Good morning all. In the event of an emergency, please follow instructions and staff, and make your way to the nearest exit. The AGM will now commence.
The guiding vision behind Macquarie Authenticator has always been delivering the highest level of security with the best possible customer experience. Macquarie Authenticator is different from any other authentication app in the market, and it's mainly because of three reasons. The first one is it doesn't rely on SMS; it relies on your device. We are removing all the inherent risk of using SMS. The second is we provide all the context, so you know exactly what you are approving or denying when you receive the message. The third one, we deliver a very seamless experience in order to approve or deny your transactions. Macquarie Authenticator is producing really good results. The most important one is our customers enjoy high levels of security with a very seamless experience. The second one is it's a mature product.
Just in the last three months alone, our customers have approved millions of transactions using Macquarie Authenticator. It's a product that is evolving month by month based on customer feedback.
South Korea is on the verge of becoming a super-age society, where over 20% of its population is over 65 soon. This means that the healthcare industry in South Korea requires significant investment in the future years. With South Korea's economy thriving on new technology, this is also influencing its approach to the healthcare industry. Last year, we acquired a leading South Korea-based pharmaceutical contract development and manufacturing organization named Genuine Sciences. Genuine Sciences focuses on small molecule generic drug research and development, high-quality large-scale production, and other advanced healthcare solutions. MAM sees the opportunity for Genuine Sciences to innovate the healthcare industry in Korea. This is by being the only contract development and manufacturing organization that provides extensive dosage forms and being the first CDMO player to implement a large-scale batch-sized equipment in Korea. MAM is also exploring future opportunities to apply AI technology to their operations.
Very good morning, everybody. Welcome to Illumina and to Macquarie Group's 2025 Annual General Meeting. I'm Glenn Stevens, Chair of the Board, and my privilege to chair today's proceedings. There is a quorum present, so I declare the meeting open. Today's a hybrid meeting, so we can welcome shareholders electronically from around the world. I acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands from where we speak today, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, and I pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging. With me up here on the stage are our non-executive directors, Rebecca McGrath, Phil Coffey, Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz, Jillian Broadbent, Mike Roche, Michelle Hinchliffe, our CEO, Shemara Wikramanayake, CFO, Alex Harvey, and Company Secretary, Simone Kovačič. Our bank directors, Wayne Byres, Ian Sains, and David Whiting, are also present in the room. Also in the room are online or online. Macquarie Bank CEO, Stuart Green.
Group Heads, Greg Ward, Ben Way, Michael Silverton, Nicole Sorbara, Andrew Cassidy, and Evie Bruce. Now, the order of proceedings is as set out in the documents. After some brief remarks from me, Shemara will take you through the 2025 full year results, provide a first quarter update for 2026, and speak to the outlook for the remainder of the 2026 financial year. We're then going to hear from directors who are seeking reelection to the board today, Phil Coffey, Michelle Hinchliffe, and Jillian Broadbent. Following that, I will open the polls, and then we will take a break, and we look forward to meeting those of you who are here in person during that break. After the break, we'll reconvene to address the formal items of business on the agenda and open for questions.
If you're participating online, you can start to send your questions in from now, and we will address them during the formal business of the meeting. Turning to financial performance, the company delivered a profit of AUD 3.7 billion in financial year 2025, and that's up 5% on the previous year's results. Reflecting more subdued conditions in global energy and certain other commodity markets, profits in our Commodities and Global Markets business were down. They are up in Macquarie Asset Management due to improved asset realizations. Macquarie Capital's result was broadly in line with the prior year, where profits increased in Banking and Financial Services, helped by further growth in key portfolios. The company earned a return on shareholders' funds of 11.2%. That was a bit higher than the previous year, though still lower than what Macquarie has typically achieved over the past decade.
Management remains focused on costs and efficiency improvements. This has seen a 7% reduction in the company's headcount since the peak in late 2023. A focus on remediation of regulatory issues and the associated strengthening of the company's risk culture also continues. The operating businesses continue to focus on growing activities with the potential of earning higher risk-adjusted returns on shareholders' capital over the medium term. Disciplined capital allocation is key to that. Macquarie is willing not only to give priority to the most promising opportunities, but also to divest businesses that are no longer central to our strategy or whose prospects could be improved under alternative ownership. The past year has seen a couple of such transactions. The company ended the year in a strong financial position with surplus capital at the group level and at the Macquarie Bank level.
The board declared a final dividend of AUD 3.90 per share for a total dividend for the year of AUD 6.50. That's in keeping with our longstanding policy of paying between 50% and 70% of earnings as dividends. The on-market buyback for Macquarie Group shares continues. At this point, we've returned just over AUD 1 billion to shareholders under that program. In November last year, the board approved an extension of that program for a further 12 months. That preserves flexibility to return capital to shareholders where we don't see clear opportunities to deploy that capital in a way that generates an appropriate return. A few words about risk culture. Macquarie continues to adapt to a changing environment and is well-positioned to respond to emerging opportunities. As we do so, understanding and managing the associated risks.
