Okay, good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us here. Welcome to Macquarie's first half financial year 2026 results presentation. Before we begin today, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land, the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, and pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging. As is customary, today you'll hear from our CEO, Shemara Wikramanayake, and our CFO, Alex Harvey, and then we'll have an opportunity for you to all ask questions at the end. With that, I will hand over to Shemara. Thank you.
Thanks very much, Sam, and good morning and welcome, everyone, from me as well. As usual, we'll start by just noting the footprint of four operating groups we have in our business and the four central service groups that support them. There's no material change here. The only thing I thought I would mention is under Macquarie Asset Management that as of 1 September, we've moved the green balance sheet assets into the central corporate area. This is basically to free up the asset management team to focus on the now very growing fiduciary business in the green area that we've managed to seed and build. Based off the capability we built on the balance sheet, but the central team will now come into the corporate area and work on those assets from here.
The other thing I'd note on this slide is in this half, we had 16% of our earnings from market-facing sources and 56% from annuity style, which is base fees in Macquarie Asset Management, the BFS earnings, and then the remaining 28% from areas like in Commodities and Global Markets, the financing. Client revenues we earn, and also the performance fees in Macquarie Asset Management. Turning then to this half result, as you will have seen this morning, it's up 3% on the prior comparable period at AUD 1.655 billion. That represented a return on equity in this half of 9.6%. Even though the result was up 3%, the return on equity was down slightly, and that reflects the growing capital position we have.
In terms of the contribution to that result by operating groups, you can see here that we had increased contribution from three of our operating groups. Macquarie Asset Management driven principally by an increase in performance fees in this half, Banking and Financial Services, ongoing growth in our books there at our market position. Macquarie Capital, it was actually high fee income in this half, particularly in Australia and the Americas, and our ongoing growth in our private credit business. All three of those up. Commodities and Global Markets, even though the revenue, the operating income was broadly in line with the prior comparable period, its increase in our operating expenses as we invested in our platform that brought that result down. Before going into detail of those groups, I just note, first of all, as usual, our assets under management.
They're sitting at AUD 959.1 billion, mostly driven by favorable market movements and asset valuations, offset by some outflows in equities and unfavorable foreign exchange. This number will come down slightly when the sale of the public investments assets outside Australia to Nomura closes. We'll update on that in the next results. In terms of the regional makeup of our income, it's broadly consistent with what we've had for recent years. Australia making up a bit over 1/3 in this half, and the Americas a little under 1/3 . Europe, Middle East, Africa, about 1/4 still, and the balance in Asia. Turning to the operating groups, starting with Macquarie Asset Management, and I should say we've got all our group heads here in the front row. Ben Way is here in Australia, sitting here and able to answer questions.
The result there at AUD 1.175 billion was up 43% on the prior comparable period. The big contributor there was performance fees, and Alex will take you through in detail in a little while where we earned those, but they are around the world. The equity under management was up 2% at nearly AUD 225 billion. The team raised about AUD 11 billion in the half and invested just over AUD 12 billion, leaving dry powder of about AUD 23.5 billion in private markets. In public investments, as I said, the majority of these assets are due to be transferred to Nomura in a transaction that is on track to close at the end of the calendar year. We will probably report in more detail on the remaining Australian fixed income and equities portfolio going into the new results from here. Turning to Banking and Financial Services, again, as I said, up.
On the prior comparable period, up 22% at AUD 793 million. That is driven by, as I said, the ongoing growth in all our books as well as our funding, our deposit funding. The home loan portfolio was up just over AUD 160 billion, which was an increase of 13% on prior comparable period. We are now at 6.5% of the mortgage market and have been growing at 3x system there, as you will have seen. That is supported by strong growth in deposits, which were up 12% to over AUD 190 billion. That is representing just over 6% of the Australian market. The business banking loan book was also up to AUD 17.4 billion, which was up 4% on the prior comparable period. Funds on platform also up 8% on the prior comparable period. This is all being driven by our digital offering, focusing on customer experience.
When Alex goes through it, he will talk about how our expenses went up slightly as we continue to invest in the tech platform, but all up earnings up 22%. Commodities and Global Markets, as I mentioned, was the business that was down 15%, AUD 1.113 billion. Sorry, I keep hitting this microphone. It was a very subdued environment globally, as you will have seen in commodities. Despite that, we were able to have good risk management income in our North American gas and power business, as well as our global oil business, but that was offset by hedging activity in the agriculture sector. A couple of things I'd note that are interesting. While the commodities area has been more subdued in this period, the financial markets and asset finance businesses keep growing our franchise, and the earnings continue to step up year on year on those.
In this half, they were actually 54% of our contribution from CGM, which typically has 60% coming from the commodities businesses. The other thing I thought was worth noting in CGM is the franchise continues to grow. Ten years ago, I think, Simon, we were doing about AUD 1.7 billion of revenue across CGM. When I started as CEO in 2019, we were at AUD 3.8 billion. Last year, it was AUD 6.3 billion, and this year we're looking at broadly in line around that low AUD 6 billion number. The revenue line or operating income continues to grow. What we have had in CGM is a big investment in our operating platform as we uplift the platform for a very diverse and globally complex spread out business and also respond to regulatory requirements in that business.
Again, Alex will take you through the details of how our operating expenses have stepped up, and that's the main thing driving the lower net profit contribution in this half. Macquarie Capital up 92% at AUD 711 million from about, I think Michael Silverton is also with us here from New York. I think it was about AUD 370 million in the prior comparable period. As I said, the two big contributors to that are, first of all, in our fee income, particularly here in Australia and in the Americas, we had a strong half. That was a little bit of carryover from the last half transactions as well. Our private credit book was also up AUD 3.9 billion and continues to grow and contributed together with some repayments. Turning to our funding and capital position, our funded balance sheet remains strong.
We have term funding exceeding our term assets and good matching in funding. We raised AUD 15.9 billion more of term funding in this half, and our deposit funding, it's now sitting at AUD 198.8 billion. Our capital position as well, we remain with a surplus of AUD 7.6 billion over our Basel III minimums, down from AUD 9.5 billion. The changes were increased for the profits that we made in this half, offset by the final year dividend we paid, business capital requirements, and then other movements like the foreign currency translation reserve. The businesses absorbed AUD 1.1 billion in the half, and you can see there in the right-hand half of that graph that the three businesses that did absorb capital mostly, Macquarie Asset Management. AUD 500 million in terms of co-investments, underwrites as we grow the platform and invest in our funds for alignment.
BFS continued to grow by about AUD 700 million over the half with growth in all of the home loans, business banking books, et cetera. CGM increased credit risk due to business growth. We also bought the Iberdrola UK Smart Meter portfolio in this half. Our reg ratios as well are sitting comfortably above the Basel III minimums, as you can see there. The last thing on the results I wanted to say before handing over to Alex was that the board has declared a half-year dividend of AUD 2.80 per share, 35% franked. That is up from the AUD 2.60 in the prior comparable period, and it represents a 64% payout ratio. With that, as usual, what I will do is hand over to Alex to take you in much more detail through the numbers.
Before I do, I just wanted to note that this is the last time Alex will be taking you through these numbers in detail. I've had the privilege of partnering with Alex for 28 of these updates that we've done for you. Alex has made just such an incredible contribution, as you've all seen. He's so across every number. He's got a razor-sharp intellect. He's very commercial, and so not just in reporting results, but we spent a lot of time on investments, on realizations, on business restructuring through a whole lot of market cycles, COVIDs, interest rate surges, et cetera. He also has built an incredible team in that period in terms of financial reporting, the regulatory reporting, and the uplift we've had, the tax engagement with stakeholders through corporate affairs, and now the people and culture team sitting under Alex.
I think we've raised over AUD 200 billion of funding, I think, Alex, in your time as CFO, and nearly AUD 5 billion of capital. The market cap has gone up 150%, all thanks to you, I'm sure. Incredible contribution from Alex. I should just say as well, before his eight years as CFO, that's less than a third of his time here at Macquarie. He was in Macquarie Capital, leading so many entrepreneurial businesses here and up in Asia after coming across from the game-changing Bankers Trust acquisition. We are very sorry, Alex, that we won't have you with us. We know you'll be watching closely as all our former colleagues are, and Alex is working around the clock to the last minute.
