Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this presentation of EQT Holdings half year results to 31 December 2021. I'm Mick O'Brien, the Managing Director of the company, and I've got with me Philip Gentry, our Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. Let's go through the agenda for this morning. I'm gonna give you an overview of the results for the half year. Phil will walk through the detailed financials and the details of each of the segments, and then I'll come back and talk on strategy update and the outlook for the company. We'll take questions at the end. First, let me give you an overview of the half year results. We're really pleased with this set of results.
The key points are that all the measures are moving in the right direction. Our funds under management, administration and supervision, which is a really key driver of revenue, is up 18.5% on the first half of 2021, so that's really solid growth. Part of that from markets, but a lot of it organic growth. It has translated through to revenue growth, which was up 15.8% on the previous half, so AUD 55.9 million. Net profit after tax of AUD 12.7 million is 29% up on the first half of 2021. If you look at the underlying result, it's 19% up on the underlying net profit after tax from the first half of 2021. A really solid set of results.
The board have decided to declare a dividend of AUD 0.48 as the interim dividend. That's AUD 0.04 up on the previous interim dividend, and AUD 0.01 up on the last final dividend of last year. A really strong set of results, and the balance sheet remains in a really healthy position. I think the half year really has continued to show that we've got a competitive edge in what we're doing in providing trustee services. I'm just reminding you know our shareholders that our focus strategy is to be a specialist trustee in all of the areas of the market where we can provide trustee services, and it really is underpinning this growth.
The funds flow that you saw on the previous page has flowed through to revenue, and that has flowed through to earnings, and we've had really tight management of expenses. We have continued to invest in people, and I'll talk about some of the key people who've come on board through the period and technology, and we'll be ramping up some of that technology spend as we move forward into the next 12 months. Certainly the independent model of trusteeship in the superannuation market, but also in the funds management market, is becoming a preferred industry standard, and we have a really strong position in both of those markets. The regulatory environment has continued to be intense through the last 6-12 months. It's a little of a two-edged sword for us.
In one respect, it makes it harder for others. Sure, we've got to lift to that regulatory standard ourselves, but it is our core area of expertise and it does make the outsourcing of independent trusteeship, you know, more attractive than trying to do it yourself. That is a real tailwind for us. We continue to fill the purpose of this company, basically, which is to care for people and look after others, and contribute to the broader community. Let me just show you now on this slide the growth in funds under management, administration and supervision. I use all of those terminologies because in some cases we're a trustee supervising assets, sometimes we're a custodian overseeing assets, an investment manager or an administrator in different types of arrangements. This captures all of those funds.
You see that really is pretty stunning progress over all of those periods. The only downturn in that set of numbers is in the COVID impact in the second half of 2020. This growth to AUD 151 billion is an 18% growth on the previous half in the previous financial year. It's coming from new business both in superannuation and in CTS, and a little in TWS. New clients that we've secured in those areas. Funds flow to our existing funds and schemes. The equity markets have also contributed, both the Australian equity market impacting particularly our private client business, but the global equity market impacting our corporate trustee services business. Really a fabulous set of numbers which drives the revenue.
If I just look at each of the segments in a little bit more detail, you can see consistent result in growth, particularly on the previous first half of 2021. It's particularly strong in Corporate Trustee Services and also in the superannuation area of the business. Just talk on Corporate Trustee Services, there's been a lot of new manager appointments that we've taken on. Our existing managers have been establishing new funds. Funds flow has been going into those funds. We've expanded our service in the last year to offer dual registry quoted funds. That is a big trend in the funds management industry, and we expect it to continue. We've also continued to build the corporate trust side of the business, both the debt side as well as the custody side.
If I turn to superannuation, the funds under supervision are up 21% on the prior corresponding period. We've picked up a number of new funds in that time period. We've also had some of our funds growing at a pretty quick rate. We've got a very diversified portfolio, so some of the superannuation funds we have, if you like, not growing as strongly as some others in the market. But there's a number of platform clients in this portfolio. Running really strongly. There's no question that independent trusteeship and superannuation is a growing trend, and we are at the forefront of putting that proposition to other superannuation trustees and superannuation providers. Can I just turn to Trustee & Wealth Services, our private client business. Funds under management, administration, supervision were up 6.6%.