Ensuring that you, the shareholders, are properly compensated for bearing those risks remains critical. Attention to further strengthening our risk management framework is an ongoing focus given this ever-changing environment. Risk culture is central. A great deal of work has been done over recent years to respond to changes in our operations and to expectations of regulators and communities in which we operate. Where shortcomings are identified, as sometimes they are, the board insists on accountability, and we seek to incentivize future improvement. We also reflect on what every incident may tell us about the organization's culture. That was the approach we adopted in response to the license conditions imposed by ASIC on Macquarie Bank earlier in the year. There were remuneration impacts for several executive committee members and others, and those impacts also incorporate incentives for all senior executives to resolve the issues going forward.
The company is also directing significant resources into a range of remediation activities, as well as continuing to invest in programs to further reinforce all these frameworks, systems, and controls. Now, the civil proceedings commenced by ASIC primarily in relation to inaccurate short sale transaction reporting that arose after our results announcement in early May. That matter is currently before the New South Wales Supreme Court, so naturally, I'm limited in what I can say. What I will say is that where there are problems, the company addresses them. In fact, it was as a result of efforts to improve what is inherently a complex reporting process. Our efforts to make that better, more resilient, and less error-prone brought to light problems from an earlier period. They were duly reported to the market operator and to ASIC. So we found a problem.
We owned the problem, and we've moved to address it. The reporting issues identified in the proceedings have actually been remediated and additional controls implemented. We've been working on strengthening these sorts of reporting controls right across the company for some years. That journey is well advanced across many of our businesses, but it's not yet complete, and it continues. So far as remuneration impacts are concerned, this particular matter will be one for FY2026, and the board will come to a view about that as we go forward. I would acknowledge that while our remuneration system is strongly supported by shareholders, and that's a message we continue to get, a number of shareholders have been of the view that the board did not adequately reflect shortcomings in our financial year 2025 decisions on remuneration.
The board hears that message, and we will reflect carefully on an appropriate response for these sorts of matters in financial year 2026. Turning to some comments about sustainability. Macquarie is well-positioned to continue to play a constructive role as a financier, advisor, investor, and fiduciary in the sustainability space. We expect that to be to the benefit of shareholders. This year, we have proposed resolutions requisitioned by a group of shareholders and they are items 5A and 5B in the agenda. You have our response to that in the explanatory materials to the notice of meeting, along with our recommendation that shareholders vote against resolutions 5A and 5B. Importantly, the board does not believe that constitutional amendment proposed in 5A will improve the shareholders' ability as a whole to provide feedback on how the company is managed. Item 5B is an advisory resolution.
It is conditional on 5A passing, and it will not be put to the meeting if 5A is not passed. Macquarie has been—let me just say a few things about these matters. Macquarie has been consistent in our response to climate change over many years. We accept the best available science. We think our best response to climate change will come from positive and practical solutions enabled by our core capabilities. We think the transition to decarbonized energy must be managed and orderly. We think that simply shutting down oil and gas today is not viable. We recognize the reality that even as net zero is pursued, the world will need carbon-based energy for quite some time. These principles will guide our activity, and our strategies and disclosures will continue to evolve to meet the needs of clients and investors, the requirements of governments and regulators across markets.
Including the efforts which are being made by regulators towards more consistent disclosure. As part of that evolution, we remain committed to effective shareholder engagement and to ensuring that relevant information is disclosed to shareholders and investors. As part of that process, we've engaged with a broad array of stakeholders on sustainability matters over the past year. We run a roundtable forum each year for investors at about this time of year, and the feedback on that's been very positive. We remain open to constructive and relevant practical suggestions on disclosures. Turning then to the board, there have been no changes to the board since our last meeting. I'm very grateful that Jillian, Phil, and Michelle are offering themselves for reelection.
Jillian's extensive experience in investment banking and her markets expertise, Phil and Michelle's extensive Australian and international experience in the financial services space, all of these add great value to our deliberations and strengthen our capacity to oversee the company. I very much welcome their willingness to stand for reelection. On the board's behalf, it remains for me to thank the staff and management of Macquarie for their efforts in another challenging year. It's a very high-performing team that remains very focused on delivering the best possible results for shareholders. Fellow shareholders, that concludes my opening remarks. Thank you for your attention, for your ongoing support of Macquarie. I'd now like to invite Shemara to discuss the results in more detail. To update you on recent performance. Thank you, Shem.
Thanks very much, Glenn, and welcome everyone from me as well, especially to our new alumina space in our new building here at 1 Elizabeth Street. Great to have you all join. As Glenn said, I'll go through an overview of the results for the past financial year, an update on the quarter just passed, and then turn to the outlook. Starting with that result for the past year, I just would note that it continues our track record of 56 years of unbroken profitability. Since listing, we've delivered a compound annual growth rate in earnings per share and dividends per share of 10% per annum, which when you compound it, I know since I started, I think our earnings have grown about 400 times. Compounding is a great thing in terms of growth.
