University of Melbourne, and the University of Sydney. Across the ditch, we have a major stake in Powerco, the largest electricity and second-largest natural gas distributor in New Zealand.
These are just some of the assets that are managed by a team of 26 investment professionals with an average of 27 years industry experience across our leadership team. We are continuing to invest in our capability as we recognize that this enables us to unlock potential and drive better performance from the real asset investments that we manage, and to capitalize on attractive growth opportunities. Looking forward, we see three growth areas that are underpinned by the macro tailwinds that Jonathan previously talked about today. Across social and living, transport, and energy, we see around AUD 15 billion of near-term investment opportunities. Now, this is very exciting, as across these three verticals, we already have substantial exposure and many years of experience, providing both insight and foresight, on-the-ground intel, and relationships to make the most of the deal pipeline.
Across social and living, such as student accommodation and schools, we are one of Australia's largest manager of brownfield social public-private partnerships, or PPPs with more than 20 currently active assets across our funds. Within the transport sector, we are the majority owner of Reliance Rail, providing the Waratah trains for transport in New South Wales, and the largest owner of the strongly growing Melbourne Airport. Across the energy sector, while our current exposure is smaller than the others, we have key investments in energy distribution through Powerco in New Zealand, and in the renewable sector through the Macarthur Wind Farm, one of the largest wind farms in the Southern Hemisphere. Combined with our experienced management teams and asset managers, we are well-positioned to continue to drive growth and performance from our current assets and ensure that we are courtside as these opportunities come to market.
What has been truly stimulating since joining Dexus is exploring the natural synergies between real estate and infrastructure. The potential value that this can unlock is substantial. Whether it's from precinct planning and development approvals through to cost savings by leveraging Dexus's property management expertise, as many of these infrastructure assets have substantial property management, property portfolios as well. While it's only been six months since first completion, we have already completed our first real asset deal and have brought a new fund to market, illustrating the effectiveness of this enhanced platform. Australian airports are recognized as some of the best in the world, but most have traditionally been tightly held by institutional investors. Since the privatization of Sydney Airport, it has become a rare commodity for retail and wholesale investors looking for exposure to Australian airports.
Earlier this year, we became aware of an institutional investor looking for liquidity, offering an opportunity to secure a small stake of the Australian Pacific Airports Corporation. Now, that's the holding company that owns 100% of Melbourne Airport and 90% of Launceston Airport. As the seller was looking for an efficient and smooth process, we rallied together across our team to provide liquidity, to provide a liquidity solution for the seller and at the same time, provided an opportunity to engage with our investors in the wholesale market. Engaging the broader Dexus platform, there was strong enthusiasm for the deal, and we worked quickly to meet the seller's timeline expectations. The Dexus Investment portfolio was able to proceed with the transaction, warehousing and underwriting the opportunity that could then be brought to market through a new vehicle, the Wholesale Airport Fund.
This was the first fund Dexus has brought to market since the acquisition of the AMP Capital business. We leveraged the relationships and experience of the Dexus distribution team and successfully raised AUD 180 million, exceeding our initial target of AUD 130 million. We have since been able to deploy the additional equity, providing further liquidity to another of our institutional investors. Now, this deal would not have been possible without the Dexus balance sheet moving quickly to secure the deal and the distribution team marketing the fund and securing strong private capital interest. This is a great example of how the broader Dexus team realized the strategic value of the asset and the role we continue to play to drive value, and we had full confidence and conviction that the market would see it in the same way.
Another good data point to demonstrate the benefits of a real asset platform was our first cross-fund deal announced back in March this year, where Dexus acquired an additional 30.6% interest in the Royal Adelaide Hospital asset across three funds, taking Dexus's total stake to approximately 73%. This 800-bed hospital, which is delivered as a 35-year PPP with the South Australian Government, is one of Australia's most advanced hospitals, with sector-leading sustainability performance, making it an incredibly attractive infrastructure investment. Our infrastructure team have managed an investment in this hospital PPP since 2021, primarily through our community infrastructure fund, CommIF. This additional large block became available as a co-investor was looking to recycle their capital.
Now healthcare of course is a sector where real asset synergy really comes to life, traversing the growth and income requirements of a fund like the Dexus Healthcare Property Fund, while also meeting the requirements of the reliable, stable income for infrastructure funds such as CommIF and the Dexus Core Infrastructure Fund. Leveraging valuable insights from our existing experience with the asset, our strong active management and governance meant that two infrastructure funds and one real estate fund were able to come together and secure the deal. Importantly, each fund went through its own investment committee processes, ensuring the investment met their specific mandate and return hurdles... So I think you'll agree that we've already made solid progress over the last six months, and we look forward to building more momentum as a real asset investment manager. Thank you, and I'll hand you back to Deb.