There's been good growth in new clients into a number of the segments. Our in-house asset management is managing just under AUD 4 billion of those funds, and they've continued to perform really strongly throughout the period. We finalized a single large estate, and that's why you'll see the funds there go from AUD 9.8 billion down to AUD 9.7 billion. That was of the order, you know, just under AUD half a billion, that particular estate. There is a good organic growth there in that business. Now, we've used this framework for quite a number of years to focus everyone in the company on delivering for all of our stakeholders. You know, we pride ourselves on ensuring that our focus is on our clients and beneficiaries.
It's on our employees' wellbeing, delivering value for shareholders, and our impact on the community. With employee engagement, obviously, it's been challenging times not having our employees in the office. We're pleased to say they are coming back next week in a hybrid type of fashion. Our number one priority has been their health and safety throughout 2021. I'm really pleased with the job that we have done on that. We'll do our next survey of employees to understand their engagement levels very shortly. We have recently done our risk culture survey, which is so important to the organization of, you know, a trustee company. Our results there increased from 83%-85%, so that was a pleasing result. On the client satisfaction side, we're changing and enhancing the way we go about surveying our clients.
For the first time, we'll be surveying superannuation members, and that's really to increase the focus on member outcomes, for the members in the superannuation portfolio. We'll also have really specialized, surveying of particular client segments where you can understand in a trustee business, you know, in areas of estate management and potentially testamentary trust management. The service proposition is a different proposition because the trustee often hasn't been selected by the client. We wanna focus it to ensure that we've really got great service in those areas. Shareholder value, which obviously everyone on this call is interested in. Earnings per share is up to AUD 0.6047, so that's a AUD 0.133 increase. A really solid increased dividend, as I mentioned before, up to AUD 0.48, a AUD 0.04 increase.
On the community side, we just recently launched our fourth annual giving review, celebrating and trying to show the market how we've provided AUD 96 million of grants into the for-purpose sector of the Australian community. You know, we have a dedicated team doing that, and they're first class in ensuring that every dollar of that is going to really worthwhile causes. Also really proud, when the bushfires, you know, hit Australia 2 years ago, we established 2 purpose-built trusts. For those bushfires, AUD 7 million was raised for community rebuilding, which has all been deployed. Another AUD 4 million, or just over AUD 4 million, for volunteer support for the families who lost volunteers in those fires. We're pleased to say that granting is now starting to go to those families.
If I move on and just focus on the shareholder result here. You can see earnings per share in the top block there. The statutory result is up 28% from the prior corresponding period. If you look at the underlying result, bearing in mind, you know, we had a major expense in the previous result. The underlying result is up 18%. A really solid result on earnings per share. In this business, you know, our earnings really do translate to cash flow. Our cash flow does allow us to be, you know, pretty clear with the way we set our dividend policy. You can see there the increase in the dividends in each of the last three quarters after the dip we had in the COVID-impact year.
Albeit that in the full years, we haven't reduced the dividend at all. It's a nice, healthy progression of the dividends. Just a couple of other achievements I wanna touch on. I mentioned before on the people front, you know, trusteeship is about judgment, and that needs people. There has been increased pressure, you know, in the, I guess, employment market in Australia, particularly in certain areas. Technology is one such area. That impacts us. We've had a slightly higher turnover rate, but I'm really pleased that with our ability to recruit the people that we have gone to recruit. Just a couple I'll touch on here that a new company secretary joined us, just a couple of months ago.
We've put in place a new general manager of business development in Corporate Trustee Services, given the demand that we're seeing for our services there. We're expanding our asset management team by appointing a head of responsible investing as we continue to develop our responsible investing framework for our portfolios. On the technology front, we've implemented a number of really specialized technology platforms. CAMS is our risk and compliance platform that runs across the whole business, a very important platform for a trustee business. Xydra has been implemented for our service provider oversight. Bearing in mind we utilize, you know, probably something like 30 major service providers across the company, and we are overseeing and responsible for their work. Our oversight function is a really important function of trusteeship.