As Glenn said, we delivered a result this most recent year of AUD 3.715 billion. That is up 5% on the previous year. We also had a return on equity that was up 4% at 11.2%, and the dividend of AUD 6.50 is up 2% on the previous year. In terms of the contribution of the operating groups, the income from the operating groups was up 2%. Broadly, in terms of how they each went, Macquarie Asset Management, where Ben Way, our Group Head, is sitting here in the front row, had an increased result, principally due to better performance fees in the previous year and the realization of the Rotocraft assets there.
In Banking and Financial Services, where Greg Ward, our Group Head, is sitting here in the front row as well, we had ongoing growth in BFS through ongoing growth, as you'll see as I go through more detail in our loan portfolios, home lending, and business banking, our deposits, and our funds on platform. Macquarie Capital, we have Michael Silverton online from the US, the Group Head. There, the result was broadly in line with the year before. We had higher fee and commission income from our advisory and brokerage businesses and a higher contribution from our private credit portfolio, but lower investment realizations as we're growing that book. Lastly, in Commodities and Global Markets, Simon Wright, the Group Head, is online with us from Europe. There we had ongoing solid contribution from the financial markets and the asset finance book.
We had, in terms of our North American gas and power book, lower inventory management and trading is the timing of recognition of that income. Also, in the European gas and power and the oil businesses, lower client activity. Now, I'll go through each of those businesses in a little bit more detail just so we can explain the footprint. Before doing that, I just wanted to touch on our global footprint. You can see here we're making about 34% of our income now in Australia. Since the early days when I joined, when we were just an Australian business with 300 people, we've now grown to having nearly 20,000 people who operate in 30 markets. We're making about two-thirds of our income outside of Australia.
We're proud of the fact that despite that, nearly half our people still are Australian-based and working from here. We have nearly a quarter of a million people working in our assets and portfolio companies around the world. The vast majority of those are working in the regions where they're delivering to their communities. We have only, I think, about 15,000 or 16,000 of that 240,000 here. Now, looking at each of the four operating groups, I should also mention we've got our central service group heads as Glenn mentioned, Andrew Cassidy, Nicole Sorbara, Evie Bruce, and Alex Harvey here with us in the room, as well as Stuart Green, CEO of Macquarie Bank. Macquarie Asset Management, the result of AUD 1.61 billion was up 33% on the previous year. The big thing that happened was really in this financial year.
Instead of last, we announced in April that we were going to divest our non-Australian public investments, fixed income and equities asset management businesses to Nomura, which is a great solution in that we can access those incredible capabilities still and partner with Nomura, hopefully to take our private markets assets to their clients. In private markets, we're at nearly $390 billion of assets at the end of last financial year. We raised $18 billion of equity in a difficult raising year. At the bottom of that page in the column on your left, you can see that we were able to return $19 billion of equity to our clients. That's a record return in a market where, if you're following those markets, investors are finding it difficult to get money returned because there's less activity happened. We're very pleased with that. In banking and financial services.
Ongoing growth there, up 11% to AUD 1.38 billion, consistent record of growing the book there. We're now servicing about 2 million customers. As you can see, we were able to grow the home loan portfolio, is up an impressive 19%. The business banking portfolio, up 6%. Funded by a 21% very impressive growth in deposits from our customers and 4% growth in the funds on the platform. In Commodities and Global Markets, that result, as I said, was slightly down. It was down 12% at AUD 2.829 billion. The financial markets, which has foreign exchange interest rates, credit in it, and the futures business delivered really consistently, growing the franchise and client activity and equity derivatives had a strong year. In our asset finance book, we were able to grow the book 17% to AUD 7.6 billion. Good underlying franchise growth there.
In commodities as well, we were able to keep growing the franchise, but there was more subdued client activity in the European, Middle East, and Africa gas and power segment and also in the oil segment. As I mentioned, timing of income recognition impacted the North American gas and power. In Macquarie Capital, the result of $1.043 billion was broadly in line with the year before, down 1%. I mentioned we had a stronger year in terms of fees and commission income and also good earnings from the private credit book, which we were able to invest $9 billion. That is at $26 billion at the end of last financial year. We also invested a lot in the equity books and raised that to $6 billion, which meant extra funding costs. That impacted the result in Macquarie Capital.
As we moved through seasoning those assets and realizing them, we have funding cost impacting. Now, those groups across the groups were able to deliver, as I said, 11.2% of return on equity across the groups. Macquarie Asset Management and Banking and Financial Services together delivered a 15% return. That compares to a historic 21% average. It's impacted by the fact that we have a lot of balance sheets sitting in Macquarie Asset Management at the moment that we're transitioning. The green assets, we're moving to a fiduciary offering. So we'll realize the balance sheet assets and also the aircraft finance portfolio that we hold on the balance sheet. The Commodities and Global Markets and Macquarie Capital businesses, 13% return compared to a historic 17%. That's reflecting, as I said, we put a lot of extra capital over recent years into Macquarie Capital to grow our equity investing.