Thanks Michael. In summary, our Funds Management business is in a great place to unlock the potential for real assets across the platform. We have a highly capable management team with decades of experience. We have the relationships, knowledge, and skills required to deliver value for our investors. And when combined with our broad access to pools of capital, a diverse product offering, and the existing upside exposure to some of those key growth areas that we have touched on, the Dexus Funds Management business will be a key driver of future growth for the company. I'll now hand you over to Ross, who will take you through transactions and developments.
Thanks, Deb. Hold on, guys. We're nearly there. I know you've been very patient. Well, you just heard - you've heard from my colleagues really around the operating model and a lot of the exciting investment strategies in the platform. A lot of them really come to life through transactions and through developments which create product for our, for our business. So what I thought I'd do in, in, my session is really talk through some case studies around how we look to create value-added transactions and developments, really with a real estate focus. And, you know, I think Michael's given you some color around the infrastructure side. And for those of you who are attending, I guess, the site tour this afternoon, you'll get more flavor, from the Atlassian site tour.
So, I think sourcing attractive investment opportunities, recycling capital and assets, and creating product through developments, these have been consistent pillars of our strategy for many, many years, and we've developed really strong capabilities and track record in this space. I think as Darren mentioned, it is actually all about the people. That, you know, the buildings don't build themselves, the deals don't walk in through the door. And we are very fortunate that we have a dedicated team of over 70 executives in our development and transactions group. And this group is what I find interesting about this group is actually the diversity in the background and experience of these individuals. So we have people from office, retail, industrial, healthcare. We have residential development, mixed-use development.
We have engineers, we have architects, we have sustainability experts, with a very, very broad range of experience. And that dedicated team is very ably supported by the rest of the Dexus platform. When we do a deal, it's not just the transactions group or the development group. We're leaning into our finance team, our treasury team, our tax team, our asset management team. It's not just this transactions group. In terms of people, I think we do believe real estate is very much a local game, and where we can, we do try to hire people out of their local market and keep them in their local market. And we do have development and transactions people spread around the country through our national offices.
In terms of the operating model for this part of the business, the design principles that are really important to us are really around scalability and agility. We want the ability to be able to deploy a lot of that resource to these large, complex transactions where we think we can add a lot of value. As you've seen, the business has grown a lot over the last few years, and so we want that growth to be done in a scalable way. Obviously, we've brought a lot of people into the business through that time. Bringing them up to speed very quickly is, and efficiently, is important. We look to control, I think, what we think are the key parts of those processes around transactions and development. Things like deal underwriting, things like development management.
We're much more relaxed around outsourcing, other components of the process. So things like, you know, being the principal contractor, we feel there are other groups that are better placed to deliver that, and we have a horses for courses type approach. If we were constrained by our contracting business, we think that would again kind of limit our agility, as an organization. So there's some of the design principles. I think from a track record perspective, you know, I think we do have some runs on the board. That's not to be complacent about things. There's always things that we can do better. We have a very much a continuous improvement mindset, and we're very aware of the changing competitive dynamics and also the investment market dynamics as well.
So I thought to talk through a few examples of how we think we can create value for Dexus shareholders and also our clients. This slide should have a big rider on it, in hindsight, that says, "some ways we look to create value for clients with a development and transactions lens." There's lots of other ways, and I think you've heard parts of that through the presentations today, whether it be our funds teams developing very specialized investment strategies, whether it be our treasury teams on the financing, whether it be our asset management teams on leasing. So we look to create value in lots of ways. This, I guess, the case studies that I'm going to talk to you today are really with that development and transactions lens. So some of the ways we look to create value is through deal flow.
You know, I think one of the benefits of a business that has the scale that we have is really the number of relationships we have across the organization. And it's not just the relationships of the deal team; this is the relationships of over 1,000 people that sit in Dexus. And these relationships, and I'd say, our brand, really enable our deal teams to quite systematically and consistently generate some high-quality investment opportunities for the balance sheet and our clients. I think the origination effort in the opportunistic space, I think, is a really good example of the diversity in the origination. I think the systematic approach that the team take, and also the efficiency of the machine. So the opportunistic origination effort, it's a bit of a mouthful. This effort is led by four executives.
This team is specifically looking for deals for trading for the balance sheet and also DREP, the fund series that Deb talked about earlier. We've got four executives that are purely focused on this, trying to leverage all the relationships across the platform. I think while no one has a monopoly on deals, we're kind of very aware of that, I think we do see more than our fair share. In the last 12 months alone, the team looked at over 350 deals. They underwrote 150 of those to transact online, and you can see some of the composition of that deal flow here.
I think what I certainly believe in is the quality of the deals that we're doing, now, whether that be for the trading business or whether that be for our DREP clients, the quality of the deals that we do is directly proportional to the, the volume of deals that we're looking at. And so we need to have spread the net really wide, and we need to be really efficient as to how we process and review those deals. So I think, you know, ways we create value is through deal flow. Another way we look to create value is really making sure that we're leveraging the entire platform, and Deb actually referred to this, and I early in her presentation.