Our Sales force, we've continued to evolve, our cyber resilience has been worked on, you know, continuously over the last 18 months, and we feel in a reasonably comfortable position, in that spot. We've done a lot of preparatory work, and we'll have more major IT development in the next 12-18 months, particularly Trustee & Wealth Services, our private client business, where we'll be putting in place a new platform. That's a very important upgrade. On the finance side, we'll be putting in place a new platform with finance. On the marketing front, we've continued improvements in our search engine optimization and digital marketing, increased our communications program, and really changed our marketing events to be hybrid online events.
That'll continue to be the case as our workers return and our clients return, basically to the cities. On the asset management side, I mentioned that we're really building an outstanding investment track record. Just look at Australian equities. Over the course of the last six months, our alpha generation in the main portfolios has been of the order of 1.8%-2%. That really is an outstanding result. If I look at it over three years since we've had the team in place, headed by Darren Thomson and by Chris Haynes, the alpha generation is over 1% per annum over that time period. That has really gone really well for our clients and the beneficiaries of our various trusts.
We've consolidated the number of schemes that we've got, so from 24 down to 13. It's been a long running process since the acquisition of the ANZ Trustees business, where we had, if you like, a replicated portfolio of schemes. That now is complete, that work. We launched a new global equity fund in the course of the period, called the 8IP Global Equity Fund, in conjunction with a partnership with 8IP . I'm pleased to say we raised AUD 30 million in that fund, and alpha generation of the first six months thereof 20%. A really great start. In summary, you know, really pleased with these results. The funds growth has been significant. It's been both organic and assisted by strong equity markets.
That has translated into earnings growth, both on an underlying and statutory basis. It's enabled us to increase the dividend again. We're continuing to invest in the company on people side, but more so in technology as we move forward. We, you know, we're really proud of the impact we have had on the community and our ability to deliver for shareholders, for our clients, for our employees and also for the community, as I mentioned. With that as a summary, I'm gonna hand over to Philip, who will take you through the financial results.
Thanks, Nick. Let me now take you through some of the key points of the financials, and we'll start first with the P&L. Here you can see a little bit more detail here. In particular, revenue growth, you can see up 15.8% in the prior corresponding period, particularly strong. In contrast, expense growth relatively contained on a statutory basis, up 2.7%. Albeit when you strip out the M&A project expenses from the PCP, then expenses are up 8%, but still, well below the rate of growth you see in the revenue. That transforms into a healthy increase in EBITDA, nearly up 40% of net profit before tax, up around 50%. Net profit after tax is up 29.3% and the EPS up 28.2 on a statutory basis.
Albeit on an underlying, again, adjusting for those M&A expenses, EPS still up a very healthy 18.1%. The dividend up AUD 0.044 on the PCP, AUD 0.01 on the previous half. Now I'll just break down the revenue in just a little bit more detail for you. Here you can see that a bridge on revenue relative to the prior corresponding period, showing the split between the organic revenue growth, which is pretty healthy, about 35% of the total. Obviously, positive equity markets have made a material contribution as well, particularly in CTS and TWS. Let me just expand a little bit further on some of those key metrics. Here you can see some of the history over the last 5 halves on each of revenue, EBITDA, NPAT and dividends. Again, very consistent improvement over those periods.
As Mick mentioned, notwithstanding COVID in the second half of 2020, full year dividends were maintained through that period as well. Pretty solid performance. Now let me turn to each of the major revenue business units, and starting firstly with the Trustee & Wealth Services business. On the left-hand side, you can see their respective bridge on revenue. Again, a strong contribution from organic growth and some positive assistance from the equity markets as well. On the right-hand side, you can see the fee and asset breakdown. Slight reduction half-on-half, as a result of that estate that was finalized over that period that Mick referred to, but underlying growth remains pretty solid and also helped by excellent investment performance in that portfolio too. Diving a little bit deeper into TWS now.
You can see in their sub-businesses pretty strong increases across fee and assets across all of them other than the estates which I've referred to before. Particularly strong performance from advice, compensation trusts and living trusts . They're the key ones that stand out, but generally quite positive momentum across TWS. Now turning to the superannuation business. Here revenue's up around 12% on the PCP, again, quite strong. On the right-hand side, members are down, but largely due to transfers to the ATO across the board, which is a feature of the whole industry. Funds under supervision nonetheless still a healthy increase there. Now turning to the Corporate Trustee Services business. This business has been particularly busy over the last six months. Strong growth in funds under supervision. Headline revenue growth of around 17%. High levels of activity continuing. Currently around 35 funds at various stages of establishment.
