Good morning, welcome to our FY20 results presentation. We were just waiting a couple months. We've got a list of attendees, and we've now got a great group of people that have joined us. I hope everyone's having a great morning, if you're in Sydney or, or our international friends from wherever you are. We've got a short presentation, and we've had feedback that our presentations were very long. We've tried to give all of the information in the pack, and today, what we plan to do is go through that short presentation and then take questions. I hope everyone's had a chance to review the information.
We think that the most interesting about our group is that we have a system that has been able to demonstrate over nearly 20 years that it can double the business generally every 3.2 years on average. We were told almost consistently as we grew the business, that as we proceeded, it would become harder to to grow the business, that we would have to do larger transactions, and that, you know, that might prove challenging. What we found is that with a programmatic acquisition approach, that we can continually grow the business, and we believe that it is now obvious that it's becoming easier to to grow, and more predictable, certainly not harder. We always try to present our results in the context of a long-running, consistent way of doing business.
I think that, that is, that is hopefully, at this point, quite easy to understand. Many times we've had people say, "Hey, Brett, can you tell us about the company in 10 seconds or less?" As we've met with investors over the years. We invented this little screen, KPG in 10 seconds. It looks at the profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flow, simple metrics that I think are, are easy to, to understand, and it shows clearly the progress of the business. Revenue has, has grown very strongly again this year. We've done more partnerships than we have in any previous year, and we've grown the revenue very strongly and locked in strong revenue growth for next year.
We expect that with 33% revenue growth this year and a locked-in 30% for next year, we've grown the revenue about 60% over the last, you know, 12 months. Which has been a huge effort from the team, and, and certainly appreciate everyone's efforts. You'll notice that the revenue per FTE is still very strong. And, you know, we're pleased with the progress of the business, the revenue level. The EBITDA margin is tight and isn't where we would like it to be. However, in the context of a much large group of businesses joining the group, it, it is, I think, understandable and expected that it just takes a little longer to get those businesses all tied up together. And that's proceeded very, very well.
We've budgeted for this year, and we're trading into this year, knowing that margins will return to their historical averages. Parent NPATA is down, as we've made large additional investments above the 9% that we collect from the firms. That pattern of additional investment, I think, should be well understood now, and it has to be a great use of the capital of the business. It's, it's sacrificing short-term profits for long-term value, but not very long term, as it'll be very obvious by 31 December, that there's a real return on that investment. Return on equity remains very strong. It's fallen slightly, but I think at 38.4% and at ROIC of 20%, I think they're still very strong returns. The gearing of the group remains very moderate.
We're at 1.65x net debt to underlying group EBITDA, and you'll note that the lock-up days are industry-leading at 48 days. Cash flow is very strong. Operating cash flow is up strongly, and the cash conversion is very, very strong. The underlying cash flow position of the business is terrific. In terms of capital allocation, this little scoreboard we've provided for some time now, I think is worth looking at. We're trying to improve the earning power of our operating businesses. I understand the compression in that margin in this period, but know that that won't continue. With number two, we try to increase earnings through acquisitions. We've had, you know, very strong years, two years in a row, and locked in a strong year for next year, which we're really pleased about.
We think that the business is materially different at AUD 105 million-AUD 110 million revenue than it is at AUD 45 million, and that's really a couple of years turnaround or, or growth. Growing our existing subsidiaries, growing complementary businesses are, are growing strongly, continuing to increase the cadence of our programmatic acquisitions. Staying away from transformational acquisitions, one this year, which is, which is a, a large acquisition, but not transformational, and, and repurchasing KPG shares when, when our cash flows arise. We really believe that the additional investment we've made in the future growth of the business is better than alternate uses of that capital, such as repurchasing our shares, notwithstanding that we-... I think the shares are, are deeply discounted to intrinsic value.
Our ROIC is averaging, the way we, we think about, this measure at about 30%, which is our ROIC plus organic revenue growth. We've always targeted 5% organic revenue growth. In years where inflation is 6%, that doesn't look as good as it, as it might. I think it still proves the long-term thesis of what we're trying to do. We've provided a strong information here around how we run our additional investments. In FY20, we invested AUD 1.6 million above the 9% we collected, which was 3.6% of revenue. This year's AUD 2.4 million is only 2.9% of revenue. We expect that that will lead to an almost doubling of earnings.
The pattern I think is worth understanding is that 1.63 went to 371, went to 77. It's gone back to 2.49, and you'll see that number drop again, strongly. We think buying firms, when good firms present themselves, we're gonna resource the group and make sure that we can do a great job at integration, notwithstanding the, the, short-term impact on earnings. Our final sort of upfront slide looks at our programmatic acquisition approach. I've been asked many, many times over the last five years, "Hey, Brett, listing the company, do you think that's made sense?
What are the pressures of running a listed company as opposed to a private company?" There's a few, few things to consider here, but in particular, you know, we've got a nearly 4x increase in the number of firms that we've been able to have join the group in the five years that we've been listed, as opposed to the five years pre being listed. I think that proves out the thesis of making ourselves more visible and making ourselves a more credible counterparty to leading firms.
You know, to men and women that have spent much of their life building a firm that they really care about, a really, a business that has really absorbed a lot of their time and heart and soul, and who are looking for a trusted counterparty to take that business forward with their, you know, in a respectful way, with their partners and their clients and, and their, in, in their local communities. I, I think that, that is proving to be the right way to play, although different, and look at. Most people are looking for differentiation but are uncomfortable with difference. We know that we can't differentiate the business other than by being different. On the other side, we've provided a, a look at the way that we are running, and have run, our acquisition funnel for many, many years.