Also, I think in finding Frank to come from Macquarie Asset Management, from a big global role there to really passionately take on the CFO role. I have worked with Frank for many decades as well. He is part of the great legacy Alex leaves us, not just Frank, but the whole team that are in FPE. Thank you. Alex, Frank, and I look forward to engaging with all of you over the next few weeks as he finishes his last few weeks. I will let him do his swan song usual incredible analysis of our results.
Thanks, Jen. It feels like a great risk of disappointing after that. Entré. Thanks very much for all those comments. Obviously.
It's been an incredible three decades working together and a real privilege, obviously, to have this role, but a privilege to be at the organization for such a long period of time and the opportunity to work with thousands of people all over the world, including obviously the executive committee in front of me, has been incredible, a real honor, and a real highlight. Thank you very much for those comments. As usual, I'll take you through a bit more of the detail. Obviously, good morning to everyone in the room from me. Starting with the income statement, you can see operating income for the year for the half up 6% on where we were first half of last year. The key drivers there at the top of the page, their net interest and trading income up 9%.
That largely reflects the growth in the average loan volume in both BFS and in Macquarie Capital and the principal finance business. You can see fee and commission income up about AUD 600 million or 18%. Two key drivers there. We saw an improved result from the advisory business in Macquarie Capital. We saw an improved result from our Asian equities business from a broking viewpoint. Obviously, we saw a big step up in the performance fees coming through the asset management business. At the bottom of that income slide there, you can see investment income and other income down about AUD 500 million from where we were this time last year. There were three key drivers there. Firstly, as people recall, in the first half of last year, we sold 39 Martin Place. That generated a profit for the group that obviously did not repeat in this half.
In addition, over the half, we did not see the realizations that we saw in the first half of last year from our green investments on balance sheets. They did not repeat in the first half here. In addition to that, we also took some impairments on our on-balance sheet green assets, particularly in the offshore wind part of our portfolio. I will take you through that in a little more detail later. From a net operating viewpoint, as I said, up 6%. Operating expenses overall for the half were up 5% from the first half of last year. There are a couple of key drivers there. You can see the employment expenses line up about AUD 200 million. There is a combination of things there, principally related to the performance of the group. We had increased profit share expense coming through.
In addition, we saw some wage inflation coming through the group, partially offset by a reduced average headcount. Average headcount across the group is down about 3% from the first half of 2025. In addition, we see a step up in the other operating expenses. That is really the investment that we are making, largely investment we are making in upgrading the platform from a technology viewpoint. A lot of those expenses obviously are in the BFS businesses, as Shemara talked about, but also in the CGM business. Operating expenses for the half are up 5%. Income tax rate at 31.8% from last year was 29.9% for the first half. Income tax expenses are up a little bit, income tax ratios are up a little bit from where we were last year.
That's a combination of the nature of the income coming through the P&L and the geography of income coming through the P&L. In addition, this half, we had some non-deductible expenses, not only the hybrid, but some non-deductible expenses that are pushing up our effective tax rate. Most of those we would not expect to repeat into future periods. If I now just go into the business groups in a little more detail, and starting with the asset management business, as Shem said, a really strong result, up 43% on where we were last year at AUD 1.175 billion. The key driver there, you can see in the middle of the page there is the increase in performance fees of AUD 353 million. Those performance fees are arising from a range of capabilities around the world. In particular, in this half, we saw additional performance fees from MAV2.
MAV2 was able to divest another asset in Asia, really successfully divested an asset in Korea. That gave us the opportunity to have a look at the performance fees coming out of MAV2. In addition, more recently, obviously, you would have seen the announcement of the successfully entering into a sale transaction for our Allied Data Centers business in the United States. That investment is in MIP4 and MIP5. In addition to that, we have some co-investors in that asset itself. On those co-investment agreements, we have performance fees. We are able to bring through performance fees associated with those co-investment agreements in the first half. The principal driver of the movement really is the performance fees. You can see base fees up AUD 29 million, so AUD 34 million across the private markets business. That really reflects a good period of investing.
Strong expense control is driving what I think is an excellent result for the group. Obviously, that sets up both MAV2 and MIP4 and, to a little later extent, MIP5 to deliver those performance fees in coming periods. In terms of the underlying assets under management, as Shem said, AUD 959.1 billion at the end of the half, private markets driving most of that gain, AUD 27.6 billion increase in private markets AUM. That reflects a good period of investing. We invested, I guess, AUD 12 billion of equity, nearly AUD 20 billion of AUM over the course of the half. We also had some net valuation changes, particularly in relation to the digital assets that the Macquarie Asset Management business manages around the world. A little bit of a drawdown on the public investment side. Markets have obviously been really strong.
You see a pickup of AUD 40 billion. We continue to see net outflows, particularly in our equity portfolios. Obviously, from an FX viewpoint, we had a little bit of a drawdown from an FX viewpoint given the weakness of the US dollar at the end of the period. Turning now to Banking and Financial Services, again, a really strong result from AUD 650 million this time last year to AUD 793 million, a 22% step up in underlying net profit contribution. The main driver there, obviously, is the increase in personal banking. That increase is coming from average loan mortgage balance up 21% from the first half of last year, and deposit balances and average terms up 27%. A really strong period of growth, as Shem said, over 3x system growth in the mortgage side.
Again, great to see the product capability that Greg and the team are delivering to the market, really attracting a growing customer base. That's fantastic to see that. The business bank broadly in line. We had a bit of volume growth in the business, but given up that volume growth largely in margin compression. The wealth management part of the business picking up largely as a result of the underlying performance of markets. I might just spend just one minute on the expenses side. You can see this should be a very familiar story to people. I think what Greg and the team have done is invested heavily in the technology platform that supports the digital financial services offering in this marketplace. We continue to do that. You can see the expenditure up AUD 30 million on the technology side this year.
On the other side, obviously, we're seeing benefits coming through from that digitization, that efficiency benefit. So that's drawing down the underlying cost base of BFS in those non-technology areas. In terms of the underlying story, obviously, all the products and capabilities moving in the right direction. As Shem said, home loans are about 6.5% of the market now. I think deposits are about 6.1% of the market. There continues to be a really strong growth across all of that capability. That obviously augurs well for the outlook for the business going forward. Now turning to the Commodities and Global Markets business, as Shem said, net profit contribution for the period down 15% from where we were this time last year. The underlying story, I think, is an interesting one.
The operating income across CGM is basically broadly in line with where we were for the first half of last year. You can see the pull down from a net profit viewpoint is really the expense base. Expense base has stepped up nearly AUD 200 million over the course of the period. I'll come to a little bit of detail in a second. If you look at the income line for a second, commodities were down AUD 26 million. Risk management income up. We saw a better period of contribution from our North American gas power and emissions business. We saw a better contribution from our global oil business, partly offset by a reduced contribution from the agricultural business. They had a strong period of time last year. We did not see that repeat into the first half of last year. Risk management income up AUD 37 million.
Lending and financing down. AUD 27 million. That largely reflects lower balances from our global oil financing business. On the inventory management and trading line, down AUD 36 million. Mostly that reflects the timing of income recognition on transport and storage contracts. The underlying trading performance of the business was consistent with where we saw for the first half of last year. Really strong result from financial markets, again, up AUD 52 million. I think that's about 6% growth from where we were first half of last year. That sort of extends a trend that's been going on for now. Certainly, my whole time here as CFO, so nearly eight years of underlying growth in that financial markets part of the business, which is obviously a reflection of the customer numbers and the capabilities we're providing.
On the asset finance side, up AUD 31 million, which reflects the growth in the shipping loan portfolio in the asset finance part of that business. On the expenses side, as I said, up AUD 200 million. There are really three things there. Firstly, we are continuing to invest in the platform. We are investing in the data asset. We are investing in the governance and the control environment. We are investing in the platform to make it scalable. We are using more technology in that business to make it scalable around the world. That is one thing that is driving the expenses. Secondly, we have obviously got some remediation programs underway. Those programs will come to a conclusion, but nonetheless, we would expect them to extend at least for another few halves. The other thing we saw in the first half is some one-off expenses associated with transactions.