It's lumpy returns. The book is still seasoning there. In terms of the overall capital position, though, we're sitting on an AUD 9.5 billion surplus. That result that we're delivering of 11.2% is after holding a surplus of AUD 9.5 billion. We've got a Common Equity Tier 1 ratio of 12.8%, which is a strong ratio. We also have our term funding well exceeding our term assets, as you can see on the bar charts over on your left. We have very strong ratings from all three big international rating agents. Before I turn to looking at this first quarter, a very important final thing I wanted to mention is the change in management. Alex Harvey here, our CFO, who joined us from when we were able to get the incredibly talented Bankers Trust team across 28 years ago. Alex had contributed incredibly at Bankers Trust before that.
Where actually Jillian was working with him as well. Came over and had a big career here. He ran the Principal Transactions Group globally, which is a principal investing group, then moved to Hong Kong to run our Asian operations and was chair of Asia. When he came back to Australia, he also took on chairing our foundation, did a lot in impact investing and shared value investing with that team. Also most recently, the last eight years has been our CFO and driven dramatic change in terms of our financial reporting, our platform, investing in systems, our funding, and our engagement with investors. One of the greatest things Alex has done is worked on his succession.
Frank Quock, who has also been with us 28 years, who has been principally in our asset management business for most of that, Alex brought him across just under 18 months ago to be Treasurer and Deputy CFO. Frank has been transitioning very well into that role. We should see a smooth transition coming up to the beginning of next year when Alex will step off the executive committee and hand over to Frank. Frank not only has worked running the real assets business in Asia, etc., but I've worked closely with him in that period. He also was the Chief Financial Officer of Macquarie Airports, Sydney Airport and other assets. He has had experience as a public CFO. With that, I'll just turn to the update of the first quarter. The results can be lumpy quarter by quarter.
This first quarter was down on the prior comparable period. Within that result, Banking and Financial Services continued to grow earnings, the trajectory it's been on. Macquarie Capital had good fee and commission income as activity levels pick up. That was offset by Macquarie Asset Management. It's a timing of more lumpy things, which is investment-related income. In Commodities and Global Markets, again, we had in the first month of this quarter lower results from the North American gas and power business. Looking at each business in a little bit more detail, Macquarie Asset Management ended the quarter with assets in the private markets business. I mentioned in public investments we're divesting the non-Australian assets. Private markets, we were just over AUD 400 billion of assets, which is up 3%. In the quarter, raising is going well, but there was AUD 3.5 billion.
It depends on what's open and raising in that quarter. We raised AUD 3.5 billion. That included the close of our sixth in a series of North American infrastructure funds that closed at a very impressive AUD 8 billion. We also in that business, as I said, have been able to be deploying capital and returning money well to investors. In Banking and Financial Services, ongoing growth over this quarter. The home loan portfolio is up another 6%, business banking up 4%, the deposits supporting that also up 4%. The funds on platform were up 7%, ongoing trajectory of growth. In Commodities and Global Markets, the financial markets and asset finance businesses continued to grow their franchises, as did the commodities business. As I mentioned, in this quarter, we had reduced trading income in the North American gas and power business.
That's a seasonal and more lumpy result. Or business. And then in Macquarie Capital, as I mentioned, the fee and commission income has been going well. So we had a good quarter in terms of fee and commission income. We also had reasonable results in private credit, where the book is now sitting at $25 billion. But the main thing impacting the result there is that we had the equity portfolio. We had a realization of an asset called Prime Data Center, which will book in the next quarter. But we're starting to now get some realizations as that book seasons. So hopefully we will have equity realizations in the coming period. And in terms of capital and funding, we're sitting at from 12.8% at 12.7%. At Rebal 3 level 2 CT1 ratio. We also have very good liquidity coverage and net stable funding ratio.
The main thing, as Glenn was mentioning as well, is that we had the dividend of AUD 1.9 billion paid. Our surplus capital has come down to AUD 7.6 billion, down a couple of billion from the AUD 9.5 billion. Glenn also mentioned that we've done about AUD 1 billion of the AUD 2 billion buyback that was announced in November 2024. The businesses themselves, if you look at that middle dark green bar to the one over on your right, did not absorb a lot of capital in this quarter. That was because both BFS, as it grows its books, was absorbing capital. So was CGM in terms of market and credit risk supporting clients. We had capital released by the equity realizations in Macquarie Capital and Macquarie Asset Management divestment. Net, broadly neutral. On the regulatory side, Glenn talked about the couple of ASIC matters.