But this is a fantastic opportunity around how all the moving parts of the platform, the origination team, the development team, and the asset management team come together. So this was a deal that was originated actually by our opportunistic team, so those four individuals I talked to. They found this local developer who had a great site. They had a scheme. It was very close to Noosa Hospital. They didn't have a tenant. So they locked up the deal. They got exclusive due diligence. They then worked through the development and asset management teams to find an existing customer that we'd had that we'd actually put into our North Shore Health Hub development here in St Leonards.
And so while they had locked up the deal in due diligence, we brought the customer in, concurrently negotiated an AFL. So by the time we closed the deal, it had been significantly de-risked, and that deal sits in DREP at the moment. So I think it's a really great example of how the teams are leveraging the wider platform. Another way that we look to create value is, is unlocking unique and scarce opportunities. And for those of you who are not familiar with Jandakot, Jandakot is a very unique asset. It's 80 hectares of industrial development land. It's 49 industrial assets. It just happens to have an airport in the middle of it. Opportunities like this, scale opportunities in industrial are just very, very unique at the best of times. Trying to get that in Perth is near on impossible.
So unlocking this opportunity for us required a few things. It required really good relationships. The deal was actually sourced off market through long-standing relationships of the platform. It required a track record of actually closing on complex deals. This was very important to the vendor. The vendor was paranoid about leaks, and they were paranoid about the party they brought into due diligence, not closing on the deal. It required a significant team, so that kind of concept I talked before around deployable resource, the ability to throw a lot of people at a big, complex deal. It was big and complex, right? You think about the amount of due diligence you've got to do, 49 assets, 80 hectares of land. You've got operating companies that you're buying. You're buying a live, active airport.
You know, the transaction documents on this alone were more than 5,000 pages, to give you some sense of the scale of it. So you had to do that, and you had to do that in an accelerated timeframe. You needed access to broad pools of capital. We've talked about this opportunity in different case studies before, about how we used the balance sheet to secure the deal. We brought DXI in, our listed fund, and ultimately bought Cbus Super as well. So you needed access to broad pools of capital, and you needed to do all of this actually, when the borders were closed. Physically, having boots on the ground were critical. So we leveraged our asset management teams that were in the market.
We leveraged our consultant relationships that we have nationally to help us actually do the due diligence during COVID. Seems like a long time ago, I know, but the borders were actually closed. Another way that we look to create value is leveraging data and research, and our industrial development team and transactions team have been harnessing the power of data for some time now. And I think this case study from back in 2018 was actually one of the first transactions that they brought this to bear. So, you know, this was a 10-hectare brownfields industrial site that we secured in Granville. This precinct was identified really from the team using logistics, mapping, and data software. So identifying areas that we thought weren't traditional logistics locations, but had all the attributes that would be highly valuable to our customers.
And that led us to identify this precinct, and then through relationships we had in the platform, we proactively secured the acquisition opportunity from a private family. So I think this is a great example of using data. You know, it gave the team the conviction to be able to underwrite rents at what would be quite bullish numbers, because if you were looking at the market precedents, there weren't many. But it was really a lack of that high-quality product in that location, and the confidence that it had all the locational attributes that customers should be able to pay very, very strong rents. And obviously, generated very, very strong returns for Dexus. That was an unlevered IRR of just under 60%, and that was a JV Dexus had a 50% interest in.
Another way we look to create value, I think, is navigating complexity. I think as the saying goes: If it was easy, it would already be done. I think we hear that around the Dexus office quite often. And I think if you look at projects like Waterfront, you know, it's an amazing development opportunity on paper. You've got two hectares on the river there in Brisbane, you know, an underdeveloped Eagle Street Pier, and it is an exciting project, but in reality there's lots of complexity to actually bring this project to the table. So some of the complexities, simple things like titling. It's actually not or wasn't all freehold title. It was actually a sublease to council that was actually a lease to the state.
So activating the development required us to collapse all those lease interests and ultimately negotiate to buy freehold from the state. Not an easy task. It actually required the freehold to be created. The freehold didn't exist, and part of it was in the river, so the physical process of creating that creates further complications, and now our development program is even longer because we've got to physically go into the river and create a freehold. That creates further complications, because now we've got a development program that's five or six years, and we're asking customers to commit to a future office that might be five or six years away. That's a tough ask in a normal market. That's a really tough ask when you're in the middle of COVID, right?