For instance, as people be aware, we bought the Scottish Meters business in the first half. There are obviously some transaction expenses associated with that, and we would not expect those transaction expenses necessarily to repeat going forward. In terms of the underlying drivers, hopefully a pretty familiar slide for everyone here. You can see the customer numbers continuing to accelerate on the right-hand side there, both across financial markets and across commodities. The operating income is still heavily weighted toward the underlying client franchise. The regulatory capital footprint is pretty similar to where it was at March 25, and still dominated by credit capital, which is consistent with that customer-facing orientation of the business. Finally, from the business unit viewpoint, Macquarie Capital, up at AUD 711 million, a 92% increase from this time last year. You can see the drivers there. Fee and commission income, up AUD 179 million.
I think that's a 27% increase. That largely reflects advisory income in Australia and the US. It obviously reflects the brokerage income in Asia as well. On the advisory piece, obviously, the market conditions have improved. We saw some large transactions coming through this half, which is fantastic for Michael and the team. We did see some pull-through from transactions that were well progressed at the back end of our 2025 financial year that actually completed in 2026. That came through in the first half. We obviously talked about that at the AGM. The net income, the other piece obviously is the net income on the private credit portfolio, up AUD 177 million. There are really two drivers there. The average balance of that portfolio is up about AUD 4 billion. That's obviously driving margin coming through the P&L.
The other thing we saw is some early repayment income on a number of the credits coming through. Obviously, early repayment income, we would not necessarily expect to repeat into future periods. We had lower impairments over the course of the half, reflecting better macroeconomic conditions that are reflected through our ECL modeling. Good cost control, obviously, continuing. In terms of the capital alongside the clients, pretty similar to where we were this time or six months ago. The private credit book now about 170 positions, well diversified in sectors that are pretty defensive and strong cash flow businesses. All this underlying capital and credit is driving the earnings growth for MacCap. From a corporate perspective, one of the things, obviously, there is some noise coming through corporate this half.
That noise largely relates to the fact that we moved the on-balance sheet green assets from the asset management business into the corporate center for reasons that Shemara talked about earlier, just in terms of the focus that MAM has on the fiduciary business. The assets we have moved into the center are the Corio and the Cero, the platform assets that we intend to divest to third parties over time. We thought, given the changes going through the center, that we would include this bridge in corporate. I'll talk a little bit to that. You can see these are obviously expenses. AUD 1.548 billion of expense for the first half of last year versus AUD 2.137 billion for the first half of this year. The primary driver there you can see is that investment-related and other expenses are up AUD 435 million. There are really three major components there.
Firstly, we did not see the recurrence of profits from the divestment of green assets in this half. Obviously, you did not see that repeat. Secondly, we took some impairments on some offshore wind assets. In particular, I think we have talked a lot about some of the challenges in the offshore wind industry in the U.S. We took some impairments on our exposure to that in the first half. Obviously, we did not see the repeat of the proceeds from the sale of 39 Martin Place. Those things are really driving that one-off step up in loss contribution through the half. The second thing to note is that on the operating expenses, operating expenses in the corporate, that is largely the profit share. In addition, it includes the expense we incurred in relation to a specific legal matter that came through the corporate center.
We hope that slide is useful in terms of how you think about the corporate contribution, if you like, or the corporate expense going forward into the group. Now turning to a few other aspects of the financial management. The regulatory compliance and technology spend, you can see it's AUD 649 million for the half, up about 9% on where we were this time last year. We continue to invest heavily in the platform. We continue to invest in our ability to meet our regulatory and compliance obligations in terms of data, in terms of governance, in terms of documentation, in terms of technology that's removing some of that manual process that exists in that part of the business. We continue to invest in that. We've obviously got some programs that work to deal with things like the license conditions associated with our OTC and derivative reporting.
Those sort of things are featuring in our reg and compliance spend. Obviously, on the technology side, technology side up about 9%. Again, Nicole and her team continuing to invest in the enterprise and things like cloud and things like cyber and things like license fees and technology capabilities to support the scalability of the business. Technology spend is just under 20% of the overall cost of the group on a current basis. Now, balance sheet highlights. The balance sheet continues to be really strong. It's been a good period of raising, nearly AUD 16 billion from Frank and the team in treasury. It's obviously been very favorable conditions. Most of that raising has been done in the bank rather than the group. Conditions have been really supportive, and so we've taken advantage of those conditions over the course of the half. The business continues.
We continue to access a diverse range of funding sources, both from a currency perspective, a product perspective, and a geographic and a tenor viewpoint, which is really important. Obviously, the weighted life of the balance sheet continues to be quite long. The deposit base that Shem spoke about before, just under AUD 200 million of deposits across the group today. The deposits are obviously funding the growth, largely funding the growth in BFS. One of the interesting things, I think, just a credit to Greg and the team in terms of the capability they've developed there. You'll note that we've got 1.9 million depositors now in our business. Last year, that figure was 1.5 million depositors. Really strong growth in the deposit customer base. Obviously, we continue to.
Diversify and particularly focusing on savings types of products or more regular way products that are supporting the business going forward. The loan portfolio, up 9%. Mostly that's the home loans at the top of the page there. That's obviously driving the net interest income coming through the P&L. The equity investments, broadly in line with where we were this time last year. You can see a pickup in the asset management at the top of the page there as we've drawn down some exposures through our funds. Obviously, we moved some of those assets in that second line. We had some assets that were on the balance sheet. Ben and the team have been able to syndicate the equity there into new products. That's coming down a little bit.
The other thing I might draw out just on this page is just at the bottom of the page there in the line described as corporate, BFS, and CGM. You can see the green energy portfolio now reflected in corporate. It has gone from AUD 1.3 billion down to AUD 1.2 billion. That largely reflects the impairments I talked about previously. In the corporate, another line at the bottom, it has gone up from AUD 900 million to AUD 1 billion. That step up is mostly related to the assets we acquired as part of the settlement of the Shield Master Trust, which we acquired at fair value that are now managed in the corporate center. From a regulatory viewpoint, lots going on from a regulatory viewpoint. I will not spend too long on this. A couple of observations.
We continue to work constructively, obviously, with the industry and with APRA in relation to some reform agendas for a financial framework for banks, insurance, and superannuation. We submitted our feedback to that, and that's expected for the consultation in the first half of 2026. I think everyone's aware that the hybrids for banks are phased out from the end of this year. They'll obviously be outstanding until the 1st of January as we roll those, 1st of January 2032 as we roll those off. The other thing, of course, during the half is that APRA raised a consultation paper on hybrids for non-banks or the NOCs. We submitted our proposal, and there'll be further guidance on that in the new year. The other thing people would have seen is that we released our CPS 511 remuneration disclosures during the half.
One of those, what we were trying to do there is address at least some element of the feedback following the AGM strike in relation to the understanding how particular matters have been incorporated in remuneration outcomes for the executive directors and for the two CEOs across the group and the bank over the course of the last period. We have done that, and we have obviously extended that back to FY 2021. Hopefully, there is some useful information there for people to think about the way the board thinks about incorporating the issues that have occurred across the group into people's remuneration outcomes. We continue to work with APRA on the reform programs that we have had in place for some years. Those reform programs are obviously very mature now and heading towards their conclusion. We are pleased with the progress there.
As I said before, in relation to the various asset matters, we've stepped up programs of work to deal with the matters that are outlined on this page. The capital position remains very strong, 12.4% CET1 ratio from 12.8% at the start of the period. Liquidity continues to be strong. The average LCR of 173% is down from where we might have been a few years ago. That largely reflects the work that we've all done in terms of high-grading our capability and precision with which we manage liquidity. It's great to see that coming through. We're seeing some benefits in terms of the funding across the group from that precision. Finally, in relation to the capital management update, just a couple of things. The board has resolved to extend the AUD 2 billion buyback for another 12 months.
As people recall, we bought just over AUD 1 billion. We have just under AUD 1 billion that's available to buy back over the course of the next 12 months, pending other use for capital. We think that gives us added flexibility to manage the capital base across the group. In relation to the dividend and the dividend reinvestment plan, as Shem mentioned, the board declared a dividend of AUD 2.80, 35% franked. The dividend reinvestment plan remains in place, and we intend to have that on at a 0% discount and to buy shares on market to neutralize any applications for shares under that DRP. With that, I'll hand back to Shemara. Thanks very much.