You can see on the right-hand side a particular increase in funds under supervision of alternative funds. Now let me just show you a little more detail on the fund and client movements. In this slide, you can see some of the activity that's been going on here. Quite high levels of new fund establishments, both half-on-half and on the PCP. Obviously some exits as well for funds that haven't been successful for various reasons. Generally quite good momentum across this business. On the right-hand side, you can see about half our clients are global fund managers and half Australian. Good momentum across both sets of clients. Turning now to the CTS corporate trust and securitization business. There is good momentum here, albeit revenue slightly down half-on-half, but well up on the PCP.
Underlying activity levels remain quite strong and we expect the second half of 2022 to deliver improved revenue growth there based on the levels of activity we see today. Turning now to our U.K. Irish business. Here you can see clients and funds. Clients are relatively stable, funds up a little, and funds under supervision up quite strongly, partly assisted by markets, but also some good underlying growth in a number of these funds, particularly as the COVID restrictions have eased somewhat and fund managers are now able to get out and distribute in ways they haven't been able to do before. Looking forward, there is a strong pipeline, increasingly of larger prospects, which is encouraging. We're targeting 6-8 new fund establishments in the next half, which should assist considerably. Now turning to the balance sheet. It continues to be quite strong.
You can see there's circa AUD 100 million of cash in one form or another. Some of that is there to support regulatory capital, and I'll talk a bit more about that shortly. Borrowings remain relatively modest. We have AUD 30 million of committed undrawn facilities, so plenty of flexibility to take advantage of opportunities should they arise or you know, ride out perhaps more challenging economic times should they arise as well. Moving on to cash flow. Again, a particularly strong cash flow generation half. Very consistent high-quality cash generation, principally used to pay dividends and income tax, negligible bad debts. No particular issues on the horizon in that regard. We see continuing strong cash generation in the period ahead. Now a little more focus on liquidity, just to paint a bit more of a picture here.
Here you can see a bridge which helps explain our unencumbered liquidity position. On the left-hand side, you can see the total liquid assets held, and the definition of those is spelled out below the chart. We've got about AUD 66 million of those liquid assets, effectively quarantined for regulatory capital, mainly for the RE business. Then we've got some ORFR-related cash, which essentially matches the ORFR loans supporting our superannuation business, leaving around AUD 30 million of net available liquid assets. When you combine that with the committed undrawn facilities, we've got about AUD 60 million of surplus liquidity, available liquidity. In summary, a very strong organic revenue growth performance supported by the growth in the equity markets. Underlying cost growth well below revenue, but quite a bit of investment still to come in resources and technology to support sustainable future growth.
Mick O'Brien will talk more about that when he talks about strategy. Particularly strong growth in EBITDA. Margins increasing. Again, we'll talk more about the outlook in due course. Strong cash generation and well positioned to support the company's future growth aspirations. I'll pass back to Mick O'Brien to talk about the strategy and outlook in more detail.
Thank you, Guy. So let me just give you a quick update on the strategy and how we see the outlook for the company. You know, firstly, this company has been founded on trust through its 135 years. Trust has never been in more demand. You know, that goes for our private client business. It goes for the role that we play in the funds management markets and the role we play in the superannuation markets. You know, in an uncertain world, the independence and the specialization and the history that we bring really is a very positive attribute for the company. If I just give you a quick look at what's happening in the market and the environment, we really do feel that we're experiencing tailwinds.
The Royal Commission obviously was very focused on trusteeship, basically, in superannuation and in funds management. The regulatory landscape is changing, you know, constantly, and it really is a core capability of the company to be able to do that. A good example of that would be the rollout we did of the design and distribution obligations. You know, that was a rollout that we, you know, did a couple of hundred schemes with target market distributions, which saved our clients an enormous amount of time, and we had the, if you like, the efficiency to be able to roll that out in a really streamlined way for the benefit of our clients. There is a focus on core capabilities. Everyone is really narrowing down on their core capabilities in the value chain.