But the product is exceptional, and the team have done an amazing job in navigating all of those challenges. And obviously, we started that project this year. It's now more than 50% leased, has a great following in the Brisbane community, and it will certainly change, I think, the landscape of the Brisbane CBD. So navigating complexity, unlocking those complex projects, is a way that we like to add value. Another way we like to add value is through scale transactions, and I think, you know buying projects that are large, particularly projects that have risk, so it could be projects or transactions, and really breaking those projects or opportunities up and essentially syndicating to different pools of capital. This has really created a lot of value for ourselves and for our clients.
I think for the Dexus listed investor, which I know is the primary audience today, I think this is one of the prime benefits of actually having a funds management business and access to all those diverse pools of capital. I know there's focus on the fee streams and those sorts of things, and they're nice, but it's actually the access to opportunities that would normally be outside of our risk tolerances, but actually have really attractive risk-adjusted returns. A couple of examples of these include things like large land bank acquisitions, things like assets that the concentration risk would be too high, so things like the Bragg Centre in Adelaide. It's a very specialized facility. We did that project in joint venture with our health fund. You know, the very successful acquisition of our Ravenhall Estate down in Melbourne.
So that was 134 hectares of industrial land. I'm sure, and I know we've got a lot of the brokers in the room today, if Dexus balance sheet turned up and said, "We've got this great idea, we're going to buy a whole bunch of stuff that looks like farms, it's got horses on it, it's 134 hectares, but don't worry, we'll work it out. We're going to create value," I, I don't know that that conversation would go that well. But being able to bring in capital partners with us, which we did, we brought in, GIC, and we brought in our diversified fund, DWPF, chunk that project down. That's been one of our best performing industrial precincts, and certainly a model that we're looking to replicate going forward.
Finally, I think, you know projects that have maybe at the more pointy end of risk, so things like 100 Mount Street in North Sydney. You know, we essentially spec developed an office building. I know that feels like quite controversial now, but back then it was a good strategy, and we could see the market was tightening. But even for the Dexus balance sheet, that was going to be too much risk for us to take. So we shared that with our diversified wholesale fund again and generated some very, very strong returns for us in the process. So I think you can see there's a number of different ways. It's not the exhaustive list, but we're really trying to leverage not just the transactions and development team, but the wider platform and how we create value for clients.
So I think in summary, you know, we have a team and a capability and a track record of significant scale and experience. There's many ways that we're looking to create value for the balance sheet and our clients. And I think the interesting thing is really the diversity in the capability set really does mean that we should be able to create value in a whole range of market circumstances and situations, and that's pretty exciting for us now, given where the market dynamics are at right now. So thank you. I'll pass you back to Darren to wrap up.
Thanks Ross. So our trajectory over the next decade will take us through three horizons. In the next year, as we strive for 25, our focus will be on strengthening the balance sheet and improving our sector mix, while driving organic growth of our funds business and completing the integration of the AMP Capital business, so we are set up to maximize the benefits of our real asset platform. Pleasingly, we received our final approval from the Chinese government last Friday. A lot of celebrations in the office. Mel and Keir, everyone, were very relaxed, so we're well and truly on track to have that integrated this financial year.
From 26-28, we'll be positioned to expand our footprint, building out capability in new verticals that we've identified, attracting capital through enhanced domestic and offshore distribution teams, and executing our development pipeline alongside our funds management partners. So to conclude, we're on track to realize our vision to be Australia's leading real asset manager, through an established funds management platform that's set to grow and a high-quality balance sheet that supports our capacity to invest in new opportunities alongside third-party clients. This will enable us to have a capital-efficient business model, which will drive returns through the cycle. And I think, you know, there's no point in looking today and saying, real estate, real assets operate in cycles. This business is set up to run through those cycles.
We'll still be here, while some may not make it through what is currently a very difficult environment, as we all know. So thanks very much for your attention this afternoon. We'll now open up for any questions you've got. Guys, do you want to come up and sit up here, and we'll fire the questions around the panel.
Hey Darren, Richard. Just wanted to clarify just your comment there on the strive for 25, just the strength and balance sheet improve sector mix. Can you just elaborate on what you're gonna do there?
Yeah, well, I think as, as you've seen over time, I think if you looked at this business a few years ago, we were probably 80% office across the platform. Today, it's about 30%, and for the balance sheet, it's about 40%. So I think I've spoken before about the power of diversification. It became very evident during COVID. You've seen that, you know, with people that were retail specific. We've seen it play out across the globe. You know, Dexus is going towards a more diversified, more capital-efficient model. So hopefully, we'll continue on that trend. Now, that trend might be linear, because as we know, it's really challenging today to sell various assets. So, you know, we have a very strong financial lens that we look at opportunities for, for the balance sheet.
So, you know, it's not the most liquid market we've ever been in, but we're very fortunate, as you've seen today, to have a variety of places to allocate capital. You know, pricing's changing, so, you know, if we can get a right price for an office building, you know, it might not be the best real estate decision at the time, because it might look really cheap. But when we look at the returns that we're getting there versus reallocating to a development project or to an infrastructure project, we might be able to get, you know, two times the return. So that's the kind of thought process we're going through at the moment.