Great. Thanks very much, Alex. I'll take you through the outlook now.
It was good to see you calling me Shem still, Alex, because he insists that he calls me Shemara at results, but sticking to his track record. As usual, we will go through this group by group. Starting with Macquarie Asset Management, as we have said, excluding the divestment of the public investments businesses outside of Australia, we are expecting the base fees to be broadly in line. The net other operating income we are now expecting to be significantly up, and that is driven by the performance fees that Alex just spoke about. In Banking and Financial Services, as you can see, we are having ongoing growth in the loan portfolios and deposits, the funds on platform, but it is continuing to be impacted by market dynamics and our portfolio mix, which is driving lower margins. As Alex showed you, there is continued investment in our digital platform and technology investment happening there.
Macquarie Capital, we're saying we expect transaction activity for the full year to be broadly in line. The investment-related income we expect to be up, and that's supported by the private credit portfolio growth and also asset realizations that we expect in the second half of this financial year. We'll continue to deploy in our private credit portfolio. In commodities and global markets, as we said, we now expect the commodities income to be broadly in line, but we expect continued contribution from asset finance and financial markets, as has been the case for many years. Our corporate results, we expect our compensation ratio and our effective tax rate to be broadly in line with historical levels.
This is subject to, as usual, the health warning of the range of factors that in the short term can affect things, market conditions like economic conditions, inflation, interest rates, volatility events, geopolitical events all playing out, the completion of transactions and period-end reviews, the geographic composition of our income and the FX implications, and potential tax and regulatory changes or uncertainties. That is why we have always maintained our cautious stance with our conservative approach to funding, capital, liquidity that allows us to respond through changing environments. Over the medium term, as usual, we think we are well positioned to deliver superior performance given our deep expertise across four very diverse capabilities in our operating groups, supported by our ongoing investment across our operating platform, our strong and proven risk management framework and culture, our strong and conservative balance sheet and funding.
Within that risk, our approach to patient-adjacent growth into new areas, adjacent areas. The last thing I'll do is touch on our returns over this period and over the historical period before handing back to Sam for questions. As you can see, we've had a 14% ROE over the last 19 years, and this year delivered 9.6% in the half year. Macquarie Asset Management and Banking and Financial Services that have historically delivered an average of 21%, delivered 20% again in this half. The Commodities and Global Markets business, I should say, and Macquarie Capital, which have delivered 17% average over past years, were 12% in this half. We talked about the big investment we're doing in platform in CGM.
Also, the capital requirements in that business high at the moment and up a bit in this half as well, given what happened in terms of FX rates, gold prices, etc. We held slightly high capital. With that, I will hand back to Sam to take any questions you may have. Thanks.
Great. Thank you, Shemara. We'll start with questions in the room, and then we'll go to the line. I'll start with Matt Dunger in the middle there.
Thank you very much, Matt Dunger from Bank of America. Shemara, I was wondering if you could expand on the comments you made earlier around the transfer of the green investments from MEM into corporate, the rationale, why now? On a related matter, Ben's saying strong green investment fundraising. How's the demand for these assets?
Yeah.
Ben's here in the front row, so I might let you, Ben, in a moment just comment on how the fiduciary business is going, where we're seeing very good momentum in many channels. That segues to why we have brought these assets into the center, because there's a limited number of assets now left, and we want the team in the asset manager focused on building the fiduciary business. We've done this before with assets like, say, Sydney Airport. We managed in the center. The building behind us, 39 Martin Place, we managed in the center. The team that have been working on that, who are a lean team with deep expertise in these assets, have now moved over into the center. We're very well familiar with these, and we expect that we'll use our resource better by doing that.
And then, Ben, did you want to comment on how the fiduciary business is growing? We'll get you a microphone.
Thank you for the question. In terms of MAM's green business, it has grown 5x in terms of assets under management over the last three years. It is sitting just under AUD 30 billion of assets under management now. The appetite for clients for those strategies remains strong, as you would have seen in the media earlier this year. We actually had our largest ever fund commitment for MGECO, our core renewables fund from ART, which was just in excess of AUD 1 billion. I think that is a good indication of the support we are seeing for both our solutions and strategies, but also the support from institutional investors around the world. We have now expanded the distribution of those products into the wealth segment. That is also going well.
In terms of just finding ways to match that capital with opportunities, you probably saw that our dry powder 18 months ago has come down from the sort of the mid-30s to the low 20s. A good example of the fact that we are finding around the world good deployment opportunities, generally speaking, and that includes in energy transition or decarbonization. That is driven by just the fact that the world needs more power than ever before. The most affordable scale power to install is obviously solar. Those opportunities around the main markets, about 25 markets that we focus on, remain very significant. That is then extending into things like storage and the like. I think we see decarbonization as being one of our four major mega themes for MEM, and we see the opportunity set as still being very significant and, if not, growing.
Thank you very much. Perhaps one for Alex on the CGM side and the AUD 200 million step-up in costs there. Thank you for unpacking those drivers, but just wondering if you could talk to us about how much you expect to recur into the next period. Obviously, the Scottish meters seem to be one-off, but how much of the remediation into the next period? Quantify it.
Yeah. Thanks, Matt. Yeah, as I said, in terms of the step-up in the cost base, it's a combination of three things, just to sort of repeat. It is high-grading the platform, investing heavily in the data and the technology that supports Simon's business on a global basis. There is obviously some remediation effort going in there, particularly in relation to things like the license conditions we have associated with our ODC and derivative reporting.
That is certainly some costs associated with that. Then there are some one-off costs associated with transactions and the like. The one-off costs in terms of the step-up are sort of in the range of 20%-30% of that step-up. Obviously, we would not expect those to repeat necessarily going forward. The remediation programs of work, obviously, staff up those programs across the group. You would expect, Matt, in a few periods, those would roll off. Obviously, the high-grading of the platform, we would expect to maintain going forward. Hopefully, that gives you a sense of what we think is going to happen, at least in the short-medium term. I should say briefly, because we are focusing a lot on the green assets now, that portfolio, we think, warrants focus in terms of getting the best value out of it if time goes into it.
It's diverting the attention of the MEM teams who are trying to raise money and look after their investors, whereas we have a lot of time on our hands to work with. It's a very good team. It's a very good team that have been working on that, but we can't focus.
Yeah. Thanks, Alex. Good stuff.
Thanks. I've got a John first, and then Andrew, I'll go to you.
John Mott from Barrenjoey. A follow-up question on the green assets, and specifically Corio and Cero. Can you just give us a bit more on the amount of capital tied up, and specifically between how much is in solar and how much is in wind? Of the 1.2, obviously, there's a lot more concern about offshore wind than there is about solar. They're there. How much have they been marked?
There is debt in there as well, I'm sure. What's the asset mark that's been taken down on that? Are they saleable? Are these assets that there is demand for, or are we going to see further impairments over time, just given that offshore wind in particular is on the nose and you've seen Orsted and others come under significant pressure?
Yeah. I'll answer briefly, Alexander. I'll tell you more about the detail. Basically, the biggest of the assets is the Cero portfolio. That's solar assets. Solar is an area where we're seeing still good interest. The MEM team will attest to that.
It is a development platform, and that's why we thought it was good to bring it into the center and focus on it, because we need to focus on OpEx and DevEx as we develop that and the timing that's optimum to exit it to get the best return for shareholders. We have actually made impairments in this first half, and we can give more details, but it's principally been in offshore wind in the Americas is where we've seen challenges in the sector. Elsewhere, we're at AUD 2 trillion of investment now this last year in green assets. There is growth. I think that's a brief summary of out of the AUD 1.2 billion. The biggest thing is the Cero Corio is a group of offshore assets limited in the Americas, and we've taken provision there. We have some in the U.K. region.
We have some in Taiwan. We have some in Korea, and we're managing that asset by asset.
