Good afternoon and welcome to the 7th Annual General Meeting of Hearts and Minds Investments Limited, which I will refer to as HM1 or The Company. My name is Chris Cuffe, and I'm Chair of The Company. It's a pleasure to be holding our AGM in person. It's also wonderful to know that there are many of our shareholders that have joined us online via the Lumi platform. The hybrid meeting ensures as many shareholders as possible can participate, allowing those online to listen to the live webcast, ask questions, and submit votes. It is now past 4:00 P.M., and I have been informed that there is a quorum present, and I declare the meeting open.
I'm joined today by my fellow directors and company officers, Lorraine Berends, also Chair of the Investment Committee, Matthew Grounds, Michael Traill, Guy Fowler, Gary Weiss, Geoff Wilson, David Wright, who's also Chair of the Conference Funds Manager Selection Committee, Richard Howes, our Managing Director, Charlie Lanchester, our Chief Investment Officer, Maggie O'Neill, our Chief Operating Officer, and our Company Secretary, Eryl Baron. On behalf of the Board of Management, I would like to thank you for your continued support of HM1. I will address the company's financial results and charitable donations for the year ended 30 June 2025 and touch on our recent investment performance. Richard King from our auditors, Pitcher Partners, is also present and will be available to address any questions relating to the audit of the company's financial statements. For those attending in person, you will be given the opportunity to ask questions during the meeting.
For those attending online, on your screen, you'll see a slide explaining how to submit a question to the meeting. Questions can be submitted at any time. To ask a question, select the Messaging tab and type your question in the Ask a Question box. Once you have finished typing, please hit to send. Please note that while you can submit a question from now on, I will not address them until the relevant time in the meeting. Please also note that your questions may be amalgamated together if we receive multiple questions on the one topic. Finally, due to time constraints, if we run out of time to answer all your questions, we will answer them as soon as possible after the meeting via email or posting responses on our website. The voting process.
In accordance with ASX listing rules, all resolutions at this AGM will be decided by a poll. As Chairman, I have called that poll. Only HM1 shareholders or their duly appointed proxies are eligible to vote at this meeting. Shareholders and proxy holders attending in person would have received on registration a green voting card that provides for the holding of a poll on resolutions put to shareholders. You will need to complete this card for your vote to be counted. If you wish to vote in favor of a resolution, please mark the for box. If you wish to vote against a resolution, please mark the against box. If you wish to abstain from voting on a resolution, please mark the abstain box. If you have any questions about voting, then please speak to a representative of the company or share registry before lodging your completed poll card.
The green poll voting cards will be collected at the end of the meeting and counted by the share registry. For those attending online, so that we can provide you with enough time to vote, polling on resolutions is open now. On your screen, you will see the voting process. If you're eligible to vote on this meeting, select the Voting tab. Selecting this tab will bring up a list of resolutions and present you with voting options. To cast your vote, simply select one of the options. There's no need to hit a submit or enter button as the vote is automatically recorded. You do have the ability to change your vote up until the time I declare the voting close. If you require help using the voting system, you can call 1300 737 760. There'll be a test on this.
In Sydney, 929 096 00, so we can assist. If you are a proxy holder, you must comply with the direction of the shareholder. If a shareholder or its proxy holder votes today in relation to a shareholding for which a proxy has already been lodged, the earlier proxy will be revoked in favor of the new vote. On the screen now, you'll see a lengthy disclaimer. You can take a few moments to read that. It's a fairly stock-standard disclaimer. As you know, HM1 is a listed investment company established in 2018 with the combined objective of providing a concentrated global equities portfolio of the highest conviction ideas from respected fund managers, whilst also supporting Australian medical research organizations. It was born out of the investment and philanthropic vision of the Sohn Hearts and Minds Investment Leaders Conference.
I'm pleased to report that HM1's investment performance has continued to be very strong. The HM1 investment portfolio returned 25.5% for the year ended 30 June 2025, building on gains made in prior years. The current year's investment performance was primarily driven by strong gains in Tencent Music, [Kongiwe] Mining, and Airbus from the 2024 conference portfolio, alongside solid results from the core portfolio supported by positions in Zillow, NVIDIA, TSMC, Microsoft, Brookfield Corp, and Block. Over the last four months since the end of the financial year, HM1's investment performance has continued to improve. The one-year investment performance to 31 October 2025 was up 22.6%, bringing the annualized investment performance since inception to 12.3% per annum.