Just kind of wondering how you do that in the next two years when you're obviously building Waterfront, you're building Atlassian, you're potentially building 60 Collins.
Yeah.
Like, like, do you - y ou have multi-billion dollar asset sales planned? Is it-
I think as the key today, so all those developments are funded today. We have capital partners on some of them as well, and despite the market being challenging, what is really important is we are building the next generation of products. So as I said to the team, I was up in Asia a month or so ago, and for the first time in 2.5 years, I had someone that said, "I'm underweight office. I can only buy sort of six star." And I said, "Well, maybe I've got the product for you, and at the right time, I'll take it up there and hopefully they'll come and join us.
Hi Darren and team, Sholto Maconochie from Jefferies. Just on from James' question, you said in the preso, which good preso, you know, 50, but no more than 50% invested in office. You've got AUD several billion in development in premium, which is a great product, which will increase that. So looks like you have to sell AUD several billion. Just want to see how you get there. Will it be partly from sales and then growing the other asset classes, or what sort of mix do you think?
I think it'll be a combination of both, but Jonathan or Ross, do you want to make some comments on that?
I'm happy to answer. I mean, I think it's going to take some time, right? So it's a medium, medium-term target. I think the exact wording there was over time. If you think about the past few years, we've sold, I think AUD 1 billion-AUD 1.5 billion of office per annum. So if you, you sort of use that as a run rate over time and assume that's recycled into other sectors.
And so also offset the asset sales with some new asset classes or growth in other areas. And then Darren, I think when you joined several years ago, one of the longest-serving CEOs in the sector, you wanted to be at the Westfield of office, I think you said at the time?
Yeah.
You've done a very good job with CPA originally, but now it seems you can bring that real asset. I s that sort of mission that you want to get more better risk-adjusted returns through the platform with ROE, giving you real asset?
I think yeah, we've set up an agile, flexible platform, and you've got to move with the times. Like, if Coke just stuck to sugary drinks, they'd be dead by now. So the successful, true businesses that I look at over many years are ones that are flexible and will move with the trends. And so if we just stuck to being office, you know, we'd probably be taken over in the next couple of years.
Good to see you as well.
Returns would be terrible. What we're setting this up for growth into the future, and I think, you know, and I hope we look back in time and see what we've done over the last 10 years, is gonna set up a platform that's gonna be sustainable and create amazing returns for those that back this business over the coming decade.
Thanks. Cheers.
Hi, Rebecca Parker from Bank of America. You were talking to your funds, and how you had achieved a reduced overall fee structure for investors. Just wondering what your future plans are with fees there, and how easy it is to maybe increase those fees. Thanks.
Yeah. I think, I'll make a couple of comments, and I'll flick over to Deb. So I think it's undoubtedly, there's been a lot of pressure on fees right throughout the industry, and not just real assets. Equities, I think some people are doing some stuff for almost free at the moment. I think, there's a couple of points here. First of all, you've got to be hyper-efficient in your platform, and I suppose we've spent the money to run efficiently. You've got to have scale in your funds, like, and you've got to have an established business. Some people are getting into funds management because it's the sexy thing to do. We've done this for 30 years.
We don't do it for love, we do it to make money for our investors that support us, A, as customers on the platform, and B, that those in investing in the platform. So some people have said: "Oh, look, I'll manage your money." They're not making any money. They haven't got the structures, they haven't got the sustainability teams, they haven't got the finance teams, they haven't got the hyper-efficient platform to push the button and spit out all the reports. Like, this is a scale business, and those of you that are in equity businesses know you need scale to actually run these businesses profitably. Then when it comes to fees, you've also got to say no. There's a certain level of fees that you're just not going to do the business for.
You, the clients that invest in your platform have to value all the skills and expertise that we spoke about today. If they don't value that, they'll go anywhere, and they will just go for the lowest fee, and good luck. You know, hopefully, they're paying for the returns. Deb?
Darren's completely correct, that scalability is -
Deb never says that, by the way.
Saying it today, there you go, on record. He's completely correct on this point. The scalability is what's important. So when we - the case study we had there, when you add AUD 5 billion, because the fees are layered or tranched, the more, the size and scale of that fund means overall, you're always delivering a discount or a lower fee overall for unit holders. But I think the key thing here is really not taking the IM fee in its isolation. It's the modernization of the terms and conditions that are associated with the funds. We've got a lot of very old, long-dated funds that have been around for a long time, where their actual constitutions, fee schedules, those sort of things have not been modernized.
A lot of the investors are, you know, riling up against that and saying: "Come on, where are you up to?" I think what we do very well is we constantly look at where the market's at, what is the appropriate governance model? What is the appropriate fee model? and making sure that that component of our funds is really relevant to the investors, because that's the piece that they're really looking at when doing due diligence on putting another dollar out the door.