Yeah. Maybe just to add just a couple of things from me. Just in terms of the split, about three-quarters is solar and about a quarter is wind, or 25% wind, 30% wind, something like that. It is majority solar. Just in terms of the, a few things to observe. Firstly, the solar market, just picking up Ben's point, the solar market is obviously quite different to the wind market. Solar, I think, remains the case as solar is the lowest levelized cost of energy. It is also relatively quick to develop and take from development stage to operational stage. We continue to be pretty optimistic about the solar exposure across the group. That is the first thing. The second thing on the wind story, a little bit region-specific, John.
I mean, in the U.K., for the sake of the example, the wind market continues to be an important source of power, but be a market that the government continues to respond to changes in the cost of capital associated with the development and the timeframes to develop. You probably saw in recent times, the most recent contract for difference have gone up from AUD 72 a megawatt hour to AUD 81 a megawatt hour. You have seen the market, you have seen the government respond with the subsidies. U.K., a little bit different to the U.S. I think in the context of the U.S., for obvious reasons, it feels like, at least it felt like to us, that with the passage of the last six months, which is obviously where we have been focused, it felt like to us that the timeframe.
The risk associated with developing offshore wind assets in the U.S. meant that it was an appropriate time to look at the carrying value of that asset. As Shemara said, we reduced, or Shem said, we reduced the carrying value of those assets down. It was about a AUD 150 million impairment that came through, but that was largely related to wind. I mean, just to sort of complete the picture, bear in mind with all these things, two things. Firstly, we expense a lot through the P&L in any case, so we sort of buy down our exposure to these assets. We do not obviously remark those assets to market. When we are impairing the assets, we are obviously impairing it from a low cost base.
At the time you make the judgment at 30 September, we obviously feel like the carrying value of the assets we have left on the balance sheet is appropriate. We will continue to review that going forward. Just a second question, probably for Ben in front of me. Raisings in the MEM space, I think, were AUD 10.7 billion. We have seen some really enormous funds being raised by some of your competitors. I just wanted to get a feel for whether you are comfortable with that AUD 10.7 billion in the scheme of some of the other funds being raised and whether you can break it down, because I know when we were in the U.S. a couple of years ago, there was a big push to get into the U.S. high-net-worth market and private markets there.
How much of the money is now coming from that channel as compared to the big industry funds and institutional money? First of all, yes, we are comfortable with those fundraisers. We raise funds that meet our business model. We have various regional funds that we constantly have funds in the market to service clients up and down the risk curve and by different geographies. We think that model's working very well. I mean, we've just completed the largest exit ever out of one of those funds in the U.S. for Allied Data Centers. I think that's a good example of what we do. We do not buy AUD 40 billion companies. We build AUD 40 billion companies, and then we return that capital with alpha to clients in a timely fashion.
We are very focused on doing the things that we are good at in MEM, which is being an asset creator, being an alpha generator, and that allows us to provide solutions to a broad client mix. You are right, increasingly, that is allowing us to take those solutions from our traditional client base, which is institutional clients, into the wealth and also into the reinsurance channel. We are starting to see a meaningful pickup in terms of those contributions. I think over the last 12 months, wealth has contributed just in excess of about AUD 1 billion of fundraising. We can see that. That is with only two funds out in the marketplace. We have a third one coming out, and that will sort of be our full suite of infrastructure or real asset-related products, both on the equity and the credit side.
We will then obviously continue to work on partnering with more wealth partners to have those into the marketplace. I suppose, as we have spoken before, John, the big difference is that 24 months ago, we had two wealth partners, and today we have 15. I think a good example of not just the appetite of the wealth market for what we do, but also just our ability to increasingly get into those channels. That will pick up over time. It is still very early days, I think, for all players distributing to the wealth market.
Great. We will go to Andrew just at the front again. Thanks.
Thank you, Andrew Triggs and JP Morgan.
If I look at consensus expectations for performance fees, about AUD 3 billion over the next three years, which I think roughly equates to probably 50 basis points of EUM, which you've talked about over time, just noting that you've just delivered sort of over AUD 700 million for the half with a lumpy fee from Align Co-investors, just give us a sense of your thoughts versus what could come through in the next few years, noting that MIP4 and MIP5 haven't realized there are still performance fees coming through for MAV2, and there's a number of other assets in various funds. Can you just talk to the broad sort of outlook versus what the market's thinking?
Sure. I'm happy to give a few comments, and Ben can elaborate.
But the 50 basis points we gave was an average through time, and there'll be points at which it's a bit lower, points at which it's higher, depending on where in their life cycle the funds are. The funds that have just realized, the MIP4s, etc., are getting to eight years old. Those funds are getting towards the end of life. The whole of fund performance fees, even though we may have a big realization early in the life of the fund, we have to look at what it generates over the entire portfolio before we start booking those fees. I think we stick with the 50 basis points through the cycle. Ben can elaborate, if you want, with a bit more color on what the recent realizations mean for the particular funds they're in. Generally, we'd be saying 50 basis points through the cycle.
Yeah. I do not really have much to add. Shemara's right. I think we feel very comfortable with the 50 basis points as a rule of thumb. Clearly, this half has been higher than that. We have MIP4 and MIP5, which will benefit from, over the coming years, from the Allied exit, but also exits in other areas. We have other digital infrastructure and other broader infrastructure assets that are high quality and will be sold down appropriately into the market as we see that opportunity. It is the same for something like MAV2, where we had a very good outcome on AirTrunk. We have also sold our industrial gas business recently in Korea at a very strong multiple. We continue to have good portfolios of assets right around the world that there is a big demand for.
That is one of the things that I think we will benefit from over the years in the sense that the vast majority of investments we do are manufactured by our teams on a bilateral basis. As more capital grows and looks to be deployed, there is a deeper market of buyers for these assets and high-quality assets. It comes back to that business model of really being able to create assets and build them to scale and then sell them into the market when there is potentially both a better owner for that, but just as importantly, doing our job, which is not just to make investments, it is actually to exit businesses and return capital to clients, which is not something that seems to be talked about as much as you would expect.
Thank you. Second question, perhaps on CGM.
Just expectations for commodities income into the second half guidance has obviously been downgraded, which is understandable given the first half performance. I do understand that April was fairly anomalous trading in the CGM business. It does imply, and you saw that in the AGM update, so Q2 looked a lot better. Can you just talk to some of the trends you're seeing and sort of inventory positioning, I guess, heading into the key second half period?
Yeah. And I'll let Simon elaborate. Generally, you'll have seen from all our commodities peers that it's been a much more subdued external environment in terms of volatility and whether that is from other banks who do not have as large a position in commodities. The trading houses, the hedge funds, the energy companies have all said it's been a more subdued environment.
Despite that, as I said, generally, the revenues are holding up in CGM. Simon, did you want to elaborate a bit on?
Thanks, Shemara. Thanks for the question. You're right. The first quarter was more challenged for obvious reasons with geopolitical factors. We've seen some normalization to trading, but what we're all desperately aware of, we think about all commodity markets, prices have been lower, generally across the commodity spectrum, but also volatility much lower. Obviously, we've talked in the past about the competitive tension. There is more risk capital and more competitors. As Shemara just alluded to, most of our tradehouse peers and hedge fund peers are actually really struggling as we've seen those announcements. We've actually had a pretty good run of it in the past second quarter. The outlook for the next year is we are market dependent.
All the optionality that we have in the business remains. The second half, generally, in the past has been stronger, but the past is no indication of the future. We are market dependent on what happens with the northern hemisphere winter and the demand. We are similarly positioned. What has been pleasing for the business and what we're seeing increasingly is client numbers are building. The amount of financing we're doing in that sector is also growing. The build on our strategy into new markets, things like batteries and LNG, continues to gain pace. It is positioning us well for the future. Again, clients are good, but we'll be subject to market volatility and market opportunities.
The other thing briefly in CGM is the financial markets and asset finance underlying cash flows are growing a lot, especially, I think, more recently, the cross-sell into the Metcalf clients, etc. Yeah. I mean, in CGM, we're obviously an originally diverse and balanced portfolio of businesses. On the financial market side, as Alex ran through, we continue to see strong growth. That is very much more a client-centric focus, less market risk. As a result, regardless of volatility, regardless of market prices, it continues to grow, albeit it would grow more if there was more volatility and more higher prices. It is a steady state, and we continue to see growth, particularly in financing, but in client solutions. That really encourages and underpins the business for the future.