There's 28,000 firms that we're, that we are contacting consistently across the U.S., the U.K. and Australia. There's 138 live leads. We are actively meeting with firms. We expect that we can very materially grow the group over a virtually unlimited runway. Unless governments decide that they are, are disinterested in taxing people in the future, we expect that we can continue to grow a business that works with private business owners to manage their tax, accounting, and, and multi-generational, essentially family office affairs. You know, I, I couldn't be more pleased, frankly, with the improvements we've made in our system around programmatic acquisitions. For the first time, we've got a person working full-time on that.
We've invested in technology, we're running, I think now, an even more professional version of what we've done before, which is really, I must say, tremendously exciting. I also wanted to share that we will appoint an investment bank to undertake a strategic review. We consider that the market cap of the business is materially different to the intrinsic value. We'll sign an engagement letter later today to undertake a strategic review to try and work out how to maximize the value of the group for all shareholders. We really think that the business has a way of understanding how to acquire, integrate, and improve accounting firms that is unique to the global market, and certainly the interest from many, many groups approaching us.
Not just firms, but private equity, private capital providers and excellent quality shareholder long-term investors. I think there's a growing understanding that that's, that's, that's the case. I think it's incumbent on us as management to find the best way to maximize the value of the know-how of the group for the benefit of shareholders. So we're investigating what is the best way to do that. We are and remain committed to our current plans and maximizing the business opportunity over the long term. There is no change in, in terms of how we're doing what we're doing.
We are, in fairness, having been approached by a number of groups, wanting to get the right advice so that the board and the business can be, can be really advised in a world-class fashion. That's pretty exciting because it's, it's just showing us interesting and different ways to think about the business. Looking at comps of the business performance versus global peers, you know, is, is quite revealing. In the digital space, we've built a single point of truth that sits over the top of the systems across the group. We're trying to structure the data that we have. We have nearly 20,000 private business owner groups now as clients. They're 90%, more than, probably 93% on one system, 7%, 6% on one system, 9% on one other system....
That gives us an opportunity to have all the data basically in one database, structure that data, and be able to provide views of that data to our client directors and the clients. That's different than what can happen in other firms, to give us the insights for the clients and our directors. That's different than they would otherwise be able to access, which will mean that we can more consistently put a differentiated, our differentiated client offer to the, to the clients, which is incredibly exciting. We've made now good progress on that project. Yesterday, our app, called the Kelly Partners Passport, which is your gateway to added values from Kelly Partners. By the way, we'll give clients a way to get full value from their Kelly Partners relationship, and the relationships of group.
Has been approved by Apple's App Store yesterday, which is great. We've still got quite a lot of work to do to get it to where we would consider it really world-class and world-leading, but there's, there's a lot of progress being made in that respect. We've now got nearly 20 people working in our Indian office, with 10 more to come. We're making good progress on our investigations and, and opportunities in the U.S., and we're undertaking, with a search group, a, a thorough investigation of the U.K. market. We feel, we feel in between, where we, where we've been and where we'd like to be.
Very, very excited about what the opportunities are, and seriously, and working seriously hard, to work out the best way forward, that keeps us within our circle of competence, that, that ensures that we take on no material risk to the group. Allows us, on the basis of a long march, to prosecute the investment thesis that we commenced the group with, and have remained relentlessly focused on for a very long time.
I'd like to finish the first part of this presentation by just stressing that when I started the group in 2006, I believed that the incumbent players in our industry had a fatal flaw, and that was that they didn't have the depth of mission, values, and vision aligned to good ideas that they would need to prosecute their position for the next 100 years, notwithstanding that they were 150-year-old businesses. Without putting anyone down or passing, you know, aspersions as to other people and their behavior, there's enough press today to make clear that those businesses that a moment ago looked shiny and untouchable, are not as strong as they could, you know, might otherwise have been perceived. We consider those firms incumbents, the Big Four and the second tier.
We do believe that a new style of organization, with a different mission, with different values, and a different vision, has a genuine opportunity over the next 25 years to build a very significant market position. If you look at the book, Founder's Mentality, it's written by Bain. It's a book that is very close to our heart. It talks about making sure that as an insurgent business, you don't allow people to drag you over to the mission, values, and behavior, if they have any, of the incumbents in your industry. We are determinedly different. We are determined to continue prosecuting that position as an insurgent, and we believe that we are starting to accrue the more obvious benefits of that approach. It's taken nearly 20 years.
We expect it'll take another 30 years to get the group to, to be anywhere near what we think is, is a flourishing of that full vision. But we hope that there's enough green shoots there that, that our quality shareholders can understand the seriousness with which we're, we're undertaking that process. Now, on the back of that, I'd like to call out Ken and his team, who've done a great job in, in getting these financials together and getting them out to the market swiftly, which is terrific, as always. We could have released on the 1st of August, but we had other commitments, so we just pushed it back. We've had the numbers ready for some time, and their team has worked extremely hard to make that happen.
I'm gonna leave the rest of the information to be reviewed in your own time, and hopefully, since 8:00 A.M. this morning when it was released, people have had a little bit of time to consider what we've presented. Now we would love to take some questions. Now, various people have emailed me questions over the last week, and I've refrained from answering those questions because it was so close to release date. But I know a number of you are on this call, and so if you do have questions, pop them in the chat, and we'll get busy now. We've got time to take questions and give people some answers.