Ours is really clear. It's trusteeship, right? That sits at the apex and really the control of the whole value chain in financial services. It's a good position to be in. You know, COVID and the markets have obviously impacted, and changes in ownership in the wealth market has also impacted and provided opportunities for us. Every time there's change, the various, you know, new owners and players that are in the market are considering what's the best way of establishing their arrangements. Often the independent specialist model for trusteeship is considered in those circumstances. Our strategy hasn't changed. We're looking for consistent growth in shareholder value and returns. You know, we do see, you know, good growth opportunities in key parts of our markets.
Others take, if you like, a longer time to grow, and we will continue to invest in those areas where that's the case. We have an increasing focus on client service, so we don't take any beneficiaries for granted, even though the role of trustee quite often, you know, has a very controlling position over the arrangements that we have. All of the clients and beneficiaries are critical to that they are delivered the same level of service. We will be investing more in technology. I'll come to that in a sec. We're looking to be a leader in the markets in which we compete.
If there's markets where we don't have that leadership position, where we're looking at ways we can achieve it, or we won't stay in those particular markets. I'll look at each of the business units' strategies, and I'll start on Trustee & Wealth Services. It's been a business that has a really strong leadership position in the legal industry, and we've been looking to expand that into other distribution networks. We've got a very strong presence here in Melbourne and not quite the same in some of the other cities, and we're looking to, and not all of the segments in which we operate in. We're looking to ensure that we've got that leadership across multiple segments and all across the country.
We're going to invest significantly in the platform, the main client platform for Trustee & Wealth Services over the next 12-18 months, and that'll be the objective of that is to deliver better client experience and improve our operational efficiency. In superannuation, you know, the opportunities are pretty immense at the moment. It's a market that's growing at a really good rate. There's a lot of change going on. We've got a leadership position in providing trustee services with our independent specialized model. We'll continue to put that forward to other superannuation trustees as they look to make changes in how they're looking after their superannuation funds. There is a big focus on member outcomes. That has been a focus for the last 18 months.
It will continue to build with APRA's heat maps that are applying in the MySuper space now being extended into the choice space, and we're well positioned to manage that transition. In Corporate Trustee Services, we've got obviously the leading position in providing RE services in the funds management market here in Australia. We're trying to replicate some of that success into the U.K. and Ireland and build the profitability in that business. We're increasingly focusing on a corporate trust side, both in the debt and securitization markets as well as in the custody and real asset markets. You'll see more of our attention put to that in coming years. I'll just go down a little bit more detail in each of these areas.
In Trustee & Wealth Services, as I mentioned before, we're gonna put in place a new client platform. It'll take us some 18 months to do, and we've done a lot of work in the last six months to set ourselves up to do that. We continue to build out the asset management capability, as I mentioned before. We have taken on board quite a number of health and personal injury clients where we were the trustee but not the financial advisor. We'll now be the financial advisor. That portfolio I think now is up to half a billion dollars, and we are financial advisor and the trustee for those clients and sometimes the investment manager as well. There's a big focus on operational efficiency.
I think it's a business that, you know, it's complex, it's diverse, but there's plenty of opportunity to achieve operational efficiencies when we put the new platforms into place. In the superannuation space, we've got to continue to build our data, analytics and, because APRA is demanding more and more, and there's a greater focus, as I mentioned, on member outcomes. We're very active in the market, talking to prospective clients. I think, you know, as I mentioned before, demand for specialized superannuation trusteeship, given the obligations on superannuation trustees, is just increasing all the time.
I think increasingly providers are seeing that the independent model and the unconflicted model is what the regulator wants and is what is best for their members and enables them to focus on their core capabilities, be it whatever they are as an investment manager or administrator or distributor. We continue to put more people into this business and I'm really pleased that we've been able to recruit the quality of professionals that we have been able to to handle the growth that's been there. It's a business that's in a really solid shape. Finally, on Corporate Trustee Services, I think I've touched on these things.
I will just mention that the build-out of listed investment schemes will continue. We now have 7 listed in the market, and we have a pipeline of the equal of that number. So that's expanding the distribution capability of our clients. We've been winning on the corporate trust side, new deals in securitization and in the real asset space. As I mentioned, we're putting more resource into that. We'll be recruiting more people to help build that business over the course of the next 12 months. The momentum is growing in the U.K. and Ireland. I think we've managed quite well the increased requirements of the Financial Conduct Authority in the U.K.