Good day, guys. James Druce from CLSA. I was wondering if we could get a, a bit of a taste for some of the new product lines and, and verticals that you're currently envisaging.
Jonathan, do you want to talk to that? Deb, Ross?
Yeah, sure. I mean, I can take sort of like first, first pass, and then I think others can add. I mean, I think I sort of laid out some criteria there in how we think about those new segments. In terms of some specific things within the platform, so student accommodation is something that new, that is new. We do have exposure to build-to-rent through the funds platform as well on some of our large retail sites, so that's definitely an interesting opportunity. Obviously, industrial was walked through in terms of very large, strong dynamics behind that sector, great platform, and significant development exposure and experience, as Ross has touched on. And opportunistic and credit, I think it was discussed in the presentation. We have launched our second in the series.
Really leverages the overall platform and sort of a product for the times as well.
So if you consider the different component parts of the funds management business, where you've got your pooled funds. So our diversified fund is what it says on the sticker, it's diversified, and it will continue to diversify the asset classes that it's invested in. Its sort of next two areas will include that residential component to retail and healthcare, so they're both part of its investment universe. When we look at the joint ventures, it needs to be of size and scale. So Ross's example of Jandakot, the size and scale of something like that, means we can potentially either look at new sectors or new opportunities to start a fund.
So not all funds are equal, if that makes sense, and we will look at opportunities for joint ventures that will work across a number of those themes. But DREP and all the opportunity strategy itself is diversified. So even on a credit or equity perspective, it's looking at deals that are there. It has done deals in the residential space on both sides. It has done industrial, healthcare, residential, and office, but taking different lenses to them. And then the other side for that, for DREP, is deal size. So we'll look at bigger, chunkier deals in joint ventures, but we'll look at some smaller ticket size style deals from really across any sector for DREP, for that opportunity strategy.
Maybe one follow-up, if I may. Can we get a comment on some of the regulatory changes we've seen with taxation in relation to stamp duty in Victoria and New South Wales, as well as sort of absentee landlord taxes, how that might affect flows in the funds management industry?
Without going into specifics, the vast majority of those changes are not good from an underwrite perspective. So you, if you're an offshore investor coming into almost every jurisdiction here in Australia at the moment, you are going to have to be taking a hit, effectively, in the underwrite compared to an Australian investor. And that, particularly in a market like we're in today, is a meaningful reason to not invest. And one of the things that we have been able, as Australians, all Australian fund managers, to go offshore and talk about, has been the transparency and consistency of our taxation, our regulatory environments. And the more that that keeps occurring, the less we can tell that story. So it does create a lot of apprehension, I think, for investors coming in, into the country.
I don't know Keir, if you want to talk about anything specific, but that would be a general comment on how it's impacting.
No, I think that's a fair comment. Obviously, impacts depend on particular sector you're in, the type of assets, but I think that's a very fair assessment from Deb.
I've got one, but I promise it's one answer. It's a one-word answer. Just in terms of how we should think about the current investment stake moving from the ratio of 2.15 to 1 to 5 to 1 over time, from funds management capital to balance sheet capital. Are we looking at sort of 10% co-investment stakes or 5% co-investment stakes in your funds going forward, or what's the number we should stick in our model?
Jonathan, you got a view there? I mean, it's interesting. DWPF, we don't have any stake in that one, as you're aware, but we co-invest in some assets together. So it's not as vanilla as that, but, you know, I'd probably overall put it, you know, call it 5% as a starting point, because that'll cover the ones we don't have any equity in or reduced equity in.
Cool. Thank you.
Thanks. Lauren Berry, Morgan Stanley. Just on the 5:1 target, if you put that, you know, considering your current balance sheet and external funds management, it implies, you know, you're gonna get another close to AUD 50 billion. That seems like a lot by 2030. So I was just wondering if you're considering possibly a more wholesale reduction in your balance sheet, rather than simply growing it all externally.
I think there's some simple math there, but do you wanna do that math, Jonathan? Very at a high level.
I think the general math there is right, Lauren. I mean from a growth rate perspective, so I think you'll find that the growth rate that that implies is roughly the same as what it's been historically, but obviously, the numbers are a lot larger, and the ask is a lot larger. But against that, the platform's broader. We've got access to a broader range of capital and significantly enhanced capital raising sort of resources and contacts as well.
Yeah, so expect the balance sheet to stay the same size.
Mm-hmm.
But then, you know you've got developments coming through. You've got a lot more buckets than what we've had previously in sectors that have got good, good tailwinds behind them.
And you've given a lot of color around -
Sorry, sorry just a bit more color, and that does not anticipate a lot happening in the next 12-18 months while the markets normalize.