I can start, I think, with the first, the first question that I can see, which is: Hello, Brett, can you tell us more about the India office? What's the purpose of setting up an office in India? We came to the view that we've seen the days to recruit go from 20 days in our group to 24 days, 25 days. However, we've only got 6 open roles in the group at the moment. What we see is that if your workforce are interested in working remotely, then really it doesn't matter whether they work from 3 suburbs away or from the other side of the world....
Often we would get first generation Australians from various parts of Asia, South Asia, England, Ireland, wherever they come from, come to Australia and work in the group. Those same people with the same qualifications and experience can happily work from anywhere. We believe that building a global business will require a global workforce, and so we wanna build the muscle to be able to work with people at distance. We've taken a very conservative first step under the guide, or in partnership with EisnerAmper, a large U.S.-based firm, to help us build out a facility that can hold 60 people. It's on a 2-year lease. It's a WeWork-style leasing arrangement.
Start to get our firms to put some team members in there and learn how to lead and manage people at a distance. The great news is that I think we could run 10% more people over the last five years than we've been, than we've been able to access in the market as part of our team. We think that these team members can supplement our local teams. Hopefully that makes some sense. Second question, "Will you be overseeing expansion in the U.S.?" I am splitting my time between Australia and the U.S.
I conducted investigations with a number of Australian firms that have moved their listing from Australia to the U.S., and other firms, Australian firms, that are doing business in the U.S., of which there are a lot. I met with a U.S. Consulate in L.A., who mentioned to me there are 60,000 Australian businesses in Los Angeles, and there's not a single Australian accounting firm. That looks like an opportunity. You know, I've got my feet on the ground. I've got my AICPA , I'm doing my California CPA. We are building tremendous relationships. We've signed our first binding term sheet that we're now negotiating the long forms, and we're learning a ton about that market. The market looks a lot more like Australia than you'd suspect. Frankly, it looks like a land of opportunity.
There's 12,500 firms in California. The market appears... You know, without giving the hard-earned proprietary insight of the group away, let me just generally say that we're confident that there's an opportunity for us to find a single firm, do a good job of it, and grow a business and an offer to our people and our clients that's very unique and very different, and I think will ultimately prove to be very valuable. There's another question there: "Also, firms who joined Kelly Partners prior to 2019, substantially paid down their debt?" Yes, we, in a very disciplined fashion, buy the firms, and we pay down their debt every month. They're paid on a fixed payment schedule.
We basically set up the repayments to be a 4-year period or a five-year period, depending on the projections. Then every Monday, those businesses are debited, and they pay their debt down. There's not been any slippage that, that I am aware of in any of those firms paying their debt down. You'll be able to see that I think we increased our borrowings this year by AUD 11 million, while we paid down over AUD 9 million of principal repayments. We have always, very disciplined, we've simply acquired an asset, geared that asset, and paid it down. We don't seek to draw profits from those businesses until their debt's paid down. "Hi, Brett.
What exactly does KPG do, KPG do once an acquisition is closed, in terms of getting acquiring margins up to the group standard?" Well, Matthew, we can, we can tell you what we do. We've got a very highly developed, over nearly 85 of these transactions, big, small, and, and in between. We take the P&L of the existing business, we take a P&L that's got very detailed, and proprietary insights around what every single expense line should be in one of these firms. The benefit of doing the same type of transaction over and over again, is we've developed real insight into how these businesses can run, if they're run well, and we simply work ahead of the transaction, if we have, you know, if we're given the opportunity and the time, and certainly immediately, once the transaction closes, to change the margins.
Which is really, really exciting. Takes a little bit of time. You know, if we do one or two or three deals, we can do that very quickly. If we do a few more, it takes a little bit longer. We're now trying to coach the firms to do more of that themselves, now under our tutelage, rather than being, you know, going in and just doing it ourselves. That's working well. It gives you a partnership that have more owner mentality and, and more understand what, what you're doing and how you've done it, which I think in the long term is, is a better partnership. That's, that's what we do. Works very well.
Could you talk more to the strategic review, and in particular, the rationale behind a potential privatization and how that could potentially be done?" It's a great question. I, I, I wouldn't be doing my job in terms of acting in the interest of all shareholders, to let the business continue to trade, at, at a share price that doesn't reflect the intrinsic value of the group. It takes away the opportunity that we should and could have, if the market cap better reflected the strength of the business. There are places around the world where, if this business was listed in a different market, the business would naturally trade at a much stronger valuation and would attract the attention and, and involvement of investors who can play in those markets. Australia is a harder place-...
to invest for many global investors who have said that to me continually for five years. That said, I've always said that, you know, traditionally, this business would be private, so it'd be really hard to invest in. There it is. We want to look at. We have been approached by a SPAC out the U.S. We've been approached about a potential take private. We've been approached, proposing private equity partnerships. We don't have a fixed view of, of any of those opportunities, but we just believe that we needed, we need professional assistance to, to help the board consider the best steps to move forward.
You'll hear more about that imminently, but we will appoint an investment bank later today when we get a chance to sign the engagement letter. We're a little bit busy. Don't, don't fret, that there are no significant costs involved in that. There are, in fact, no costs involved in that, unless a transaction emanates out of that review. Another question: Please elaborate on various of the ideas under consideration, namely, listing US, discontinuing dividend or go private, I understand all these are under consideration. I'll just take them one at a time.