I'd also mentioned that with APRA, they are working on the implementation of the changes they're making in relation to hybrid instruments, which they want to phase out at the non-operating holding company. That will run from about 2027 to January 2031, which will have some small impact on our ROE out in that period. Now, with that, I'm just going to finally turn to our outlook before I hand back to Glenn. There's no change to this from what we gave as guidance at the beginning of the financial year. Macquarie Asset Management, we're expecting both our base fees and our net other operating income to remain broadly in line. We'll have the ongoing levels of franchise growth that we've had there.
Banking and Financial Services, we expect ongoing growth in volumes in our home loan portfolio, our business banking portfolio, our deposits, and our funds on platform. That business is obviously subject to competitive dynamics that drive margin pressure, but it is going on with basically it's a digital banking customer-focused offering, as you saw our colleague Luis talking about in the video. That is helping in efficiency as well as customer experience and winning customers. Macquarie Capital, we're expecting the fee and commission income to be broadly in line and the private credit book to continue to contribute. The main change is in the equity portfolio. We expect realizations to start coming in this year towards the second half of this financial year. In Commodities and Global Markets, continued contribution from asset finance and financial markets.
We expect the commodities business to be slightly up. Across the whole business at the corporate level, we expect that our compensation ratio and our effective tax rate will be broadly in line with historical levels. The last thing I would do is note that this short-term outlook in a business like ours that's exposed to so many external factors is always subject to market conditions like inflation, interest rates, volatility, and geopolitical events. Also, the completion of transactions and period-end reviews, the geographic composition of our income and effects, and potential regulatory and tax uncertainties. That is why Alex and team have always maintained for us a very cautious and conservative approach in terms of the surplus funding and liquidity we sit on and the capital buffers so we can respond through all environments as we have done. With that, I'll hand back to Glenn.
Thank you, Shemara. What we're going to do now is play a short video that explains how to vote and the process for asking questions. We will run that now.
Good morning, everyone. I will explain how shareholders and proxy holders can participate in today's meeting, whether you're joining online or in person. Instructions are also available in the notice of meeting. If you're joining online, you may call +61 2 8075 0100 for help at any time. Once the Chair opens the polls, shareholders and proxy holders voting online can cast a direct vote by clicking on the bar chart icon on the voting tab. Select the option corresponding with the way you wish to vote. The vote you selected will change color, and you'll see a confirmation message. For shareholders and proxy holders attending in person, you will have been issued with a handset to cast your vote.
Follow the instructions made available at registration and in the notice of meeting on how to vote. Representatives from our registry are on hand to assist if you have any questions about how to use the handset. Whether you're voting online or in person, you can change or cancel your votes at any time until the polls are closed towards the end of the meeting. Proxy holders with directed votes will have those votes automatically voted as directed. All open votes will be voted according to the option you select online or on your handset. If you wish to ask a question at today's meeting, online participants may submit a written question or comment at any time until the end of the Q&A session through the Loomi platform. To do so, select the messaging icon, which looks like a speech bubble.
You will receive confirmation that your question has been submitted. You may submit more than one question. Questions may be combined if there are multiple questions on the same topic. Online participants may also ask an audible question. To do so, click on the request to speak button of the broadcast window and follow the prompts. Please wait to be called to ask your question. Shareholders and proxy holders in the room who wish to address the meeting can do so by pressing the microphone button on their handset, then the green square button. Please wait until your name is called. You will be invited to ask your question at the nearest microphone. You may leave the queue at any time. To leave the queue, press the microphone button and then the green square button. Thank you.
Thank you, Simone.
We're going to move now to the formal items of business for the meeting. The notice of meeting and accompanying explanatory notes have been sent to shareholders, so I propose to take those as read. The items of business are shown on the slide. The board recommends that shareholders vote in favor of resolutions 2, 3, and 4, and against resolutions 5A and 5B. Agenda item one is to consider, pardon me, and receive the financial report, the director's report, and the auditor's report. For Macquarie for the financial year ended 31 March 2025. There's no formal resolution for that item. Items 2A, 2B, and 2C are the reelections of Jillian Broadbent, Phil Coffey, and Michelle Hinchliffe as voting directors, and each of those individuals will address the meeting before the break. Item three is the annual non-binding vote on the remuneration report, which is in the 2025 annual report.
Shareholders familiar with Macquarie know that our remuneration framework is longstanding. It supports our purpose by motivating staff to grow our businesses, identify new opportunities, and to be accountable for their decisions, behaviors, risk management, customer economic outcomes, and the broader consequences of their actions. We believe our longstanding approach to remuneration to be a key driver of Macquarie's sustained success as an international organization. Item four on the agenda is to approve the managing director's annual participation in the Macquarie Group Employee Retained Equity Plan, or MEREP. The proposed resolutions in item five have been requisitioned, as I said earlier, by a group of shareholders under Section 249N of the Corporations Act. Item 5A proposes an amendment to the company's constitution, which must be passed as a special resolution.