You know, we've built up a good portfolio of clients, and now it's the funds flow into those clients funds which will build the profitability of that business. The technology side, I mentioned quite a number of these things. You know, perhaps you can see there the investment that we've had in the second half of 2022, AUD half a million dollars we're expecting, but then going to FY 2023 to AUD half to 3 million dollars. A bigger envelope investing in technology to handle that transition of the Trustee & Wealth Services client base to a new platform, and also to handle a new finance platform.
Also we're doing a major piece of work in Corporate Trustee Services, just given the sheer scale of that business and the complexity of it, with almost 400 schemes and 130 fund managers, sponsors and promoters as clients. It's a big business and, while we've been putting in various solutions over recent years, we need to reengineer some of those processes, so it's fit to double again in size in coming years. I mentioned before that, you know, risk and governance is really critical to a trustee business. You know, I'm really pleased to say that we have excellent relationships with the two main regulators at the highest levels of those organizations. We have an incredibly clean track record in recent years, not caught up in any of the issues of Royal Commission.
Not caught up with any enforceable undertakings, not caught up with any class actions. It really is a testament to the way we conduct ourselves as a trustee. I mentioned before the risk culture survey response. We're really pleased with that response. It really is a critical part of our business to have first-class governance and to be able to handle the regulatory requirements that are on a trustee. Finally, in summary, I think our strategy, you know, is being reinforced. The strength of it in being able to deliver growth in funds and revenue, and that has translated to earnings. With an enormous gap between revenue growth and expense growth in this period. The trend to outsourcing fiduciary services we expect to continue, and we're really well placed in each part of the market to capitalize on that.
The equity markets have helped us in the time over the last 12 months. Obviously the unfortunate circumstances in Eastern Europe will have some impact on market volatility, and parts of our business, obviously, the revenue is correlated to market returns. We expect to see growth in the securitization, the debt side of the business, as well as in custody and real assets. We're keeping investing in people. Obviously, the market has got tighter, but we're prepared to meet the market. We, I think, are increasingly seen as an employer of choice given our specialization and the purpose of this company for what it exists, I think makes us a very attractive employer. Some significant IT developments coming forward in the next time period.
The balance sheet has put Ventures in a great position. We've got very positive momentum moving into the remainder of FY 2022 and beyond. We'll stop there, and we'll take some questions then. The first question there is around the CTS, U.K. and Ireland business. It's basically saying, you know, are we seeing growth in funds under management from new client wins? Are they attributable to onboarding of new clients that are already there, or are they still prospective? The growth that you see, that you saw in those slides in the U.K. and Irish business is primarily coming from funds flow to existing clients. Of course, that's really the best sort of growth for us, because all the work that we do is really in setting clients up and then establishing funds.
The business has been on that path for the last four years doing that. At that stage, funds are at a point where they're paying a minimum fee and it covers our costs, but doesn't really get us to those profit margins we want. We need to see, you know, clients growing. I'm pleased to say that there's a number of clients in the U.K. and Irish business that are really high quality fund managers that are achieving that growth. We have got a pipeline of new clients coming on board. Things take a little longer over there to get funds established because the, both the Central Bank of Ireland and the FCA in the U.K. are a little slower in agreeing to establish funds than what we are, than what we see here in Australia.
I think the pipeline's solid. Perhaps, Phil, the next question might be for you. It's the Corporate Trustee Services, the corporate trust and securitization business. We saw revenue drop back, but it looks like the key drivers are outstanding. How can we think about those performance metrics for the business going forward?
Thanks, Mikey. Look, that business is seeing higher levels of activity, and the key metrics are heading in the right direction. I think our expectation is that there's been quite a lot of new business put on in the last few months, and I think the full half impact of that should come through in the second half. There's a fair bit of additional new business expected to come on as well. No, we're quite positive about the outlook for that particular business.
The next question is a great result with 2021 census results likely show another median rise in Australia's age to 39. Can you expand on how the demographics impact the business and also the declining population in our home state of Victoria? Good question. I think, firstly, you know, we do have a footprint across all of Australia, so obviously the history of the company is here in Victoria. The private client side, Trustee & Wealth Services, is more focused here in Victoria. We do have a solid footprint in all the other states. Of course, the two corporate lines of business are across the whole country. I don't think the geographic decline of Victoria, if that continues, is gonna be any impact on the company.