If, if the business was listed in the U.S., the business would be materially more valuable, is the information that has been put to us, and would also open up the same opportunity that has occurred in Australia, where we would be more visible, considered more credible, and likely to be a very good alternative to the, very active private equity involvement in our industry in the U.S. at the moment. You know, the thesis when we listed in 2017 was that it would make us more visible to our market, and it would make us more credible with potential vendors. I think that's been proved out very strongly, and I think that may well be the case if we were listed in the U.S. or, the U.K. or potentially Toronto.
We think we could attract other vendor firms more easily, and it would be easier to bank, it would be easier to do virtually anything. That's certainly something we're continuing. In terms of dividend policy, it's been put to me by, you know, our best shareholders and investors forever. "Hey, Brett, it'd be much better if you stopped paying dividends and reinvested it. You know, an ROE of 38%." We think that's obvious, but I've paid myself, I think, an average salary of about AUD 240,000 a year over 17 years, and so I, I have made no secret that I do live off my dividends. I also think it's a fair partnership, that if the internal partners are getting a cash dividend, that the external partners get a monthly cash dividend.
That was always the theory. There is much more interest from our shareholder base, for us to do more, and it would be easier to do more and, and much more capital efficient, rather than raising equity, diluting shareholders through an expensive capital raise, to simply use the internal, capital being generated to, to grow the group. We think that we could probably very materially grow the group if that capital was available. We are seriously looking at how to make that capital available in an intelligent way. A de-go private has been put to us, by a number of groups. you know, the rationale that we're going to investigate. I want our quality shareholders to share in the long-term compounding opportunity, that we think we can provide our, investing partners.
We don't want anyone to not be able to participate in that over the next 30 years. It has been always my vision to build the business publicly. We think that there's very strong reasons to be public, to be visible, to be a really credible counterparty, and an obvious permanent capital Buffett-style acquirer, as an alternative to private equity. It is certainly my preference to be public under the right conditions. Yes, they're under consideration, no decision has been made, but obviously we will brief people as we go. "Hello, Brett and team. You recently hinted at the possibility of suspending dividends. What are your processes for further acquisition growth of the business?
Can you provide some clarification?" Hopefully, I'll provide a little bit, but look, we do get asked, there's evidence here often around that. We think that there's, there's more opportunity than the capital that we have available to us. We are thinking about innovative ways to do that. We could certainly issue a bond to do that. We could do all sorts of interesting things, and we're getting some, I must say, first-class and really world-class advice on the options around that. We'll keep everyone advised as we're advised, as we go along. Further question: "Would a delist or go private potentially change the ownership or voting structure?" Yes, it may well potentially change the ownership and voting structure.
I guess that's all I could say to that at the moment, because I don't have any more information than that. On dividends, "Given Australian is likely to be a disproportionate total, or at least the next few years, with special dividends being applied from time to time." Yes, that's, that's a good observation. To reduce the level of franking credits, retained earnings, there'd be a cleanup of the balance sheet for sure, and where our franking credit is non-issue. Certainly long-term, franking credits are a non-issue. Our best shareholders are global investors. They're outside Australia. They don't get the benefit of franking credits. We haven't had, you know, we had Australian institutional investors at the IPO who got a pop and exited. Our best shareholders are global quality long-term value investors.
Franking credits are not, are not particularly relevant. You know, the value of a franking credit versus a 38% ROE is, is, you know, kind of minuscule. We're, we're just trying to think about long term, what's, what's in the best interest of the group. Ultimately, we wanted to be at Berkshire accounting, so we can try to get into a position where we can do what, what Warren does. That's always been my long-term agenda. Hi, Brett. Great result. Could you clarify how you calculate the intrinsic value of KPG?
Look, without giving guidance and telling anyone how to value anything, I have previously published that, and previously said that, you know, the first book I ever read on the stock market was Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits by Philip Fisher, which led me to Robert Hagstrom's book, The Warren Buffett Way. In the back of the first edition of that book, he was bold enough to publish a two-stage dividend discount model that really asks you to make two decisions. You know, what do you think? Or three decisions. What do you think the 10-year stage growth of the business can be? What do you think the terminal stage growth of the business can be? What do you think the appropriate discount rate is? What do you think the appropriate discount rate for us...
For me, as an investor in Kelly Partners that has control, is in my circle of competence, is buying the same type of business over and over again, for me, the appropriate discount rate is the weighted average cost of capital of the business. It's always been my agenda, based on creating shareholder value by Alfred Rappaport, that I read in 1994, what, five, six , somewhere there. seven, six . You know, we're seeking to get a return that's way in excess of our weighted cost of capital to create economic value. That's the way I think about my discount rate. You can think about your discount rate however you like. And the way we have always talked about our growth rate is 5% organic, 5% acquired, but we've got a 30% CAGR.
You might think that, you know, I'm going to publicly say five and five, which is 10, and we've delivered 31% CAGR for 17 years. The number's somewhere between 10 and 30. You can make your own choice about that. There's probably more 100-year-old accounting firms than there are 100-year-old businesses in any other industry. We think that the continuing prospects of a business of this nature, run prudently, is probably some number of years beyond 10 and terminal. That should get you to a number that, that is different to today's share price.