The resolution in item 5B is conditional upon item 5A being passed and will only be put to the meeting should item 5A be passed by the requisite majority. I'm going to turn now to director elections. Item 2A is the reelection of Jillian Broadbent as an independent voting director of Macquarie Group and Macquarie Bank. She's been a director since November of 2018. Jillian's the Chair of the Remuneration Committee and a member of the Board Nominating and Risk Committees. She has extensive investment banking knowledge and financial markets expertise. And a lot of experience as a director of major institutions in various industries. This greatly enhances the board's capability, our acumen, and ability to oversight the company. We have no reservations at all regarding Jillian's ability to effectively fulfill her duties as one of your directors.
I'd like to invite Jillian now to address the meeting. Thank you.
T hank you, Glenn. Good morning, shareholders. It is a privilege to serve as a non-executive director of your company. Thank you for considering my reelection to the Macquarie Group board. As Glenn mentioned, I have been a member of the Macquarie board since November 2018. I'm Chair of the Board Remuneration Committee and a member of the Board Nominating and Board Risk Committees. I bring to Macquarie extensive investment banking industry knowledge and markets expertise, as well as considerable executive management and Australian-listed company board experience across a wide range of industries. As Chair of the Board Remuneration Committee, I oversee Macquarie's remuneration framework. This framework is integral to attracting, motivating, and retaining exceptional and entrepreneurial people with deep global industry expertise. It plays an important role in Macquarie's sustained success.
Aligning staff with shareholders through performance-based remuneration and significant long-term equity retention. The determinations within the framework will continue to be reviewed in consideration of the expectations of all stakeholders. Macquarie's business operates in many markets around the world within a sound risk management framework, and I believe my skills and experience complement my fellow directors and strengthen the board's governance and decision-making. My executive experience includes 22 years at Bankers Trust Australia as an economic strategist and then as Executive Director responsible for risk management and derivatives in foreign exchange, interest rates, and commodities. My non-executive experience includes being a member of the Reserve Bank board, Chair of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, and serving on the boards of a number of companies, including ASX Limited, SBS, Coca-Cola Amatil, Woodside Petroleum, Qantas, Woolworths, and Westfield Management.
I'm currently also a director of the Sydney Dance Company and the Lowy Institute. I believe these diverse experiences have served me well on the board. With your support, I will continue to bring my experience, knowledge, and expertise to the board and its decision-making. Thank you.
Thank you, Jillian. Item 2B is the reelection of Phil Coffey. Appointed by the board as an independent voting director of the group and the bank in August of 2018. Phil's chair of our board risk committee, member of the board governance and compliance committee, and the nominating committee. He has substantial experience both in Australia and overseas in banking, financial services. Financial markets. And this adds a lot to the board's expertise and our capacity to oversight the company. We have no reservations at all regarding Phil's ability to discharge his duties as one of your directors.
I have pleasure in inviting Phil to address the meeting. Thanks, Phil.
Thanks, Glenn, and good morning, everyone. I'm very pleased to offer myself for reelection to the board of the Macquarie Group. I've been a non-executive director of Macquarie for nearly eight years and Chair of the Board Risk Committees of the group and the bank for three years. Over that time, I've endeavored to bring a rigor and inquiring mind to the operations of our businesses and facilitate active and constructive questioning of our executives. My own executive experience in both global and Australian banks has highlighted for me the uniqueness of Macquarie. It has an entrepreneurial and ambitious culture, operating in many industries and markets around the world. Servicing a wide gamut of customer types and complying with a wide range of regulatory requirements.
To govern its diverse global business, Macquarie requires a comprehensive risk management framework and talented executives, ensuring a risk management-minded culture and clear guide rails for operations. Formula One cars need great brakes as well as excellent drivers. I've been actively involved in this risk approach, including in scenario planning and stress testing, setting of appropriate risk appetite limits, and the review and approval of remediation programs. I aim to use my experience in global markets and as a senior banking executive to help guide our approach to these various challenges. To constructively challenge responsible executives, to assess the comprehensiveness and prioritization of our efforts, and to test whether there are sufficient resources, realistic timeframes, and contingencies. At a board level, we have the benefit of an overarching perspective of the group's operations. We're able to see the wood for the trees.
I've aimed to use that vantage point to test our breadth of thinking, question how we are considering external developments, opportunities, and threats, including from new technologies and the interrelationships of our initiatives. We haven't always got our settings and approach correct for the circumstances, but I'm confident there is no lack of desire or investment to get it right. There is deep belief that doing the right thing is the cornerstone of building and operating sustainable businesses. I hope to further that approach. I have the necessary time and energy required for the role of a Macquarie director and very much appreciate your support. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Phil. Item 2C is the reelection of Michelle Hinchliffe, who's been an independent voting director since March 2022.