Since 30 June 2024, the NTA and the share price has continued to improve, with the post-tax NTA increasing to AUD 3.44, AUD 3.71 pre-tax, and on 30 June 2025, and the share price rising to AUD 3.31 at the end of October. The share price has increased 11.8% in the year to 31 October 2025, and the share price discount stands at 16% pre-tax and 7% post-tax. The board remains confident that sustained improvement in investment performance, our commitment to increasing fully franked dividends, and deepening shareholder engagement will continue to underpin the share price relative to HM1's NTA per share. During the financial year ended 30 June 2025, HM1 paid fully franked dividends amounting to AUD 0.17 per share, with an interim dividend of AUD 0.08 per share and a final dividend of AUD 0.09 per share.
We're pleased to report that the board has resolved to increase dividends by AUD 0.50 per share every six months for the foreseeable future, subject to there being no sustained period of investment market underperformance. Based on the current share price, the increased annualized dividend represents a fully franked dividend yield of 5.44%. In line with its philanthropic objective, HM1 provides financial contributions equivalent to 1.5% of NTA per annum to leading Australian medical research organizations, to fund the development of new medicines and treatments, and to drive a new generation of medical research in Australia. This is made possible by the contribution of fund managers, by the board of directors and committees, and many of our service providers, all working on a pro bono basis. We sincerely thank everyone for their ongoing involvement and generosity.
During the year ended 30 June 2025, HM1 paid AUD 9.5 million to its designated medical research organisations and made provision for a further AUD 1.8 million. These donated monies will be used by the medical research organisations in pioneering research across cardiovascular disease, neurodegeneration, diabetes, genomics, immunotherapies, and paediatric medicine. Including the donations made by HM1-owned and run Sohn Hearts and Minds Conference, Hearts and Minds now has donated over AUD 83.7 million to medical research in Australia. This is a significant contribution to the advancement of medical research in Australia. Your shareholding in HM1 not only delivers investment returns and dividends, your shareholding is also making a meaningful difference to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of chronic diseases for your fellow Australians. Further details on the impact of your contribution to medical research can be found on our impact website, which is heartsandmindsgroup.com.au.
This year brought changes to HM1's executive leadership. We thank Paul Rayson, our inaugural CEO, for more than seven years of dedicated service and for laying the foundations that continue to underpin HM1's success. We also thank Brett Jolie, who served as CEO during a key transition period and implemented a series of operational improvements. In June 2025, we welcome Richard Howes as Managing Director. Richard brings extensive investment management industry experience and is well placed and committed to leading HM1 into its next phase with a clear focus on both performance and purpose. On the 14th of November this year, we held the 10th Annual Sohn Hearts and Minds Conference, marking a decade of bold ideas and generous giving.
The conference continues to be central to both our identity and our investment strategy. 35% of our portfolio is built upon the high conviction ideas presented at the conference each year. In conclusion, we believe that HM1 offers a compelling investment in a concentrated portfolio of global equities recommended by a select panel of successful fund managers. The investment returns of the portfolio are underpinned by a fully franked dividend that is paid twice yearly to shareholders. All investment fees are waived and instead an equivalent amount is contributed to fund medical research in Australia. This is a professionally curated and managed investment in global equities that also delivers meaningful social returns. I now call upon Charlie Lanchester, our Chief Investment Officer, to present his report.
Good afternoon. I'm delighted to attend my third AGM as the CIO for Hearts and Minds Investments. I'm really enjoying the role and have developed some strong relationships with our core fund managers who have been extremely generous with their time and thoughtful advice.