That's, I guess, all I can, can say, but, I'm often asked, "Why don't you do more buybacks?" A take private is the ultimate buyback, and if, if the business continues to trade, at the levels it's trading, then I'll be very tempted to buy a lot of that business. Partner with shareholders that, that want to be long-term in the, in the business, in that, in that exercise. That's not new shareholders, that would be existing shareholders, as well as potential, new capital providers. Brett, appreciate you looking at the very long term and thinking about the group's future. That surely would come with a view of what you think the key risk, challenges, and disruptions would be over the next 30 years. Can you share your thinking around the same? It's a great question.
I'm often asked, you know, what, what are the potential technology impacts of what you do? I have seen our industry over the last 30 years. I've been at this since I, I was 18. I'm 48. I've been doing this for 30 years. I've been focused on this industry. I've seen radical change in the industry. I expect there'll be radical change over the next 30 years. Let's start with the investment thesis. Governments of left and right are going to tax more, not less. There's one thing politicians love. That's taxing people. They're going to tax more. Multinationals seem to get a free, free pass. Individuals that are, are poor don't pay tax. It's really just onshore private business owners with complex affairs that really need world-class advice.
We know that that's where we've positioned the group for 17 years to excel. We don't believe any technology can adequately deal with the complexities that we find within those groups. We're very, very, very confident about that, and we know that those people are going to need strong representation around their tax obligations for certainly the 30-year future. You know, most people know that I admire the world's best investors. Many of them have said, "If you can't see what the world looks like in 20 years, you're taking on more risk than you might want to take on." I can see over the next 20 years, for certain, that governments of all stripes will look to take more money off people that, that work.
I also see a lack of respect for people that risk their capital and build a business, and I don't see that changing. With, with the involvement of digital tools from government around surveillance and carry on, I expect that people are going to need more advice, not less. You know, with a rising level of soft left authoritarianism, the key themes of, you know, how do you enforce the rules, is you need more lawyers, you need more accountants, and you need more soldiers. They're quite good places to invest, even if you don't respect, you know, some of the, some of the political moods of the world. We're pretty confident that there's a future there.
Without calling AI out in particular, I see AI as another transformative technology in a long list of transformative technologies that we've harnessed and utilized over the last 30 years to the benefit of the client. Final comment on that really is that if you're just paranoid about your client and how to make your client better off, that's kind of helpful, because only the paranoid survive. We're paranoid, so that's helpful. The next question, given you're now based in the U.S., and your significant shareholdings of franked credits are no longer of use to you personally. Without commenting on my personal tax affairs, I'm an Australian tax resident. I like a franking credit, too, but I ultimately want to be the Berkshire Hathaway of the accounting industry or the Constellation Software.
Wherever we can find the best use of that capital, we'll use it in the most intelligent way. I wanted to pay monthly dividends so that I could show people the cash flow strength of the business, and get people confident with exactly how a dollar flows through our business. I think that we've attracted a high quality group of shareholders now, that can really understand the nature of our business and the way a dollar flows through the P&L, the way our balance sheet works, and the. Frankly, the awesome returns on capital that we can, I think, continually deliver to shareholders over a period of time. So the use of those franking credits and those dividends, we've never run the business. We run a business. We don't run a business for a particular financial or tax situation.
We're trying to compound the capital efficiently over a very long period of time. We'll just continue with that mindset and try and find the best way to do that. I think ultimately that will create the most value for shareholders, and then they can make arrangements to access that value in, in the most intelligent way. Hopefully that accords with the mindset of most, most, most shareholders. Are you seeing accountants looking for employment with Kelly Partners from the likes of PwC, KPMG, et cetera? Really interesting. Just to comment on the employment market, 12 months ago, KPMG were phoning our offices, offering our people a 30% pay rise without an interview. That has completely stopped. The market has changed materially around talent.
We've been through the last two years, certainly six months ago, I think it stopped, but the most challenging talent times I've ever seen in the industry over the last couple of years, we've done really incredibly well. We've got great people that share our mission and values, which is a differentiator when it comes to attracting the best people. We think things get a lot better over the next few years. So, we're not looking for people from Big Four firms as a typical starting point as to where we look for our people, because we're not sure that those firms traditionally have looked for people that share our mission and values.
you know, we're looking to the top 2.5% of people that share our, our mission and values, and we do think that there's probably some of them coming out of, of all sorts of firms. we'll continue to look to add talent to the business, as, you know, every time we can find it and every time it presents itself. What would happen? That's a great question. I always get this question. I'm going to tell you a story. I went to the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting this week, or this year, and I loved when Warren Buffett got up and pre the meeting, they played this video of every time he'd been asked about his succession for about 50 years. I hope to one day be in that position, so touch wood.
Look, we did a board meeting yesterday. The board has an explicit directive, understanding, and, and has undertaken a position that in, in the event that I am unable to do what I do currently for the business, there would be two people who've been nominated in the business to be co-CEOs of the group. They've had the training continually from me, both of them, for more than 12 years. They're very close to me and the, and the other partners. They would be accepted by those partners as the leaders of our group, and they've got clear directives on how, in our view, as a board and me as a founder, the business should be led in the absence of me.
Every partnership agreement has a documented succession, protocol in place and has had for many, many years as to what would happen in the event of me not continuing in my role for whatever reason. I think, evidenced by my level of investment in the group, no particular risk to that. I am spending 75% of my time in the U.S. as of January. I hope people can see that that reflects my confidence in my partners. You know, I do not have employees, as owners in this group, unlike, you know, the Big Four firms, where partners are effectively glorified employees.