Okay. You've given a lot of color around potential deployment opportunities, but are you able to talk about the other side, which is the capital? Like, what segments of the market are people actually looking to deploy into, from a capital point of view, please?
Yeah. I think there's a couple of answers to that and then I'll pass across to the guys. Yeah, first of all, this is one of the most challenging environments I think I've ever seen in 30 years for capital raising, and you only had to look at the Blackstone numbers that came out last quarter. They're the best in the world, and they're struggling to hit targets. So I think everyone that's in this space knows it's very difficult, but the power of the platform today is there are still channels open. Like, you saw the guys raise AUD 200 million. We could have raised more if we had more available for the airport fund. The opportunistic strategy is raising capital, so that goes to the diversification of the platform. What we need to see, not just Dexus, but the industry, is a stabilization of interest rates.
You know, what's going on in the Middle East right now is not helping the situation at all, because I'm an investor, and I'm like: What the hell is going on now? We've got inflation here, we've got wars there, we've got Ukraine here. Let's sit, and we'll see you next year. So I think at a 50,000-foot level, let's get through to next year. Hopefully, everything stabilizes. Interest rates need to stabilize, return hurdles then stabilize on the back of that, and everyone gets back to work. Because we've got so many investors right across this platform coming down, doing all their due diligence, know the platform, know the assets. We're taking meetings. I mean, Ross and the infrastructure and Michael Bessell spent last week through Canada and U.S. They're off to the Middle East and Europe via Asia.
Like, we are getting more meetings than we have ever had before as a platform. People like the assets we've got. They want to deploy. They just want to know at what price they should deploy. So I think in any modeling, whoever you are, this year's gonna be very challenging. You know, I'd love to sit here and say, "It's gonna be a record year." It's not gonna be. It might be a record low year for everybody, the industry. It's not gonna be a record high year. Things should start to normalize. I think I said at the half year, and things have probably got worse since then, that, you know, middle to end of 2024, I think I'm still standing by, let's say, you know, Q3, calendar year 2024.
I'm hoping by then all this war situation has stabilized itself or finalized let's hope, and interest rates have sort of peaked or there and thereabouts.
And last one from me. You know, we hear a lot about, I guess, some of the more office space funds selling assets to improve their balance sheet. Are we able to talk a bit more about what it looks like in infrastructure land, what balance sheets look like, and if there's any pressure to sell any assets, please?
Michael?
I'll have a crack first. So yeah, what we're seeing in the marketplace in Australia at the moment is a lot of the superannuation funds that have been merging are finding that they're cleaning up their portfolios because they're ending up with these, like, 50 assets in their portfolio, and as they get larger, they're offloading the smaller ones. So a lot of the transactions that are in the market at the moment are a function of that. So just rationalization, that's one driver. It's not so much them cleaning up, I mean, because it's all mainly in unlisted form. These are pension funds that have long liabilities and don't have to pay out for a while, but they're just cleaning up their portfolios.
Another key driver at the moment, it's back on your question about where are investors allocating capital at the moment? What sort of risk-return profile are they looking for? Some of the government regulations that the federal government's brought in around superannuation fund performance measures has been pushing domestic super funds up the risk curve a little bit. And so we're then seeing that that's playing out in them slightly repositioning their portfolios to offload some of their core holdings, core infrastructure holdings, and taking a slightly more of a core plus approach, and I think that's one of the other drivers. And so we've seen more appetite from offshore players coming into the market to buy core infrastructure as the domestics have been selling. So it's not been about cleaning up balance sheets at all.
The sector, the assets are still performing very well, and I know for many of you here at real estate got more of a real estate focus, infrastructure is much more highly geared than the real estate investments but it's always investment grade and the sorts of things that we're investing in, which means the solid cash flows are still able to pay that. So we're not seeing distressed sellers at all. It's all just strategic reasons for selling.
It's really interesting, one of the assets we have on the platform, Reliance Rail, you've got not only the sort of return government guarantee, that's the rolling stock that, Michael spoke about before, but the interest rate components are also, guaranteed. And so you've got a, I think it's a 20-year return, 9.2 IRR for 22 years, fixed. So very low risk, and that's the difference, I suppose, between some of the real estate and infrastructure, is you do have some of this long-dated, locked-up debt.
Certainly. Just to finalize, t he final point on that, you know, if we speak to banks, and we speak to a lot of banks across what is now a very large platform, infrastructure is a real area of interest. So there has been very strong demand to lend in that space, and it's very much the case at the moment.
Any questions on the phone? Oh, sorry.
Yeah. Good afternoon, Tom here from UBS. I'd just be interested in following on from those comments around capital allocation to infrastructure and whether you see more deployment of the Dexus balance sheet to co-invest alongside your infrastructure funds and see new fundraisings.
I think, I think there's a big gap in the Australian listed market for infrastructure product, and so if Dexus ends up with more infrastructure on its balance sheet over time, I think that's a good thing from investors becoming more and more interested in our stock.