Michelle is Chair of the Audit Committee and a member of the Board Governance and Compliance Committee and the Nominating Committee. Michelle's extensive experience in the financial services sector, particularly her experience with internal and external audit of global banks, financial and regulatory reporting, and risk management bring important insights and strengthen the board's oversight in the areas of financial and regulatory reporting and risk management. We very much would value Michelle's re-nomination. I have pleasure in inviting her to address the meeting. Thank you, Michelle.
Thank you, Glenn, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's been a privilege to be a member of the Macquarie Group board since 2022. Today, I'm very pleased to offer myself for reelection as a director of your company. In terms of my background, I'm a chartered accountant and have over 35 years' experience in professional services.
Working with the global financial sector in a number of areas specifically relevant to Macquarie. This includes risk management, financial reporting, regulatory reporting, internal controls, and business processes. Since leaving the industry in early 2022, I've also gained relevant governance experience through my other board roles, both in Australia and internationally. I'm a member of the board of BHP Group Limited and Santander UK. The deep insights I've gained through this experience into geographically diverse businesses, international regulatory environments, and stakeholder expectations have helped to inform my contribution over the last three years to the board and also as Chair of the Board Audit Committee, a member of the Board Nomination Committee, and also as a member of the Board Governance and Compliance Committee.
Specifically as Chair of the Audit Committee and together with my fellow committee members, we focused on a number of enhancements, including the quality of our external financial reporting to try and make it a little bit more understandable to our shareholders while continuing to comply with legal and regulatory requirements. We have also focused on strengthening our control environment, particularly over financial reporting. Improving our governance over both internal audit and external audit. I continue to stay up to date on industry developments through my membership of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, and also the Australian equivalent, and also through the Australian Institute of Company Directors. I believe I have the professional knowledge and experience to serve Macquarie's global businesses and you, our shareholders, and I can confirm I have the required time to effectively carry out my role as a director.
Thank you for your support.
Thank you, Michelle. Now, as I mentioned earlier, agenda items 5A and 5B have been proposed by a group of shareholders who also requested that their supporting statements be included in Appendix B to the Notice of Meeting. That is required under sections 249N and P of the Corporations Act. The board considers that these resolutions are not in the best interest of the company and shareholders as a whole. We have set out our reasons for that in the explanatory notes to the Notice of Meeting. We recommend shareholders vote against these items. We have invited Mr. Kyle Robertson, a representative of the group of shareholders proposing this resolution, to address the meeting. Mr. Robertson, I think you're here somewhere. I invite you to address the meeting. Thank you.
Thank you, Chair and the board.
Greetings to shareholders present in the room and online. I'm speaking on the resolution at item 5B, Climate Risk Exposure and Management Disclosure. This resolution was filed on behalf of hundreds of shareholders, both retail and institutional. In response to this resolution, Macquarie's board stated in its Notice of Meeting that the science in our changing climate is clear and unequivocal. Macquarie has a group-wide commitment to align its financing activity with the goal of net zero emissions by 2050. The group has also acknowledged the IPCC's conclusions that net zero by 2050 must also be consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement in limiting warming to 1.5 degrees. Yet, despite the board's purported position, the reality is that Macquarie's fossil fuel financing activity is categorically not aligned with its climate commitments.
The IPCC concluded in its most recent report from March 2023 that the lifetime emissions from already existing fossil fuel infrastructure would significantly exceed the carbon budget remaining for limiting warming to 1.5 degrees. The conclusion was straightforward. The goals of the Paris Agreement are not achievable if new and expanded fossil fuel projects proceed. Yet, in the past eight months, Macquarie has thrown its financial support behind one of Australia's biggest proposed gas developments, the Beetaloo Sub-basin. The prospective gas reserves in the Beetaloo are enormous. If the basin is developed to the scale that its proponents intend, it will operate until almost 2070 and release more than 1.1 billion tons of CO2 equivalent into the atmosphere. That's equal to Australia's largest coal-fired power station running for over 83 years.
Or put another way, it is enough to wipe out more than 450 years of emission savings from the renewables projects that Macquarie provided green finance for last year. Macquarie is a major financier of the project's primary developers, Beetaloo Energy and Tamboran Resources. For both of these companies, their sole near-term focus is commercializing the gas reserves in the Beetaloo. Given its support for this project in its early stages, it is clear that Macquarie is betting on the Beetaloo becoming the giant gas project that these companies hope to achieve. These are not the actions of a group committed to net zero by 2050 and the goals of the Paris Agreement. Financial institutions like Macquarie actively shape the energy system of the future with the capital they deploy. I'm sure the board would acknowledge that. Projects like Beetaloo do not help the energy transition. They impede it.
Giant new gas developments compete with and often displace renewables projects for share of the global energy system, all the while emitting billions of tons of planet-heating emissions into the atmosphere. Financing activity like this makes little sense for an institution like Macquarie, which has one of the world's largest infrastructure asset managers, is acutely exposed to the physical risks of climate change under high warming scenarios. The United Nations has forecast that the world is set to warm by a catastrophic 2.5-3 degrees on our current trajectory. At 3 degrees of warming, Deloitte has conservatively modeled that global economic losses could total $180 trillion over the next 50 years. At 3 degrees of warming, some of the world's leading insurers have warned that we will face an uninsurability crisis for much of the world's infrastructure.