I have partner-owner drivers in our pod model who are genuine owners of the business and have act- and do act and have acted as owners of and drivers of this business for many, many years. I always, I feel very passionate about anyone ascribing contribution or, or influence from me that doesn't take a due account of the contribution of our genuinely sensational and committed partner-owner drivers in these businesses. They own 49% of the, the business. They own nearly 10% of the listed stock. They, most or many of them, invested in our equity fund. Many of them have bought buildings in partnership with us that the businesses trade from. Frankly, all of these people have the majority of their net worth invested in our businesses, and they are, to a person, exceptional people.
You know, we get continually more and more businesses joining the group, because when they call me, "Hey, Kenny," I say, "Look, if you like what you hear, and we can get the, you know, the rubrics of the deal together, and you're happy with that, please just meet our partners. If you like them, and you like what you hear from them, join the group. If you don't, please don't." It's our partners that are running this business, and I am simply under those partners, with our services team, lifting them up and trying to make them better off, asking them to make our people better off, so that they can make the clients better off, and make a strong impact, contribution on the community.
I'm incredibly proud of these people, and I think that they should be accorded, you know, due respect for the contribution that they make. What's the impact of rising rates on your acquisition model? There is no impact of rising rates. The first deal that I did was at 11.1%. We haven't seen interest rates touch that level yet. I don't really mind if they do. If we can push out 30%, 32%, 35% from the business, and we can finance it at less than 11%, I'll be very pleased. Can I still use historical levels of gearing? Can we? Yes. Is it harder to make acquisitions? No. Remember to look left when crossing the street in L.A.? Yes. Thank you for that. Do you anticipate to cease to be an Australian tax resident?
That was a subject of a meeting this morning, and is a subject of ongoing discussion. I don't have that advice at this point, because I don't have the clear strategic direction for the way to maximize the value of the group. In the HY23 core, you referred to developments in progress to create a marketplace of customer groups. Any further insight? Yeah, we've built a great piece of technology. I now have a team member that worked with us five years ago, spent five years working at Netwealth, and I think Colonial First State on their app. Went off and educated himself in CX design. He's come back here, and is working with our in-house software developer to build out our, what we've called our Kelly Partners Passport.
The idea of the Kelly Partners Passport is that it will give people access to the full value of the group. A very strong part of that value is the, the incredible relationships that we've built across the group. It will ultimately form part of that offer, that we can build a marketplace of our clients to share in advanced education and services between each other. And build that, you know, essentially into a SaaS based business, that charges a monthly fee to access more and more value that I think we can add to the client base, and that they can add to each other.
You know, I, I don't want to put any projections on the dollars that might come from that, but I don't have any doubt that where we build a community of trust, where we do the right thing by our clients and friends and partners, then there's more value long term in that behavior than than I think most people appreciate. You know, I guess, I, I can't see any more questions, but if there's, if there's any more questions, let me just have a look here. There's another question. How do we fix CountPlus? It's a great question. Look, I never comment on, on these other businesses. What I would say is that I get often asked, you know, what is the moat around Kelly Partners?
I guess the, you know, one of the ways I've come to explain this over the last six months is that, if you think about a lord in his tower, and you think about what's actually involved in building a moat around a castle, somebody has to go out and dig that moat. They need to get, you know, a shovel and start digging. Digging, you know, the foundations of anything, a moat or a castle or any type of business, is dark, smelly work, where you don't get any pats on the back. No one notices because you're below ground level, and you're just digging. I did that for many, many, many years. You need to have the, the courage of your convictions to do that, and do that continually.
The real secret is that you have to be able to attract other people that share that mission, and believe in that mission, and want to dig that moat, and want to make it, build it properly, and want to then put the water in it, then chuck some crocodiles in, and get the bridge right, and make it all work. You've got to attend constantly to the maintenance of that moat. I, I genuinely believe that when people consider what's the moat around a business, people continually fail to ascribe enough value to how important the shared mission and values are of the people that you need.
No matter whether it's a technology business or any other business, it takes a unbelievably talented and committed group of people to put their own self-interest aside, while they dig a moat, and they do it properly, and then they continually to stand over it and protect it, and, and make it a thing. You know, where I see any business struggling, I typically believe it's that the foundational values of the business aren't deep enough, aren't universal enough, and aren't addressing a genuine, sort of, human need, with a essentially benevolence towards, the people in the business, and the clients, and the community, to really want to make other people better off, rather than simply being in there, you know, to get some short-term return for themselves.
Sounds very Zen, if you think hard about how you want to build a big hole, you know, dig a big moat around your house today. Ask yourself, how many of your friends would be prepared to come and get a shovel and spend the next six months, to the exclusion of everything else, potentially under fire, you know, if somebody's shooting arrows at them, digging that moat? If you can't put that group of people together, you're unlikely to build much. You do need-- To me, the analysis that I've been able to form is that people join people who, who have a mission and values that resonate with them, and that will sustain them when things get hard, because things always get hard at different times.
