I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Glenn Willis, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon and welcome to this half-yearly results presentation for Elanor Investors Group. Thank you for joining us on the call today. We certainly appreciate your interest in the group. Today in this presentation, I'll provide a brief review of the last half. I'll also be providing in this presentation an overview of our medium-term growth ambitions for Elanor. I'll be after that handing over to Paul Siviour, Elanor's COO, to discuss the results for the half in more detail and finish by providing some comments on our outlook at the end of the call. Looking back over the half, market conditions continue to be challenging across most sectors of the real estate asset class and indeed across several sectors of our focus. Our healthcare funds continue to perform well over the half, a very resilient sector.
Our office funds perform well as well despite some more known challenges in the broader office sector. We're seeing improved conditions in the retail sector, and as such, our retail funds saw improved operations and operating results. Our hotels and leisure funds encountered challenges during the half, especially the regional assets where they continue to encounter difficult trading conditions where occupancy and visitation levels while growing have proven to be slow in returning to pre-COVID levels. However, despite challenging market conditions across most sectors of the real estate asset class, we made significant progress on our growth ambitions for the group over the half. The key highlight of the half clearly was the successful integration of the Challenger Real Estate acquisition. That acquisition driving exceptionally strong growth in assets under management for us and delivering immediate and strong recurring funds-managed income and funds-management growth.
This acquisition has added significant value to Elanor's real estate platform. Again, the Challenger Real Estate acquisition and importantly, the successful integration of this business delivered significant funds-management earnings growth. Particularly pleasing was the immediate growth in the recurring funds-management earnings and earnings margin that's been achieved from this acquisition, recurring funds-management earnings being a key earnings priority and focus for us. Over the half, recurring funds-management income excluding acquisition fees increased 37% to AUD 23.7 million on half-year 2023, and recurring funds-management EBITDA increased eightfold from half-year 2023 to AUD 5.5 million. Certainly believe that the successful integration of the Challenger Real Estate acquisition positions us well to execute further strategic growth initiatives, as being a key part of our growth plans for the group.
In that regard, I wanted to provide investors some more detail on just what are our growth ambitions for the medium term, and I'd direct you to page 6 of the presentation pack that we released this morning. We've achieved strong growth in assets under management in the four years of our business, with AUM for the group now reaching AUD 6.3 billion. More importantly, we've built a diversified real estate funds-management platform, that is to say, a capability and critically an investment track record. We've built such to the scale and quality we have the confidence in achieving further significant assets under management growth over the medium term. In this presentation pack today on page 6, we describe what our medium-term growth targets are.
That is, growing from our current AUD 6.3 billion of assets under management over the next five years to AUD 15 billion, which we believe to be a reasonable target. But more importantly, we believe we will achieve strong growth in our earnings margins going forward. That growth will be a direct reflection of the scalability of our funds-management platform. Indeed, executing scalable growth, growing our funds-management EBITDA margin, is a prime focus for the group. So where will our growth come from? Our growth will come from a combination of wholesale funds-management growth, institutional funds-management growth, and from further strategic acquisitions. In regard to the sectors, our AUM growth will come from establishing and growing funds across our existing sectors of focus, but also from the establishment of funds in new real estate sectors.
Specifically, we believe that the major contributor to our medium-term growth in assets under management will be from institutional partnerships or mandates. Institutional investors have been a major contributor to our assets under management growth over the last two years, indeed over the last four months. Over the period, we've executed numerous partnerships, including a healthcare institutional partnership with PNB, a Malaysian sovereign investor, Challenger Life in the office retail and industrial partnerships, an industrial mandate with Icon Kajima , and a retail mixed-use mandate with ADIC. We expect to see continued strong growth in institutional assets under management in the coming years.
We'll also continue to see growth in assets under management going from establishing further funds for our wholesale capital partners, such as the fund we established in the last quarter for our wholesale investors, being the 55 Elizabeth Street office acquisition that indeed was an investment for that sector. On the back of the successful execution of the strategic growth initiative that was the acquisition of the Challenger Real Estate business, we see further such strategic growth opportunities contributing to our medium-term growth target of AUD 15 billion.
In summary, across the three broad sectors of growth, institutional funds-management mandates, establishing funds for our wholesale capital partners, which has been a traditional source of capital for our investments and funds, and also executing further strategic growth initiatives, combining those from those three sectors, we believe we will be able to achieve the growth targets that we've set for ourselves over the medium term. I'll now hand over to Paul Siviour to take us through the results for the last half in some detail. Thanks, Paul.