Overall, I think that we have managed the portfolio in a more active manner over the last two and a half years, and this has led to improved performance. Unlike many of our active peers, we have managed to keep up with the index, which is increasingly dominated by the U.S. market, which now makes up more than 70% of the MSCI World Index. On the 1st of September 2025, HM1 introduced its first offshore-based core fund manager, Prusik Investment Management. Prusik is an independently owned fund management company which specializes in researching and investing in Asian equities. Founded in 2005, it was one of the first long-only absolute return investors focusing on Asia ex Japan. Prusik is led by Tom Naughton, who has been investing in the region since 1994. He has developed a research-based, value-based approach to identify compelling investment opportunities.
He has already proved himself to be thoughtful, engaged, and extremely responsive when needed. I think that his value-based approach in the Asia-Pacific region balances the portfolio well. We now have a high-performing, exceptional group of managers whose styles are all well-suited to the HM1 approach. They are also great to work with and are thoughtful in their approach to medical research. The HM1 investment portfolio increased on a pre-tax basis by 25.5% for the year ending 30 June 2025, building on the strong performance of the prior year. The core portfolio performed well in 2025, driven by large share price gains in several of our portfolio holdings, namely Zillow, NVIDIA, TSMC, Microsoft, Brookfield, and Block. Our one unlisted name, Rokt , was also marked up during the year.
In January, it was revalued from our cost base of $25 to $35 after a large secondary offering at that level. On the 30th of June 2025, Rokt was marked up further to $45 on the back of materially exceeding forecasts that were made at the beginning of the year. The main detractors to performance in the core portfolio were Opthea and CSL. Opthea was especially disappointing. While early-stage clinical trial results were encouraging, the phase three trial results did not meet the necessary endpoints. As a result, the position was written down to zero in March. I have also been impressed with the conference managers from last year. Overall, this part of the portfolio returned more than 30% over the year to November 2025. Congratulations to Jeremy Bond of Terra Capital, whose stock [Kuro] mining more than doubled over the year.
Tencent Music, picked by Samir Mehta of J O Hambro, was up more than 80%, and Airbus, picked by Vihari Ross of Antipodes , was up 60%. It was a great year for the conference stocks. We will continue to hold two of the stocks from last year, BlackLine and [DD] Global, as there are near-term catalysts that look likely to play out. I very much enjoyed this year's Sohn Hearts and Minds Conference, which was held at the Opera House the week before last. I hope that some of you here were able to attend in person or online. I thought it was a fascinating mix of presentations, and I would like to thank Gary Weiss, David Wright, Richard Howes, and Michael Walsh, who joined me on the conference fund manager selection committee.
We were able to secure an interesting and diverse group of bright minds from around the world to pitch a fascinating and compelling group of stocks. I will take an active approach with these managers throughout the one-year holding period. I will now run through how the process works in more detail for those of you that are perhaps newer to HM1. This slide shows just what a wonderful model HM1 really is. We have access to some of the brightest minds in the industry, both here in Australia and increasingly from around the world. The core fund managers are at the heart of the process. Their highest conviction positions make up roughly 2/3 of the portfolio. They are highly engaged and play an active role, helping me as the CIO to drive performance.
The better the investment performance to shareholders also means a larger asset base and more donations to medical research. As I just mentioned, the core fund managers make up two-thirds of the portfolio with their three highest conviction picks, and I work closely with these managers to actively manage these positions throughout the year. The other 1/3 of the portfolio is provided by our conference fund managers. This year, we had 11 great stock picks, which have now been incorporated in the portfolio. I have really enjoyed working with the conference fund manager selection committee to carefully select an interesting, talented, and most importantly, balanced group of fund managers. When I say balanced, I mean in terms of investment styles, geographies, and process. What they all have in common, however, is an excellent track record and a high conviction approach.
I am confident that this year's conference portfolio will again perform well. The combination of the core fund managers and the conference portfolio stock picks leads to a concentrated, idiosyncratic portfolio of high conviction names. This portfolio, by design, will be very different to any other investments in your portfolio. Now, turning to performance. This slide shows our performance to 31 October 2025 over various time periods since inception. The table shows our pre-tax investment performance compared to our investment benchmark. The HM1 portfolio returned 22.6% for the year to October 2025, keeping up with the World Index, which has had another strong year. Since the inception of the company in November 2018, HM1 has generated a compound annual pre-tax investment return of 12.3%. As Chris mentioned, investment performance has significantly improved over the last year, both in our core portfolio and the 2024 conference portfolio.