The aging of the population really sees more demand for our services in Trustee & Wealth Services. You know, we are increasingly seeing people losing capacity in later years. Medical technologies enabling us to have people living a lot longer doesn't necessarily mean they've got the capacity to be looking after their needs. You know, so we're seeing more clients anticipating those sorts of changes or families anticipating those changes and putting in trustee arrangements to look after their loved ones. That's a positive trend for the business, but it'll play out over a long period of time. The next question is about the U.K. It says the larger prospects may mean a shorter time to break even. Rome was not built in a day and there's geopolitical worries, including your safety.
Will you visit the U.K. operations at some stage to enhance relationships, including with major clients and EQT people? That's an excellent question. Look, I think it's important that when you're building a business, you're picking up clients who are really great clients and gonna be successful. Having said that, we will also back, you know, fund managers that we think can have success, but it's not guaranteed. You know, that's just the way of business to back those types of potential clients. Getting over to the U.K. and Ireland, we would like to, you know, at some stage very soon. It hasn't, you know, it hasn't been possible, frankly, since February of 2020, I think was the last time. It's been difficult running a business remotely in that way.
We've got some good leaders over there and the business has continued with progress. It's important we do get some of our people, and we're planning to do that over to the U.K. and Ireland very shortly. Phil can take the next one. The Trustee & Wealth Services profit before tax margin was up considerably. Can you talk through cost management in the segment and how the abatement of certain headwinds assisted?
Sure. Thanks, Mike. TWS cost growth was the most modest of all the three BUs. In fact, there was actually some cost reduction in certain areas, offset by investment in certain areas. The increased revenue that came through from both the organic growth and certain markets, you know, substantially flowed to the bottom line, which helped, you know, as you can see, boosted the margin in this business. We think that that can continue. We do expect further investment in TWS, particularly in the technology. From a resourcing standpoint, it's well set up to...
Thanks, Phil. Next question is Trustee & Wealth Services outlook commentary talked about AMP Advice and personal injury clients. Can you talk about that opportunity and the implications?
In trust arrangements, looking after health and personal injury clients, generally the courts appoint a trustee and also a financial advisor to look after those clients' interests. In many cases, we perform both of those roles. In some cases, we've worked with other distribution partners, in this case it was AMP Advice, where they've performed one of the roles and we've performed the trusteeship. What we've done just recently is taken those clients across to where we're providing both services to them. We've been lucky enough to recruit one of the people out of AMP Advice to assist us in that. We maintain the client relationships that were in place. That will have an impact, you know, a positive impact on revenue going forward.
It really does set up the portfolio of that business, you know, in a much more solid fashion, because we prefer to be doing both those roles concurrently.
The next question talks about the impact of negative market returns in January and February on each segment's revenue. I might hand that one to you, Phil, if that's all right.
Thanks, Mike. The market impacts on each of the three businesses will essentially translate as per the guidance we've previously given to each of them. In the case of TWS, about 50% leverage to the ASX 200. In the case of CTS, about 50% of the average dated global MSCI. In the case of STS, about 20%-30% leverage because there's a lot more fixed arrangements to the average ASX 200. In reality, we've obviously seen in January. There hasn't really been much effect in January and the revenue has continued to be pretty strong in that month. Obviously, February is not complete yet, but it will translate along the lines I've suggested. We're more typically advised.
Thanks, Phil. Next question is about gearing. What level of gearing would the company be comfortable with in an M&A scenario? Should we think about a multiple of profit before tax? A debt to equity type limit, excluding the ORFR reserves that we have.
Sure. Certainly we could, you know, we could borrow considerably more debt than for M&A if we needed to. We wouldn't be particularly comfortable for that debt to be long-term in nature. For a short term period, say 18 months, while debt levels came down to more normal levels, we'd be happy to do so. We do have a policy of maintaining at least an investment grade equivalent rating, even though we're not formally rated, but we look at metrics that assist in that regard, and the EBITDA multiple would be a useful place to start. Yeah, I wouldn't wanna put a specific number on it because obviously it depends on the particular acquisition.