We'll go to Andrei in the middle there, please. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Andrei Stadnik here from Morgan Stanley. Can I ask my first question around appetite for growth in private markets asset management? Where would you like to grow, and to what extent would you consider inorganic growth options?
Yeah. Ben, you might want to comment on this, but we started in infrastructure as our specialist asset class and then have grown into adjacent areas. We would like to, as Ben was explaining, patiently, adjacently, keep growing into private credit, real estate, agriculture, which we have built capability in. Now we are doing infrastructure-like private equity that we have started raising in. I think it goes to the point Ben said, we look at where we have the specialist expertise to deliver alpha and then patiently, adjacently grow along that line. Now, having said that, we always look at inorganic growth.
We certainly have done a lot in the public investments. We've also, GLL, CPG, done investments in organically in Macquarie Asset Management as well. We are very disciplined about making sure there's accretion, not just over the medium term, but quite soon when we invest. We do keep an eye on that as well.
Yeah. MAM is a disciplined allocator of capital. Our business is a J-curve business. In asset management, generally speaking, it takes five to eight years for any new solution or vintage to really get to scale. I think, as you'd be aware, over the last five years, MAM has made several investments, whether it's moving into adjacent PE, adjacent infrastructure, whether it's moving into opportunistic real estate, expanding our private credit offering, particularly around real estate or to do high-yielding funds, moving obviously into energy transition, but also building a reinsurer.
Over the last sort of 12 months, we've started to see the J-curve of those businesses start to sort of grow and move in the right direction to augment our core businesses. I think our first focus is always how do we, in a disciplined and patient way, allocate capital to grow businesses organically because that ultimately gets the best returns for shareholders. Equally, if we can find something that may accelerate us from an inorganic point of view, we'll look at that and review that. I suppose our initial priority is to really back our teams with time and capital and resources to grow businesses because we've got that track record, and that's the most efficient and effective way to do it for shareholders.
Thank you. For my second question, can I ask around private credit?
It is a broad-ranging question in the sense that there have been some concerns around US private credit exposures recently, and it is interesting that Macquarie Capital paused growth in its book. It did not grow; it was flat at AUD 26 billion. Can you talk a little bit about that? Also, that joint initiative between MAM and Macquarie Capital to bring more co-investments. Can you also maybe explain a little bit about how that is progressing?
Yeah. I think if I read that correctly, there are two questions on the quality of the credit book and what returns we are getting and then how do we grow it.
I think what we do in that credit book you're talking about in Macquarie Capital is mid-market direct lending that we've been doing for over a decade now and growing it very patiently in a very disciplined way, also importantly through many, many market cycles because we haven't had a recent correction in the credit cycle. Globally, the private credit world has grown to about AUD 2 trillion out of a AUD 300 trillion pool of lending there is through banks, insurers, etc., and financial market channels. It's not a huge proportion yet of the total credit. It's been growing fast and into areas that are higher risk, higher return. We've had a few challenges, but we haven't had a big credit cycle yet. The challenges we've had are quite idiosyncratic. Indeed, the first brands in the tri-color were bank-led ones, not private credit-led ones.
There'll be the odd error. We have had a very low loss ratio through multiple cycles. I think it's 0.1% per annum, 10 basis points per annum. We're really comfortable with the credit quality. In terms of the growth of that book, the concentration is the challenge for Macquarie Group. We're getting into the mid-20 billions. Our view is at that point, in terms of concentration of Macquarie's portfolio, we got to the point where our allocation was slowing and we started bringing co-investments from some of our large global investors who've been very happy to access it. We thought the next stage of growth that makes sense is a partnership between Metcalf and MAM to bring in fiduciary money alongside the strategy. I might, because Ben has spoken quite a bit, let Michael Silverton just elaborate on performance and growth from here.
Yeah.
Thanks, Andrei. We've invested close to AUD 80 billion in private credit since 2009. In terms of what we're seeing, we feel very comfortable in terms of the performance of our portfolio and credit quality. As we've said in the past, close to 90% of the portfolio is firstly in corporate and real estate credit. The first brand situation was a syndicated deal. It came to market very quickly. We can't comment on that, but what we can say is our due diligence process in terms of deals is very intense, and we re-underwrite these transactions as we go. We feel good about the portfolio. In terms of growth, we do have partnerships, including with MAM in Europe and the U.S. During the period, we actually partnered on around AUD 600 million into those vehicles. That's in part.
A start to that process of bringing in partners alongside the balance sheet.
I was just going to say quickly that we'll grow these funds, early funds slowly, and make sure the investors have a good experience. Then, as Ben was talking about, that J-curve is they'll probably get bigger, but we want the first European North American fund to be a really happy experience and then on that track record.
I mean, I'll just add just a couple of things, Andrei, just to the discipline point that Michael's talking about and some of this we've spoken about before. First half, the team looked at about 800 deals. I think did about 40. There is obviously a huge amount of deal flow there, and that allows them to be selective. It is a bit like the story that Ben's telling on the MAM side.
Obviously, if you've been in the sector for a long period of time, you should see a lot of transactions. You've got experienced deal executives out there finding the better deals rather than the auto rent deals or the deals that everyone else is doing. That is one point to think about. The second point is that, again, to the discipline, interestingly, if you went back maybe three years ago, you would have said half the book was exposed to the U.S., 40% in Europe and 10% down here, roughly. Today, that split is more like 55%-56% in Europe, I think 40% in the U.S. and whatever the balance is here. I think that reflects the fact that the team are seeing better origination opportunities with.
More attractive terms, not just in terms of margin, but in terms of the borrower covenants and all the rest of it in the European market. The fact that we've got a global franchise, we're obviously not trying to do everything. We don't feel like we need to do everything. I think that's made them a disciplined investor, and we've seen the benefit of that over time. The other thing I'd say, to the loss point, obviously, we still hold 2.2%-2.3% ACL against the book. We're well covered from an ACL viewpoint. We obviously hold an initial issue discount as well. We feel like we hold these assets at a fairly attractive net position. Yeah, as Jim said, there'll be idiosyncratic issues. There have been idiosyncratic issues along the way.
But generally speaking, I think the experience the team has has stood us in good stead.
Great. Ed, just in the second row there, please.
Thanks for taking my questions. The first one, just circling back to CGM, you've talked about the subdued market conditions, but you also talked about investing in the platform and around regulatory expense and stuff like that. Can you just touch on, I guess, your risk limits and how you think about that versus peers with the investment on the regulatory side? Is that pulling back growth that you thought you potentially could have going forward? Has the growth rate in that business slowed from what you would have thought it would have been a few years ago with the changes you're putting through the business? And can you just talk a little bit more about the opportunities in that business place?
Yeah.
I might let Simon and Andrew Cassidy comment, but basically what I would say is we have financial risks and non-financial risks, and we're looking at credit market risks, etc., with well-established approaches and strong performance there and are empowering teams to go and look for adjacent opportunities. What we're focusing on a lot more now is the non-financial risks, which include operational risks, but also regulatory and compliance risks. We're investing in our operating platform to free up the business to go to an even bigger stage of growth. In BFS, and Greg can talk about this at some point, hopefully, we have done an incredible job in bringing data under governance, using technology. The operational risk management is incredible, as well as the service to the customers. That's three products in one market here.
In CGM, we have somewhere between 97 or in the low 100s of products in 31 geographies. We are trying to bring discipline around trade capture, operating platforms, etc., so that we can manage non-financial risk as that business continues to go to even greater scale. I think that is what I say in terms of growth versus balancing the investment. You and Andrew may want to talk about, I know you are doing a lot of work on how we maintain agility while managing risk.
Sure. I will go first and pass to Andrew. When we think about risk, there are three types of risk for us. There is actually market risk, credit risk, and then non-financial risk. We assess all of those in terms of where we think the business is today and where we think it should be in the future.
As Shemara alluded to, we have been very deliberate in setting our medium-term strategy about where we see that business. What we have done is, and as we have talked about over the years, we are a client-centric business. That is our benchmark of where we start our business. You see that in the client growth in terms of numbers. We are continuing to do that. We are continuing to look at where that growth has been and what the opportunities are in the future. We have talked a bit about LNG, batteries, etc. In terms of where we have appetite for growth, in partnership with Andrew and his team, we have been deliberate in deciding on where we want that growth to be. We have the appetite that we need to grow. We have been doing that. You would have seen our capital numbers ticking up.