We believe the changes we have made will better balance the risks in the portfolio but retain the essence of a high conviction growth mandate. As I mentioned previously, I'm delighted with the lineup of our five core fund managers, and I have full confidence in all of them as highly skilled fund managers. There is a good mix of different investment styles, and all are well-suited to our high conviction approach. This slide shows HM1's largest 10 holdings in our core portfolio. We are comfortable with the current portfolio as it stands. Here is the list of the managers who presented at this year's conference, alongside the stocks that they picked. As mentioned earlier, the stocks listed will make up around 35% of our total portfolio. The new conference portfolio reflects the changes we have made regarding the diversification of fund manager styles and risk overlay.
I have full confidence in the current lineup of managers who are committed to working with me to get the very best results possible. HM1 has a concentrated portfolio, and it will, by design, vary at times from the major indices. Please come and talk to me in person after the meeting if you would like to discuss any of these comments further. Thank you, and I will now pass back to Chris.
Thank you, Charlie. Now to the formalities of the meeting. The first item on the agenda is to receive the financial statements, the director's report, and the auditor's report for the year ended 30 June 2025. Financial statements were subject to audit by Pitcher Partners Sydney, who gave an unqualified audit opinion.
The financial statements are required to be audited and lodged prior to the Annual General Meeting, and therefore there is no formal resolution to be put to the meeting. I or Richard Howes, our MD, will, however, take questions on the financial statements or financial performance for the company. Shareholders may also ask the auditor questions regarding the conduct of the audit, the preparation of the accounts, or accounting policies applied. There will be time to address general business questions later in the meeting. Do we have any questions coming through online? No. Any questions on the financial statements from those present at this meeting? The auditor got off again. I now declare the financial statements and director's report as duly received and considered at the meeting. Now turning to the resolutions to be considered today.
As I mentioned earlier, voting on all resolutions will be decided by a poll. That means that each shareholder or their proxy has one vote for each HM1 share they hold. The poll will be taken at the end of the meeting, and the results are announced to the ASX shortly after the close of the meeting. I have been advised by a share registry that all proxies received have been checked, and I declare them valid for voting purposes. Proxies representing 63,708,980 shares have been received in respect of today's resolutions, representing 27.8% of shares on issue. I will disclose proxy voting after putting the resolution to the meeting, but prior to the vote being taken for each. Any proxies left open for me as chair will be cast by me in favor of each of the resolutions.
The five resolutions being put to shareholders today are ordinary resolutions, meaning that to pass, they require more than 50% of votes cast by shareholders to be in favor of the resolution. If sufficient votes in favor of the resolutions are received, they will come into effect. Again, we will respond to questions regarding resolutions after all resolutions have been presented. Resolution one is the adoption of the remuneration report that is set out on pages 27 to 29 of the directors' report in the annual report, which has been sent to shareholders. The resolution and proxy votes are displayed on your screen, and I will take them as being read. The remuneration report explains the board's policies in relation to the nature and level of remuneration paid to directors and specific executives of the company. The company's remuneration policy reflects the charitable objectives of the company.
All directors of the company, including myself as Chair, have agreed to waive their director's fees on an ongoing basis. For the year ended 30 June 2025, no director's fees were paid by the company. The Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer are employed under standard employment contracts with a three-month notice period. The Managing Director is retained by a services company under a services agreement with a 90-day period. The remuneration of the Managing Director, the Chief Executive Officer, and the Chief Investment Officer is fixed and does not include securities or options in the company, and no element of the remuneration is tied to company performance. The Chief Executive Officer and the Chief Investment Officer are not provided with retirement benefits apart from statutory superannuation. The Managing Director does not receive retirement benefits or superannuation.