Thanks, Philip. Next question. Losses in the U.K. and Ireland are running heavier than expected. Can you talk through confidence in the ongoing investment? Costs in the segment were up on PCP, down on second half 2021. How should we think about costs in second half 2022? I'll have a go at that. Just covering off the cost issues. We have been managing those businesses fairly tightly. There is a need, when you're a small business and you're bringing on a number of new funds to, you know, sometimes put those resources on as you're establishing the fund. So we will certainly do that as we need to do it. I don't see any major change in the trajectory of the cost base the way it is at the moment. Confidence in the investment.
Well, it's been a tough time not being able to be there for two years and, you know, with COVID impacting just generally how the markets operate over there. Particularly, most of our managers are distributing in the retail markets of Europe and the U.K. Retail funds management distribution has been held back through the course of the last 18 months. We're looking forward to more normal settings. Getting our employees back in the workforce will be helpful and having us get over there. You know, they're more competitive markets for our services than what we see here in Australia. You know, we're not gonna be the dominant player over there, but, we're still confident of our prospects and got a reasonable pipeline to continue to keep developing those businesses.
Congratulations on the strong result. Can we get a feel for the expected cost growth excluding the technology costs which you've disclosed separately? This first item will contribute to the second one. Philip.
Sure. On the cost front, obviously, there'll be some additional tech costs we've talked about. There will be, you know, our expectation is that there will be some higher salary costs. You know, we are recruiting relatively heavily in a number of key areas at the moment, and I expect there will be some increase in people cost in the second half. Certainly I'd expect some cost increase half on half. Not too dramatic, though, you know, but certainly reasonable.
Thanks, Philip. Surplus capital and conservative balance sheet. Could you please comment on interest in M&A and capital management? Perhaps I'll take interest in M&A. We've said that we're very interested in businesses that are operating in the trustee space. Maybe a little to the adjacency of that, but primarily in trustee space. That continues to be the case and we're active, actively looking at the market for those types of opportunities. And the balance sheet does give us quite a degree of flexibility to be able to pursue any of those opportunities should we need to do it. Sorry.
In terms of capital management, you know, that's certainly something that we give consideration to. At the current point in time, we believe there's, you know, quite a number of opportunities to consider deploying that capital, both within the business and potentially with M&A opportunities, any of which would potentially have, you know, very good returns for shareholders. At this stage, other capital management is not a high priority, but it remains something for consideration for the future.
Thanks, Philip. Philip, can you comment on the non-controlling interest at AUD 0.7 million versus the loss in U.K./Ireland at AUD 1.5 million? Seems high.
Yeah, it is a bit higher than usual. The part of the reason for that is in that period, we've taken the opportunity to de-recognize the deferred tax asset in the U.K. That's what's influencing that result. Essentially, you know, there's still some uncertainty regarding the timing around the recovery of those losses. We've taken a conservative position.
Thanks, Philip. Next question is, what percentage of the anticipated IT spend in second half 2022 and FY 2023 is expected to be capitalized?
Yeah. There will be some that is capitalized, but in those numbers are substantially more OpEx.
Right. This might be the last question. Congratulations on the great result. What is your expected ROI from your technology investment and the timeframe for this? Perhaps I'll take that one. I think on the Trustee & Wealth Services side of the business, you know, this is gonna take us some 12-18 months to implement this platform. It goes across the whole business. It's primarily aimed at delivering better service to clients, but it will produce operational efficiencies for us that'll be able to be achieved in a relatively short timeframe after the implementation of the new platform. You know, it's not something that's gonna take us years and years and years to roll out across the business.
We expect to be seeing those results fairly quickly after the rollout. On the other investments that we're making, they are primarily designed as well to delivering better client service, but efficiencies in the business. We expect to see some return on those types of investments in the years in which we're implementing the development. Particularly on the finance side, but also the things that we're doing at Corporate Trustee Services to make that business more efficient. I think that brings us to the end of all the questions. I really appreciate all those questions.
Philip and I will be, you know, out over the course of next week talking to shareholders, and we're really looking forward to talking to you know, individually and in other group meetings over the course of the next week or so. Thanks very much for attending this morning.