Thank you, Glenn. Referring to page 9 of the investor presentation released this morning, first page of the summary of our results for the half-year to 31 December 2024. As Glenn has mentioned, very significant increase in our recurring funds-management income excluding acquisition fees for the half, a 37% increase on the prior period. And that specifically reflects the successful integration of the Challenger acquisition on the 7th of July 2023. Coupled with that, we've seen a very material increase in our recurring funds-management EBITDA or our operating leverage. And that has come specifically from the scalability of our platform and in the context of the significant increase in AUM during the half. Following the Challenger transaction and other managed fund initiatives in the half, our AUM has grown from just under AUD 3 billion at June to AUD 6.3 billion.
Another feature of the half has been a successful new managed fund that acquired 55 Elizabeth Street, Brisbane for AUD 172 million in December. Coupled with that acquisition was an equity raising of AUD 109 million of capital with our capital raising partner, Fidante, linked, of course, also with the Challenger transaction. Our core earnings for the half were AUD 8.3 million, which represented an increase on the guidance we provided to the market in December of AUD 8 million, a reduction on the prior comparative period. But of course, that prior comparative period enjoyed a very significant performance fee of AUD 6.4 million. Our earnings per share earnings per security for the half of 5.45 translates to a distribution of AUD 0.049 per security and 90% payout ratio. Turning to page 10, we've referred to recurring funds-management income a number of times and just to remind those logging in today what that comprises.
It comprises our funds-management income streams that are a regular and ongoing feature of our results. That is, our management fees, development and leasing fees, and hotel operator fees. It specifically excludes acquisition and transaction fees and performance fees. I mentioned that we've enjoyed a very significant increase in recurring funds-management income up from AUD 17 million to AUD 23.7 million. Indeed, the scalability of our platform is demonstrated in the increase in our funds-management EBITDA, recurring funds-management EBITDA of AUD 5.5 million, which reflects and translates to a recurring funds-management EBITDA margin of 23%, a very significant increase on the margin for the prior comparative period of 3%. As Glenn's mentioned, we have a target over the next 5 years of AUD 15 billion. Coupled with that target is a target of 35% as a recurring EBITDA margin for the group.
We had a very strong focus on costs, and I'll make some more commentary on that shortly. But again, that goes specifically to evidence the scalability of our platform. Our co-investment income, which is the second component of the drivers of core earnings for the business, is down on prior comparative period. I'll make some particular and specific comments on that a little later in the presentation. During the half, we enjoyed transactional income of AUD 1.9 million, which is a modest contribution but reflected the successful completion of the sale of Panorama Retreat and Resort to the Elanor Hotel Accommodation Fund following the repositioning of that asset from a pure conference facility to an accommodation and conference offering and product. Turning to page 11, the major driver of our recurring funds-management income is, of course, our management fee income stream that we enjoy from our managed funds.
That income stream has risen by 71% to AUD 20.3 million for the half. And that income stream reflects 71% of our recurring funds-management income. I'll point that out because it just goes to the quality of the earnings profile and stream for the half. We've mentioned the acquisition of the Challenger transaction, and that was a highly successful acquisition and integration. We enjoyed the contribution of EBITDA from that transaction from day one on the 7th of July as a result of all the planning that went into and prior to the actual completion date for the transaction. We've had a significant focus on corporate costs, and I'll make some commentary on that in a moment. But particularly, we'd point out that the Challenger transaction did contribute approximately AUD 2 million of incremental costs. It also contributed over AUD 8 million of incremental recurring funds-management income.
And yet, the balance of our corporate costs only increased by AUD 1.5 million period on period. So we've enjoyed, again, the benefits of cost control and the evidence of the scalability of the platform. Turning to page 13, just to make a few comments on the contribution to the current half's core earnings from the Hotel Accommodation Fund . It is significantly down on the prior period. Just to put that into some context, in the first half of FY 2023, the prior comparative period, the fund enjoyed quite significant occupancy and visitation levels. And that was a result of tourism and travel patterns being attracted to regional assets and regional offerings in the period just shortly after COVID. What we've seen from January 2023 but more so towards the middle of that year is a weakening in occupancy.