Then just maybe following on around the capital side, maybe one for Keir, just thinking about leverage. You've got pretty clear balance sheet leverage targets. Do you start considering look-through leverage, or how do you think about that and also the payout ratio as you grow third-party funds management?
That's a good question. I mean, Dexus has always quoted look-through leverage targets. We've been quite clear about that. In terms of, infrastructure, yes, sometimes there is debt within those structures, and so it's something that we turn our mind to. I think to the point that Darren made, it's, it's a question of leverage, but it's also a question of security of cash flows at the asset level, and so we take all of those, all of those factors into account when we're thinking about our gearing position. Still very conservatively geared at the moment, sub 30% at the full year. In terms of payout ratio, you know, it's always been a factor of the strategy of the business, something that we consider on a regular basis, but we're very comfortable with the payout ratio at the moment.
To the extent that changes, you know, we would update the market accordingly.
Thanks.
Ben?
Thank you. Yeah, thanks Darren. I was wondering if you could just comment on, I guess the operating margin for the funds business, and how you're thinking about that going forward in the context of potentially some synergies between the Collimate platform and the existing Dexus funds platform, please?
Yeah. So, I think as we said when we first bought it, the Collimate business was on a lower margin than the Dexus business. You know, we've targeted 60%-65%. That's, that remains in place. That's what we'll be targeting, and I think we'd probably target a 50% margin over time. Team, is that what we're saying, Keir?
Yeah, I think over time. I mean, we've got a bit to work through in terms of the integration, but it is quite, quite well progressed. To Darren's point, it did start that business with a lower margin than what we would expect from a Dexus perspective. So once we complete the integration, we would expect that to move towards what we've historically delivered for a Dexus margin. But as the business continues to grow, we would expect that there is quite a good prospect for those margins to improve.
Yep. I mean, the good - the good thing is the Yardi system is all in integration, is probably a mile just ahead of program, a touch, a touch ahead? Yeah, so look, we're well and truly on track to get that done this year. So I expect as we get into 25, things will start to improve.
Great, thanks.
Hi, team. It's Tua from Macquarie. Just a quick question on infrastructure platform. So you flagged AUD 15 billion of near-term opportunities, and we've had a few other groups speak about venturing into infrastructure. How are you seeing competition for products at the moment, and, and from the capital side as well?
Yeah I think just before I say, so we're not venturing into it, 'cause these guys have been doing it for 30 years, so, you know, I wouldn't want to start organically. It's one thing we looked at. We looked at the Hastings stuff, we looked at starting organically. It's really hard to find teams with the kind of depth and experience that we've been able to secure here, but it's also hard, difficult to get some of the assets that are sitting on the platform. So, you know, good luck starting one organically today, but you know, there is some opportunities out there. But guys, you want to make some comments?
So when you talk about competition, there's probably a couple of different angles there. One is competition for assets. So, I mentioned before, a lot of what we do is in the core, core plus space, and we are seeing a lot of domestic super funds vacating that area. So I think a lot of the opportunities that are in the market now may not be as competitively bid as you might otherwise have thought, because there just aren't... There's just not the appetite from some of the domestic supers. So then the challenge is being able to raise capital in the funds that you're actually managing. And that means the sources of funds that you're managing, and I think what we've... Our strategy is very much revolving around now having multiple products.
So when we bid for an asset, we're trying to draw down capital from a number of different sources. And a lot of those, we think that there's less competition for fundraising in than other spaces, and particularly as we've seen more and more of the listed companies be delisted that invested in infrastructure. That superannuation, self-managed superannuation, high net worth, wholesale market is becoming quite attractive for us, and hence that's one of the reasons why we've gone out and raised capital, targeting that particular space. And I think what Dexus has done really well in the last few years is broaden that client base and client mix, and that enables us to draw down on those sort of funds to do that sort of thing.
The other area is bringing offshore capital into the market here, and this is still seen, and Ross and I were in North America last week. This is still seen as a very attractive market, despite tax changes and things like that. It's got a very high population growth rate by comparison to other OECD countries. The regulatory environment is very stable, and so it is seen as a good destination for money. Dexus already has a big platform of offshore clients that increasingly we're seeing allocate real estate and infrastructure out of the same pool of capital, and so that's been really important in how we've been cross-selling. So I don't see as much competition.
What we're really competing against in some respects, is allocations to other areas, and we're seeing that with rates high and fixed interest investments quite attractive.
Are there any questions on the line?
There are no phone questions.
Perfect. All right, guys, I think that - a ny last questions? No. So I think that ends the formal part of today's presentation. Thanks for your time today. Now, who's leading the tour? Ross. The Pied Piper. So, if everyone can follow Ross and Crystal down to Atlassian. Okay, here's Ray with the real instructions.