The board considers that the company's remuneration structure follows best practice, is fair, and aligns with HM1's corporate objectives in the interest of all shareholders. It is disappointing we did not receive all shareholder support given our prudent approach to remuneration. We understand the vote against all resolutions, including the remuneration report, is primarily a single offshore shareholder. Shareholders should note that, as specified by Section 250(r) of the Corporations Act, the vote on Resolution one is advisory only and is not binding on the board or the company. Turning to Resolutions two, three, four, and five for the re-election of directors, you will see they are up on the screen there. I am not going to read through each, but we have re-election of Mr. Gary Weiss, Ms. Lorraine Berends, re-election of David Wright, and re-election of Richard Howes per the wording showing up there in the actual resolutions.
Information on Gary, Lorraine, David, and Richard, including their experience, other directorships, and interest in the company, can be found in the director's report of the annual report. A summary of this information is also included in the explanatory memorandum. The resolutions, again, are displayed on your screen, and I will take it as being read. Any questions on Resolutions one to five? No questions? Our audience, any questions? Nope? Okay. Shareholders attending in person may ask questions on any resolution now, not just restricted to that. If there are any shareholders online who wish to ask a question regarding these resolutions, again, please click the question icon, compose your question, and click the second icon. You will receive confirmation that your question has been received. Though I was just told there are no questions, I do not think. Is that still the case? It is.
I will now, that being the case, I will now put all five resolutions formally to the meeting. The slide on your screen shows the votes on these resolutions at the date of proxy close on 24th of November this year. I think we said at the start around 28%, 29%, something like that. Okay. I now appoint and request representatives of the company share registry Boardroom, who have examined and prepared summaries of the proxy forms received to act as returning officer and to conduct the poll. For those attending online, the resolutions voting options will appear on your screen. Press the option corresponding with the way in which you wish to vote. Once the option has been selected, the vote will appear in blue.
If you change your mind and wish to change your vote, you can simply press the new vote or cancel your vote at any time before I close the poll, which is not going to be long. If you require help using the voting system, please call those numbers I said previously. For those attending in person, once you have completed your poll voting card, please place your card in the poll box, which will be brought around by staff of Boardroom. I think that's just the current, correct? Right, I'm behind the times. If you have any questions, I don't think you do because you've done it already. Okay. On that basis, I now am going to declare the poll closed. As I mentioned earlier, the result of the poll will be announced to the ASX following the close of the meeting.
I now invite shareholders to submit any other questions they may have for the directors and executives of HM1. We will also use the remaining time to respond to questions submitted prior to the meeting. Are there any questions online? No questions online. I bet there's questions from the audience. Yes, sir. Look, my understanding is the shareholder who voted against, as I mentioned, is an offshore shareholder. My understanding is it's an activist shareholder, and I also understand that they have an automatic way they vote depending on whatever they're trying to, whatever the discount is in the company or whatever they're trying to achieve. I don't know a lot more than that, or the board doesn't.
It is probably somewhat unusual because I think, particularly in the case of remuneration, voting against the remuneration report when all the directors do it for free, the management do it at a much reduced rate than full commercial rates. So there are possibly other reasons why the activist shareholder would have voted that way. Thank you for the comment. Other questions? Yes, sir. I'll ask Charlie to answer that question.
We would be underweight if you looked at it relative to the MSCI World Index, the Magnificent Seven. We do hold maybe two of those. I think we have Microsoft. You can see in the annual report the full holdings that we have in the fund. Obviously, we've changed it over with the new conference picks recently. We are, relative to that 70% that I mentioned, that the U.S. market now makes up of the MSCI World, significantly underweight that number.
I think we could comment. Makes it a pretty good result because the Magnificent Seven, as most of you would know, has powered a lot of the performance of the MSCI, and we've kept up with, largely kept up with, with only a much smaller holding there, which is good, particularly from a diversification point of view. Any other questions? Yes. Why doesn't Richard comment on that?
When we IPO'd the fund, we said we didn't have an intention to use leverage, so that would be, that's something we've got to bear in mind. We wouldn't rule it out as a way of growing and enhancing returns to shareholders. I think we would want to use it selectively. We would want to feel like there was an opportunity in the near term to use that leverage to enhance returns. It may also be useful from a tax planning point of view. It is the sort of thing that the board turns its mind to from time to time, but we don't have any immediate intentions in that direction.
Any other questions? Okay. No further, nothing online. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the business of the meeting, and I now declare the meeting closed. Thank you for your attendance.