That reflects certainly the market, the regional markets that's consistent with our peer group. We would comment that it relates to a change in travel patterns midyear where people did take the opportunity to travel overseas. Then, of course, as we moved past the half-year, there was an impact from cost of living and interest rates. What we have seen is some improvement in occupancy in the second quarter of the current financial year but still behind prior period. We would be cautiously optimistic in the context of the forward-looking drivers of occupancy. That is because our business on the books, that is forward bookings at our hotels as at the end of January, are showing an improvement on those forward bookings same time last year. We do expect an improved contribution to core earnings from the Hotel Accommodation Fund in the second half.
But I point out, and Glen has mentioned, those improvements in occupancy are coming much more slowly than we might have anticipated as we build back towards pre-COVID levels. Page 15 identifies the components of our funds-management platform. In earlier slides, as part of our target of AUD 15 billion , we've just tracked our assets under management increase from AUD 1.4 billion in June 2019 to AUD 2.7 billion in June 2022, a CAGR of 25%. In the last year and a half from June 2022, we've increased our assets under management to AUD 6.3 billion, a 75% CAGR. And importantly, what we've been able to achieve in the context of that growth is very significant support from institutional capital partners that, in the context of the AUM, now essentially contribute to 60% of that AUM in the context of the underlying equity capital supporting those assets.
It's important to note that our AUM is not subject to redemptions. A very modest amount is the Elanor Property Income Fund, around about AUD 100 million of our total assets under management. On page 16, we've given a little more detail of the nature of those institutional capital partners that we've partnered with over the last 12 months, 12-18 months, that have been instrumental in driving our AUM and our reported results. Challenger Life Company is a company that many will be familiar with. We are the exclusive investment manager of Challenger Life's real estate assets across Australia and New Zealand. The Abu Dhabi Investment Council is a capital partner of ours, and we enjoy mandate across both retail and hotels. Importantly, Challenger Life and Abu Dhabi Investment Council are also investors in the Elanor Register.
Challenger Life is our largest security holder at 13.3% or Challenger, should I say. Abu Dhabi Investment Council, approximately 3% ownership of Elanor. We've also enjoyed, as part of the recapitalization of our healthcare fund to a fund focused on core investment opportunities, the recapitalization of that fund by an Asian semi-sovereign investment manager. We see opportunities to further grow that fund with further institutional capital partners. Late last year, we announced a partnership with Icon Developments , a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Japanese developer Kajima Corporation . That arrangement is to programmatically build AUD 250 million of prime Australian logistics assets as part of a portfolio. Turning quickly to page 17, I won't comment on this page. It really just gives more detail of the componentry of our funds-management income for the current half but also in prior periods.
Page 18 identifies the like-for-like valuation movements during the half across each of our investment sectors. Across all of those sectors, our like-for-like valuations, that is ignoring CapEx during the half, just comparing assets' value pre-CapEx in the half to the value of those assets at 30 June, has shown a relatively modest decrease of 2.9%. That is, those decreases occurred particularly in retail and commercial and reflected some softening of cap rates up to 40 basis points, 30 basis points in the commercial sector, 40 in retail. But pleasingly, the valuation impact of that softening of cap rates was mitigated by rental market growth across broadly our retail and commercial assets. We have a strong hedging position. It's outlined on page 19 across each of our sectors of focus.
That continues to be a focus of the group where we look to sensibly immunize performance of the fund for interest rate movements. Turning briefly to our co-investment portfolio on page 21, AUD 179 million, I'll make some further comments in a moment on our focus in recycling and realizing our co-investment capital as part of providing funding to grow our assets under management over the next half and year. We've also set out on this page the movement in the co-investment portfolio over the half showing some acquisitions. The movements in NAV, of course, primarily reflect both depreciation, fair value adjustments, and within that, CapEx that may have been expended during the half. I spoke before of some reduction in the level of distributions from our co-investments, and that's set out on page 22. Essentially, that reduction compared to prior comparative period relates to two matters.
One is the Hotel Accommodation Fund where I've outlined what we've seen as a reduction in occupancy levels for the half compared to the prior comparative period where occupancy was relatively strong immediately post-COVID. The other elements of this that I would draw your attention to are Sterling Street, Harris Street, and Waverley Gardens. These are co-investments that generated AUD 0.7 million of distributions in the prior comparative period. Each of those assets, the assets in each of those funds perform well. What we have determined to do, though, is to hold distributions for those funds for the moment to preserve cash for leasing and other value-add CapEx. Just one point I'd like to make in respect of environmental, social, and governance, ESG. Those on the call that know us well will know we have a very deep commitment to this area and particularly in respect of social.