Have you considered partnering with other firms from non-accounting areas to set share similar world-class services? We think that there's an opportunity in the business to appoint a partnership executive to build quality partnerships. Absolutely. We believe that that's part of the opportunity set that exists within the business. Not being the best use of our restricted capital in the short term, but we believe that that's best done digitally. As we start to pull our community of clients together into a digital-first relationship, we'll be able to build more of these partnerships. We think that there's significant value involved in doing that. Frankly, it, you know, would reflect the care that we have for those clients to make that happen. We intend to do that. Well, it is 10:53.
We have seven minutes allocated, but I'm prepared to make whatever time, people would like to answer further questions. Going once. Look, I did get some... I'll just answer some, a few questions that were emailed to me by shareholders that I haven't had the chance to answer, but I'll share some of them here. Can you please elaborate on how central services and IP fees are allocated beyond minimum viable investments in the back office and business development functions, in particular, specifically about the brand, digital, and people investments? Guys, what... We get 9% from the businesses, 6.5% for services, 2.5% for IP.
We share with you that we intelligently invest that under the businesses to really strengthen the businesses and give them a stronger, more competitive position, so the partners have between 25% and 40% more time to be great accounts to their people, their clients, and communities. We deliberately have taken a position not to share much more than that, because we don't believe that it's in the shareholders' interest for us to share much more of the good stuff that we that we that we understand. Number two, can you please elaborate on a comment you made during an interview on the investment with Tom, comment about never selling a significant stake in the business?
Looking to get, at some point, I'll try to get better set up, which I think will allow, allow me to lead the business in a different way. I'm writing an article at the moment. I'm investigating Warren Buffett's personal financial position. In 1956, he had $160,000. He went back to Omaha, bought a house for $31,000, and he left that $130,000, from what I can discover, in his own personal portfolio, that now represents over $1 billion and pays him between $40 million-$60 million of dividends a year. I can't get much more information than that, but I'm working to do that. What that has meant is that he's never needed to look to Berkshire to pay him anything in particular.
He's been able to run low salary, low, you know, no dividends, and just sit there acquiring assets. That's the position I ultimately seek to, to put myself in. I think that that would allow us to play a more expansive game and build a much, much, much more significant business over time. Number three, I, I can't actually explain about that better. You've spoken about the very important competitive advantage KPG has developed in Australia, because for 17 years you've been building a trusted reputation as a buyer of choice. As a buyer of choice, what are the key factors that give you confidence that KPG can succeed in other geographies at a comparable level to Australia, when their disadvantage is non-existent? That's a great question.
What I would say is that we have the position we have in Australia because 17 years ago, we started contacting firms in a consistent way, and we just kept doing it metronome-like for 17 years. We believe in, in order to establish that position in the U.S. and U.K., we just need to be contacting firms for the next 17 years. We don't think that we can create 17 years of value in 17 minutes, but we do believe that we're starting at a much higher level in approaching those markets. We get here, and the inbound interest definitely demonstrates that. We don't believe that we have a particular advantage in those markets, but we do believe that with consistent effort over a long period of time, we can certainly do in those markets what we've done here.
Again, we're sort of not, not in a rush to, to do anything silly there. But we believe that if we don't start, we're not, we're not going to actually get that done any faster way by not starting. It's simply a matter of starting. In, in relation to the Five Stages of Decline by Jim Collins, have you implemented specific organizational and personal feedback mechanisms and/or guardrails to ensure that we don't wander into hubris born of success and possibly our discipline in pursuit of more? Absolutely. I hope that people can see that we are staying within our circle of competence, doing what we've always done. We'll seek to enter the U.S. market in L.A. with a small acquisition of less than $10 million.
That is exactly the same providers for the transaction and ultimate partnership, and on the same structure and same terms as we do here. We are, are certainly not mindlessly looking for more. Frankly, we're not looking for more really at all, ever. We're simply just trying to do a world-class job of what we're doing and partner with people who want to partner with us, partner with us. There's a question, what's the current entity doing to to improve-
debtor days.
Debtor days? I think debtor days are 47 days.
We're reducing to 42.
Yeah, 46 days and then 42 days. I think that sounds pretty fantastic on a large number today. We run genuine discipline and communications in a very unique way with the firm, so we don't really want to share with the other people who would love to know how we do that. But I hope that people consider 42 days a, a pretty good number on a large number. In a, you know, importantly, nobody would consider the economic situation better today than it was 12 months ago. By taking our debtor days from 46 days to 42 days, we've achieved about a 10% reduction in those days in a more difficult economy. We, you know, we're getting better and better at that. Apologies if you've already answered, but how will potential privatization be beneficial to long-term shareholders?
It's a great question. I don't know the answer to that, and so we'll do as we need to review to try and understand that. I think the long-term shareholder at the moment is me. I've been in there for 17 years, and I, I certainly want to continue to share the value that we're creating with any shares in that mindset. Has the business achieved any price rises recently? Have you experienced margin pressure aside from business rate? No, we haven't. Looking for accounts is very tight, and so if you've got great pool, you can price them at appropriate rate. Now, some of those accountants are a little bit reticent to charge really what they're worth. We've overcome it largely with our partners and continue to try and build their confidence to charge what they're worth.
As the number of accountants is constricted more and more over the next five years, I expect that it's going to cost clients right across the economy a lot more to deal with their accountants, and the accountants will have much more pricing power than they've had in the last 30 years. I'm pretty confident about that. There are reports, I think I read a Wall Street Journal article about listed companies struggling to get their audits done on time because they're struggling to get people to do the work. The only answer to that is the industry needs to become more attractive to talent, and that means it's going to have to pay people more, which means it is going to have to put its prices up, and we're just going to have to get used to that.