A part of that is as a result of that growth strategy now in play. What we've seen is, going into new markets, going into new products, we've diverted resources to those. We are building for that future. In terms of market risk, we're well within appetite. Even now, obviously, it's quiet, but the opportunities we see going forward, we're well positioned. The optionality is still there. That optionality is really there as a dependency upon our underlying franchise in clients. We would only ever increase market risk appetite if we had a sustained growth in our client numbers to support it. All of this has to be measured. It's how we evolve the platform for scale. Our non-financial risk appetite is very important for us at the moment.
As Alex talked about, we are investing in the platform for that scalability, for that strategy, very much with that non-financial risk appetite in mind. Andrew.
I probably do not have a lot to add, Simon, other than, I guess, just to reiterate that point that we are spending money in Simon's business on investing in data, investing in tech, getting our architecture right. Of course, that is so that we can ensure we are meeting our obligations today right across the range of businesses and regulators that we deal with globally with Simon's business, but also to provide a scalable platform for growth. Once you get that data right and that technology right, that will provide the scale and the platform for Simon to continue to grow according to the strategy into new markets, into new products like LNG, etc. We do think of it both.
It's a necessary investment in the license to operate, but I think an important investment for the future. Yeah. I think it's evidenced a bit in the revenue growth line. As I was mentioning earlier, we were sort of AUD 1.7 billion 10 years ago. When I took a risk, we were AUD 3.8 billion. We're doing low sixes now. The revenue is continuing to grow because the teams are able to go out there and look for franchise and trading-related growth off the back of that franchise. The investment is what's impacting the earnings.
Okay. Maybe just to follow up on that. You talked about the investment in the platform. How much more is still to go, significant investment? I know there will always be investment in platforms just holding back the growth to the bottom line.
Yeah.
I think it's going to run for a couple more years in terms of the investments we're making. We're not seeing it step up materially. Simon, again, anything you want to add to that? I think a little bit earlier on, there are two aspects to that growth, that platform. There is the scalability and, I guess, basically synergizing that platform for a more global approach. We've been quite good at being opportunistic and adjacent. We've been much more deliberate about being holistic and being able to scale. That'll give us an efficiency in the future. The second part is the remediation part. We invest in that platform. We invest in the remediation. There is a line of sight to how that runs off in the future. We'll be back to we'll never be BAU without taking that into account.
That will always be important. We will see a steady state through a couple of halves, I would say. We should say, I mean, reporting end-to-end capital and liquidity on the frequency now required has meant a huge investment in data to deliver that. Once we have that done, and Alex has been leading that program across Macquarie, ultimately, it's the upstream data that's a big driver of it. We should see that come off once we tick that box, and then there will be the ongoing platform investment.
Just my second question, just circling back to the green assets, can you just give us a little bit more detail on them?
Because you talked about strong demand for operational green assets, where they are on the operational side of it, how long is it going to take to get the majority of the portfolio up to operational? So then potentially, it's a little bit more saleable than where it is today on both the assets.
Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. Let's just talk sort of in two component parts here. Ed, obviously, you've got the solar platform. And as we talked about before, if you think about the development pipeline there within the markets that we're continuing to develop, you've probably got 10 gigawatts of solar that's sort of in that development phase. And there's probably somewhere between half a gigawatt and a gigawatt that's either operational or heading towards operational. So nearer-term visibility on that.
As we have said before, plainly, when you have cash flow coming out of the asset, that becomes a conversation about the discount rate for it to acquire and then how you value the portfolio or the platform. The outlook for development, I think solar is a bit easier and a bit nearer-term. Obviously, the appetite for solar assets continues to be quite strong anyway for the reasons I talked about before. I mean, the reality is that the world needs more power, and the shortest way is solar and battery. That is the way we see it. We feel like there is value there. On the wind side, we are obviously at an earlier stage from a development viewpoint. Most of the assets in Europe are sort of heading towards what we would describe as financial close.
We start to spend significant dollars in constructing those assets. Again, the U.K. market tends to be more attractive because the feed-in tariff is more attractive, where the contract for difference is more attractive. Some of the pressures from a cost of construction viewpoint are actually coming out of that market, but they're obviously earlier stage, and they take longer to get from early-stage construction to operational stage. Typically, the development cycle for a wind farm is going to be, I don't know, 8-10 years. The development cycle for a solar plant is going to be, I don't know, half a year to two and a half years or something, depending on where you are in the world. Obviously, the one that's sort of most in focus has been for us thinking through over the half has been the U.S. story.
To the point that Ben was making before, the US still needs more power. The reality is that there's quite a strong push against offshore wind. That was really the reason. We do not see a near-term prospect of taking that from development to operations. That means that you need to start to think about the carrying value for that asset. Just going back to your previous question, I think the other thing we should point out is that we historically have sat with very big liquidity buffers, capital buffers for the way we ran the business. Now that we are required for regulatory purposes to move to being much better across our liquidity real-time, once we reach that, we will actually save a lot by reducing the bigger liquidity buffers, etc. Yeah. I mean, hopefully, we dealt with the great question.
You can follow up if there are any others. I mean, maybe just on the cost for a second. I think there is a blueprint sitting in Greg's business. At the end of the day, Greg has a really great business. It is obviously a smaller set of products than what Simon is sitting on. At the end of the day, it is based on digital capability. It is based on data. It is based on automation. It is based on technology. It is based on a great customer proposition. What Simon's business has got is a great customer proposition. You can see that continuing to grow over the last seven or eight years. That has resulted in a doubling of revenue from 2019 to this point.
What we're trying to do, and I think what the team is making progress on, is actually thinking about the foundations or the scaffolding that supports that. A lot of the same lessons and observations that Greg and the team have apply to Simon's business. Obviously, once you get to a point where you've got your data asset in good shape, you've removed manual process, you're using more technology, you're blending different data from different sources for insight to customers, that's a huge opportunity to drive efficiency into the future. Where we are at the moment, obviously, is a point where we're investing to get to that level of scale. You can see the blueprint sitting in the front row on my left there. The cost of recovery advantage on the technology side becomes really significant.
I was going to say Greg and the team are leaning in and working with Simon and the team to share those lessons of how they delivered that in BFS. Hopefully, we'll get the benefit of it. Shipping a barrel of oil won't be the same necessarily as writing a mortgage yet, but it's got some characteristics.
Right. We've got a couple of questions on the line. I think we're done in the room. If we go to the lines, please. No questions on the line. I think we've got two questions on the line. If we can have those, please.
Your first question comes from Matthew Wilson with Jarden.
Yeah. Good morning, team. Matt Wilson with Jarden. Firstly, Alex, all the very best. You'll be missed as a CFO. It's been a pleasure dealing with you.
Thanks, Matt.
And then over to the questions.
I wonder if you could talk through, perhaps this might be one for Ben Way, the type of blockchain, stablecoin, infrastructure investments that you may have, your front-end of global activity, more is happening globally than is happening here. How do you see the tokenization of assets and securities, alternatives for deposits and payments playing out globally?
Thanks. Oops. Can we do the Ben's microphone? I must have worn it out. Apologies. In terms of. You just muted you, Ben.
It's not the first time, Shemara. I think the first answer is we do not have any investments in stablecoin or blockchain as an asset manager today. Do you see the ultimate tokenization, particularly in the wealth channels of asset management? That is certainly coming. I think that is certainly part of.
What is often bandied around the industry is the democratization, particularly of private markets, where we can give different types of clients that have not normally had access, particularly wealth and retail clients, access to that private market. I think the best example is probably the way the U.S. is looking at 401(k) and reforming that and giving access. Giving those pools of capital the ability to invest into private markets. Clearly, you'll need some sort of tokenization mechanism to do that, just given the types of capital you'll get and the size of capital you'll have and what you'll be matching within private markets. That is certainly something that we're looking at very closely. We're working with our wealth partners to see how we can use tokenization, but it's not something that's currently present in our portfolio or something that we're doing.
Thank you, Benjamin. That's good.
Thanks. Go ahead, Matt. No? Matthew, your line is open.