We have a very significant partnership with both the Smith Family and FSHD. But I would like to point out that we've made significant progress in a GS007 project for GS007 compliance, which goes hand in hand with not only the increase in our institutional capital partners over the last 12 months but in putting us on an excellent footing to be able to continue to grow those partnerships going forward. From an environmental point of view, we completed during the year a full assessment of our Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions, which establishes the base case for us to then target and implement initiatives to achieve reductions. Our profit and loss, our Core Earnings, is set out on page 26. We've talked to many elements of this already.
We'd just point out borrowing costs certainly have increased period on period, which has reflected it's a AUD 1.1 million increase reflecting our base variable management or base variable interest rate increase. Our borrowings as at 31 December, AUD 105 million, slightly below our indebtedness in June of AUD 107 million. In respect of the balance sheet on page 27, I just would point out the elements of the Challenger transaction on the balance sheet. Challenger transaction resulted in recording approximately AUD 40 million of management rights on the balance sheet. And that is from an accounting point of view because what we've acquired is the right to provide investment management services. As a result of that and the issue of additional securities during the half in respect of the Challenger transaction, our net asset value per security is AUD 1.13, excuse me, slightly down on the previous 30 June balance, AUD 1.25.
However, what we have done for investors is identify the net tangible asset backing per security of AUD 0.86. This is an important number when one is thinking about the sum of the parts valuation of Elanor because the AUD 0.86 is absolutely tangible assets that reflect no value for our funds-management platform. On page 28, we've identified our particular initiatives and plans in respect of capital release throughout the balance of calendar year 2024 from a series of managed fund initiatives and planned realizations. We've set out each of the funds where we expect this release to come from. And we've identified our investment in each of those funds across the our co-investment but also receivables, balances, and financial assets, which demonstrate for certain funds the commitment of the manager to provide those funds support during the more difficult times of COVID.
This capital release is expected to come from really three main initiatives depending on the fund. One is refinancing of the debt facilities. Secondly, a sell-down of our existing positions. And thirdly, and most importantly, asset realisations as we come to the end of the investment horizon of certain key funds. This capital release will provide us capital to assist us with our growth initiatives. On page 29, people are very familiar, I know, with the construct of our debt facilities. We enjoy a AUD 65 million revolving secured facility, which we have significant covenant headroom. And we also have a AUD 40 million unsecured notes facility, very, very capital-light, which provides us with, in some ways, equity replacement and an effective cost of debt given the nature of that facility. I'll now pass back to Glenn to discuss our outlook and provide some closing commentaries.
Thanks, Paul. As I said earlier, we feel positive about our medium-term and indeed our short to medium-term growth prospects and indeed delivering on that target of AUD 15 billion AUM over the in the short term, we do have a good pipeline of prospects across a number of our sectors that we participate in. Having said that, market conditions remain challenging. Establishing new funds remains challenging. Making investments at prices and values that we believe represent value is also a what's always challenging, to be perfectly honest. Finding assets that represent great value is always challenging whatever market conditions, but particularly in the current market conditions. We demonstrated last half that we were able to continue to make deep value investments with the completion of the Elizabeth Street acquisition in the last quarter.
Again, we believe we'll be making further investments and establishing new funds in our existing sectors of focus. We're also looking at new sectors of focus, which present very, more than interesting investment opportunities. As we've said to many of you over the past, we are always looking at strategic growth opportunities for the group. These market conditions could well present opportunities to us given the challenging marketplace it is in the real estate asset class. Having successfully completed the Challenger acquisition, I believe that positions us well to make further strategic acquisitions. To summarise, we've got three key areas of focus for the half: clearly continuing to grow our assets under management towards the medium-term target that we've stated and that we believe, leveraging our investment track record and our capital partnerships, positions us well to continue to grow assets under management.
Very importantly, realizing and recycling balance sheet capital to support our AUM growth objectives is a prime focus. This is an area that I've been disappointed with the success we've had in executing this initiative over the last couple of years. But suffice to say, it's a key focus and one that we will make progress in. And indeed, we'll make progress because it also supports the growth opportunities we have across the group. And finally, deriving operating leverage from our funds management business, from our scalable funds management business, is a key focus to drive earnings growth, to drive ROE growth, and to drive security holding rates. At this juncture, we'd be pleased to take questions. I know I forgot about it.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to come to a request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Edward Day with Moelis. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, Glenn and Paul. Just one from me. In the accounts you've got, the Mayfair Hotel as held for sale, could you perhaps just talk about that process and what a successful outcome then might mean for EHAF in terms of reduction in leverage or possible capital return?