We'll see how that goes. Question for Ken: How do you describe the challenges of financial integration, joining KPG, and prepare for the growing capacity of becoming group growing bigger across jurisdictions?
Yeah. Thanks, thanks for that question. Great question. Obviously, we, we're consistently looking for technology to do that, but I think as you can see, this year we've had U.S., we've opened a Mumbai office, both of which operates in different markets and with different currencies. You know, we, we still have not experienced any problems with managing all those different financial complexities. I think the ability to put these results out, basically, we could have put these out on the first of all, which shows that we, we haven't yet encountered any challenges to integrate these, these any partnership firms or other jurisdictions into, into our platform and producing those financials that's required. There will be challenges. We are constantly looking at technologies that allow us to better integrate all the financials of our firms.
You know, I, I still think that we're managing quite, quite well, and that we're still able to produce the results in, in basically record time.
It's quite interesting, probably worth mentioning, that we've had Ken's team in Hong Kong for eight years now.
Yeah.
There's 10 people?
Yes, 10 people.
They're here in Sydney at the moment for our awards night tonight, which is great. And you know, Ken's built a really tremendous office there with great people who are very, very committed to the group. Every Saturday in July, without complaining, frankly, they wanted to get the results done so that we could get on with the rest of the year. We've got an uncommon level of commitment from our teams right across the business because they do genuinely share in the values of our group. What I would say is that we have run that Hong Kong office for 8 years.
You know, I've had enough people say to me, "Hey, Brett, isn't going back, you know, really scary and different?" I'm like, "Well, Hong Kong is a lot more different to Australia than the U.S. is different to, to Australia." We are running an operating business out of the Hong Kong office that does outsource CFO work for a number of our franchise clients. It's been very successful, and we've been doing that for nearly eight years. You know, committing an office in Hong Kong on short notice, operating a different jurisdiction, and running a team where I used to meet with Ken on, on a phone, on a dodgy, Apple, what's it called?
Yes.
Like, the Apple, Apple video phone call.
FaceTime.
FaceTime. That's a lot different to the, the level of interaction now that we had with Zoom even two years ago. Now, frankly, Microsoft Teams is a phenomenal product that's working incredibly well for us across our Microsoft 365 installation across the group. It makes us feel very close to each other and what we're trying to do. I, I just made a call and I said to Ken, "Hey, you're going to be in Sydney this week. I'm going to be in Sydney. Why don't we just do the results while we're actually sitting in the same room and bring your team down?" So rather than do it the other day, we'll do it today, just 'cause we thought that'd be more fun and better for everyone.
Yeah, look, we've got, we've got some history, with operating in Hong Kong. It was always the view, always my view, that Hong Kong could be a stepping-off point to, to the rest of the world. Interestingly, what we've done is bringing really interesting opportunities to us, opportunities to partner with people in different jurisdictions to help them fix their things and contribute to what they're doing.
I think there, there's a, there's a bunch of exciting opportunities that just would not even cross our paths or cross, cross our mind or have been presented to us if we hadn't changed the posture of the group and said to people that, "Hey, we're prepared to help businesses of this nature in the U.S. and the U.K., if they share our mission, values, and, and people that we can be a valuable partner with." That's all we have to share today. We hope that people have found that very interesting, and we are quietly confident and very determined to continue to prosecute the business and build a business and make a very positive impact.
Wanted to thank all of our quality shareholders for their commitment and partnership in the business. We don't take any partner for granted in our business, any of our team, our equity partners, our shareholders, our clients, or the communities that we are running these businesses in. We believe that if we operate consistently with our mission, values, and the way our business for a very long time, with real intensity and a relentless focus, then the future remains very bright for the business, frankly, increasingly so. With that, if there's no more questions. Oh, there's just one more. Obviously, juggling many balls at the same time, it's going to get trickier as KPG grows. How do you focus on strengthening your personal core as the most key man?
Look, I, I, I continually try to make myself less key man. I think that, that's overstated. I'm a very driven, committed person that has ideas and insights of experience that I, I'm not sure many other people have. However, I've shared that outlook, that mission, that values, those insights with many of my people for a long time, and I'm, you know, incredibly proud and very confident in the quality of those people. I really couldn't do more to make myself less within the business and the business less dependent on myself, and, you know, short of taking a five-year holiday. So you should be very confident that, you know, the number one role of a CEO is to be the Chief Risk Manager. I share Mohnish Pabrai's wonderful Dhandho mindset of, you know, heads we win, tails we don't lose.
You know, the number one role for me is don't lose. I mean by that, not just don't lose money, don't lose reputation, don't do anything that puts our business or our relationships at risk, or your health or your values. Take no risk. Inform yourself better, create asymmetrical opportunities, and relentlessly focus on that. With that last comment, I'd love to thank everyone for their continuing involvement with the business, and feel free to be in touch with Ken and I, and ask any questions. We are around and happy and eager to answer any question that anyone... Do the analysis of the numbers. We frankly benefited, and the business has benefited from the commitment of our shareholders to looking at our business and asking us intelligent questions.
That helps us reflect and think through better, how to operate and, and, and, and continue to grow, the business. With that, I'd love to thank everyone. Thank my team for organizing today. There's a bunch of technology happening here to keep everyone together. I'm relieved that that's all all worked out. As I love to say, have a great day.