Okay. Hello?
Yep. We can hear you, Matt. We can hear you.
Oh, yeah. Shenmara, perhaps you could add to how you see this thematic playing out. You've been very good at picking up early-stage investments. It's clearly moving offshore.
It was, "Are we investing to that thematic?" I think in the digitization thematic at the moment with infrastructure, we obviously went early with data centers, but we're very conscious that there's a lot of other infrastructure to support these fiber optic networks, towers, subsea cables. I think the teams are working on those. We have a portfolio still of data centers left, but we also have a lot of fiber investments around the world, etc. I think we're going more that stage than doing the infrastructure for the crypto. Is that fair enough, Ben?
That is true. We continue to break down the digital thematic and look at where we can be a good and prudent investor in that. We have done that traditionally in things like towers, into fiber. We do that into data centers. We do that into different types of data centers, both hyperscale and subhyperscale. You may have seen that in the last few months, we have reinvested into data center platforms in the U.S. through our investment in Allied Data Centers, which is focused specifically on AI data centers. We continue to look at that opportunity. We also look at coming at that thematic from different angles. Our industrial gas business that we sold in Korea recently was really a business that was primarily focused on supporting semiconductor manufacturers. Clearly, that is geared to the digital economy.
Again, we look at where we can be a responsible and effective investor right across that thematic. Those opportunities will continue to change as the world further digitizes and as we need different types of both technology but also the infrastructure to support that.
Thanks, Matt.
Your next question comes from Brendan Sproules with Goldman Sachs.
Good morning. Brendan from Goldman's. My first question is on Macquarie Capital. A very strong result. Around transaction volumes and the resultant fee and commission income. I noticed in your outlook that you have not changed the outlook. You have still expected to be broadly in line for the full year. Could you maybe talk about what you are expecting to see around transaction activity in the second half?
Yeah. We will let Michael go straight away.
Thanks, Brendan. We have seen, obviously, transaction value increase quite a lot in the M&A market, up 33%.
Volumes are still fairly muted. A lot of the transaction activity has been in the mega cap transactions where we have not been focused. In the first half, we had several deals that closed that were larger fee events, and that has supported the result in the first half. In the second half, looking at our pipeline, it looks very solid, but we do not have the same number of large deals looking to close. With that said, the actual commercial approvals of transactions and NDAs that we are signing are as high as they have been since 2022, which is encouraging. Many of those transactions we are working on will probably close in 2027. We just expect we are not going to have as many large fee events in the second half, which is why we have that outlook.
Thank you. That is very clear.
My second question, and Michael, while you've got the floor, I just want to ask you about the equity realizations. I mean, you've indicated that you expect to see more of these in the second half. I did notice in this half's result, we had a kick-up in net losses from associates and JVs. I just wonder how much they will also impact the overall performance in the second half.
They will not meaningfully impact the second half. That's an accounting treatment on deconsolidation when a particular transaction, we've merged with another company, and that's an accounting treatment on a single asset. We would not see that as a trend. In terms of the realizations, we're working hard on them as we always do. We've got about 100 positions.
We'll sell them when the time's right, but the good news is that we have a number of assets in the market. As Ben mentioned before, there's good demand for good assets, and we'll continue to work hard on those. Hopefully, some of those will come through in the second half.
Perfect. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Tom Strong with Citi.
Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to follow up on the questions around DGM. If we look at the half result, the business has done well to hold the net operating income, but we've seen costs up 10%, and there's about AUD 1.5 billion more capital that's gone into the business year on year. The drag on the group ROE continues to increase. How should we think about the pathway to better ROEs over the long run?
Is it through better operating leverage from these, a small scalable platform that you've talked to, or is there capital efficiency you can get out of the business, or is it a combination of all of the above?
Again, we'll let Simon comment. We had a slight spike, obviously, for one-off things like exchange rates in this half. Did you want to comment more medium-term?
Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. Look, it's basically capital is up probably in 12 months about 20%. You basically can split into two halves. Half of that is through business growth through the strategy, which is accretive to P&L, which we're starting to see those grassroots, which is really pleasing. That will continue to be the case. As we invest in the business, as we grow the business in line with the strategy, we will use more capital, but it will be returning.
The types of things we are investing in will be accretive now, but also we'll be planning for the future. There might be a slight drag on that, but that's not the main gain. The other half of the capital growth has largely been through market moves. We will have seen the weakening in the US dollar in the first six months of this year, but also the very strong rally in the precious markets and gold. As you know, we're a very client-centric business. Lots of client exposures, lots of credit risk exposures, which is a drag on the capital. You think about how long that lasts for. There will be a period of time whilst those exposures run down as they naturally amortize and as they'll restructure with those typical types of deals that we do.
We think there is a path to the reduction in that half of the capital through time as markets move around, but also as those exposures amortize. We will start to see more revenue accretion on the growth side of the capital.
Yeah. Maybe, Tom, it is Alex. Maybe just to add a couple of things from me to the point that Simon is making. Obviously, some of it is timing related. You would expect that to roll off, and then we will reset the bases, which will help from a capital viewpoint. The other thing is you probably saw during the half, we obviously moved the North American gas and power business from the bank to the non-bank. That is a reflection of the importance that Simon and the team see LNG playing in the energy mix going forward, but also the fact that that business.
Requires a physical footprint, which is more consistent with what we've done in the non-bank. And longer-dated contracts, which are better, I think, from a risk sensitivity viewpoint, from a capital against. Those exposures, much better positioned in the non-bank. Short term, obviously, the impact of that from a capital viewpoint has been relatively small, relatively immaterial. As Simon and the team grow the exposure to LNG over the course of the coming years, yeah, that's a much more capital-efficient place to look at that, to look at doing that business. Yeah, we're obviously, to your broader question, what we're trying to do is continue to grow the revenue line. You're seeing that tick up with the customer base to the point that Simon's making before. We're trying to create a platform that's got the scaffolding to be scalable. We're obviously, you get some.
Short-term noise in the capital footprint just because of some market movements that Simon talked about. We are trying to be strategic about where you actually house the business so that it is best positioned to be able to service the customer base going forward.
That is right. Thanks very much for that.
Your next question comes from Brian Johnson with MST. Hi. Thank you very much for the opportunity to ask a question. I have two questions. First one, I would like to address to Mr. Silverton, if I may. Michael, we know that the profit recognition in the private credit book is very back-ended. Can you just talk to us about this prospect of it kind of like tapping out? When do we actually see the profit recognition come through from that? Can I also just get a feel just about these.
Private equity investment realizations that you've got in Metcalf? Can we just get a feel to whether you're still confident about the long-term kind of return dynamics that were spoken about on the European trip. Also just the timing beyond this year of those realizations?
In terms of the word J-curve was used before, the term J-curve, what we experienced, Brian, as we were scaling the private credit portfolio is that we would take upfront ECL, and that may have suppressed the earnings coming from those loans. Now that we are at scale at the AUD 25 billion, I think the earnings reflect the portfolio. Now it's a question of performance. We have the ECLs that Alex referenced before held against the portfolio and unamortized fees of around 1.5% also.
I would say that where we're at at the moment is run rating the portfolio at its current size. If we can continue to grow the portfolio, we'll see some further upfront ECLs. These are three-year weighted average life loans. I think when it's scaled, the earnings reflect the earnings capacity of the portfolio. On the principal equity book, we've got AUD 2 billion in infrastructure development, AUD 2 billion in our principal finance business, and around AUD 2 billion of capital in tech-related assets. We've invested heavily in the last couple of years. As we've communicated, if our hold periods on average are around three years and we've seen IRRs of above 20%, we see that continuing. We do have a PPP business where we partner with governments. The activity there has been lower the last couple of years, but pleasingly, it's returning.
Those commitments have much higher IRRs. We are expecting that also to pick up in the next couple of years. Overall, we feel that the book is in very good shape and the return profile that we communicated, our historical track record, holds.
Fantastic.
Thank you, Michael. There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand back to Mr. Dobson for closing remarks.
Okay. Thought Brian might have had another one there, but anyway, thanks everyone for your support and for your interest. As Shemara said, we look forward to catching up with you over the next couple of weeks. Thank you. Thank you.