Yes. Despite the challenging operating conditions that we spoke about in the broader accommodation leisure space, obviously, we've seen independent valuations being supported in that sector. Obviously, the buyers and valuers are looking through the cycle and looking for normalizing trading conditions to resume, i.e., back to pre-COVID levels of visitation and occupancy. As such, when we receive expressions of interest in our assets across the portfolio on an ongoing basis, we have received an unsolicited approach in regard to the Mayfair Hotel. As such, we've decided to look at that hotel as being a divestment opportunity for the group. We are in the process and are engaged with the party for the divestment of that asset.
If we don't achieve the divestment of that asset, our intention will be to look at realization options for that asset as a natural sort of portfolio sort of recycling, switching opportunity that that presents because there are other investment opportunities that we believe are at our disposal. So that's one sort of essentially portfolio switching opportunity that we are looking at. In terms of the procedure, yes, if we sell that asset and achieve the price that we require, that would involve a reduction in debt and a capital distribution to the investors in that fund, of which we're the biggest investor.
Great. Thanks for that.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. We'll just pause if there's any more questions to enter the queue. Your next question comes from Gerard Ahhot with Holt Asia Investment. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Good afternoon. Yeah. Can you hear me?
We can.
Oh, yes. Hi. Yes. Thanks for taking my question. My first one is regarding the balance sheet. So do we have some significant facilities or loans to refinance during the calendar year 2024?
No, we don't. The debt facilities for the headstock have at least 1.8-year duration on them. None of those facilities require any sort of refinancing for the next year and a half.
Okay. Okay. That's great. Thank you. And my second question is regarding the recurring fund management income. So we have a number of AUD 20 million for the first half. But if I'm correct, last year, you gave us a forecast of something like AUD 48 million for the recurring base management fees. So just to understand if we are below our expectations or do we think we can catch up with this forecast during the second half?
Yes. That recurring funds management income was not a forecast, just a bit of a runway, but did include a significantly higher level of hotel operator fees than we've achieved for the half. And that is essentially the delta.
Okay. So the delta comes from the hospitality segment?
Yes. That AUD 48 million, I just don't have that page from our prior presentation in front of me, but it is a combination of management fees and hotel operator fees.
Okay. Okay. I see. Okay. Thanks. And my last question. So for the second half, do we have some cost synergies after the acquisition of Challenger? Or in terms of cost base, what should we expect for the second half?
Well, pleasingly, all of the synergies, if that's the right way to call them, the right way to describe them, have all been achieved in the first half. Indeed, they've been achieved from day one where, as part of the transaction, we had the opportunity to hand-select Challenger people where we had the opportunity for them to join our platform. So the incremental Challenger cost of AUD 10 million reflects all the benefits, if you will, all of the scale benefits of the transaction. And we'd expect that to continue. I mentioned that our total costs excluding the Challenger contribution of AUD 2 million when compared to prior period were, in fact, showed a reduction. Ongoing cost control is a key focus of the business in terms of taking advantage of and demonstrating the operating leverage and scalability we have in our platform.
No particular or further synergies to be realized in the second half.
Okay. So we should expect more or less the same level of cost structure second half compared to first half?
Yes. There's always cost pressure. The business. But we expect to be able to control that relatively well. Yeah. We wouldn't say no increase.
Having said that, as we said, the key focus of ours is to drive the operating average of the business. We know that the platform and the investment that group has made, shareholders have made in establishing this platform, it's very scalable. It's up to us now to achieve those scale efficiencies and scale benefits.
Okay. Thank you. And maybe the last one. In terms of dividend payouts, I've noticed it's quite consistent over the years. But can you share with us if there is a sort of payout number that you would like to apply every year or in the future?
We've had a payout ratio of 90% since we listed. So it's maintained total consistency there over the years.
Okay. Okay. That's great. Okay. Thank you. That's all for me. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll hand back to Mr. Willis for closing remarks.
Thank you. Thank you for attending our presentation today. As I said at the start, we do appreciate your interest in the group. I'd like to close by taking the opportunity to thank all of our security holders for their ongoing support of the group, but also my executive colleagues in the board of the Investors Group. Look forward to our next presentation. Thank you very much. Have a good day.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.