The network for greening the financial system recently concluded that the damage costs from warming beyond the limits of the Paris Agreement far outweigh the investment costs required to get us to a net zero energy system. It makes financial sense to get this right. Finally, when compared to its major Australian banking peers, Macquarie clearly lags behind the pack on fossil fuel policy. It is the only major Australian bank that does not exclude itself from financing new oil and gas extraction projects, enabling it to finance projects like Beetaloo. It is the only major Australian bank to not have a time-bound commitment for climate transition plans from its fossil fuel clients, which all of the Big Four banks require from October of this year.
Finally, while all of the major Australian banks have reported significant reductions in oil and gas exposure over recent years, Macquarie's has substantially increased by over 140% in just the last two years. This resolution is essential for shareholders to understand how Macquarie will actually deliver on its climate commitments and manage the severe economic risks associated with climate change. We strongly urge all shareholders to vote in favor of this resolution, not only for a better planet, but for a better future for our company. I just do want to have one final word to reiterate, in case it wasn't clear in my speech, that the resolution is not asking Macquarie to turn off oil and gas finance overnight. It is exclusively focused on new and expanded fossil fuel developments, which are clearly and documented by the climate science community as being incompatible with its climate commitments.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Robertson. To allow everyone an opportunity to vote, we're going to move to the voting now. I now open the polls in respect of the motions that shareholders will vote on today. The polls will remain open until just prior to the closure of the meeting. At that point, we're now going to adjourn for a refreshment break. We'll reconvene in about 30 minutes, and we'll see you then. Oh, sorry, one more thing. If you've already voted and you don't intend to return after the break, that's fine. If you could please return the handset to the registration desk. For those shareholders or proxy holders in the room, if you wish to ask a question after the break, it would be helpful if you could sit near one of the microphones that are set up.
For online participants, a notification will appear on screen prior to recommencement. Thank you.
Sound of the weapon, correct? What could it have been? I don't know, but let's get out of here. Attention everyone, the AGM will be recommencing soon. We ask you to start to make your way back to your seats. Thank you. You need to come and start to check low, but relax yourself and let the shit flow. You need to get too high. You need to come and start to check low, but relax yourself and let the shit flow. You need to get too high. You need to come and start to check low, but relax yourself and let the shit flow. You need to get too high. You need to come and start to check low, but relax yourself and let the shit flow. You need to get too high.
You need to come and start to check low, but relax yourself and let the shit flow. You need to get too high. You need to come and start to check low, but relax yourself and let the shit flow. You need to come and start to check low, but relax yourself and let the shit flow. You need to get too high. You need to come and start to check low, but relax yourself and let the shit flow. You need to get too high. You need to come and start to check low, but relax yourself and let the shit flow. You need to get too high. You need to come and start to check low, but relax yourself and let the shit flow.
You need to get too high. You need to come and start to check low, but relax yourself and let the shit flow. You need to get too high. You need to come and start to check low. You need to come and start to check low, but relax yourself and let the shit flow. You need to get too high. You need to come and start to check low, but relax yourself and let the shit flow. You need to get too high. You need to come and start to check low, but relax yourself and let the shit flow. You need to get too high. You need to come and start to check low, but relax yourself and let the shit flow. Attention everyone, the AGM is about to recommence. Would you please take your seats, and we'll be getting underway. Thank you.
Our commodity traders can receive up to 5,000 quotes a day through several messaging applications. This means that they may have up to 30 or 40 windows in messaging applications open at a time, and that leads to lots of manual scrolling and searching. We saw an opportunity to leverage advancements in AI, specifically in machine learning, to build a tailored solution. We're working with an innovative startup called Sent Street to develop an AI tool that's trained to extract and summarize information from business messaging applications. This provides our commodities traders a real-time dashboard for every market that they're trading in, supported by rigorous scoring, monitoring, and human-in-the-loop inspection to enhance accuracy. The tool is improving efficiency and accuracy for our teams, giving them more time to focus on our clients.
We're really excited about what we've been able to achieve with Sent Street, and we're looking for other ways to utilize machine learning in our business.
At MCVC, we invest in high-growth software and technology companies along four core sectors: governance with compliance software, CFO suite tools and HR tech, enterprise AI automation, and infra tech. We see AI as a transformative force which helps businesses to solve complex business problems, in particular if it's leveraged by a founder team with deep domain expertise. In our portfolio, companies such as Shield Financial Compliance and Hairo are good examples of vertical AI solutions which help to enhance and improve business processes in highly regulated industries. In the last 12 months, we've grown our footprint in Europe in the hubs of Berlin and London.
We're looking currently at over 100 new companies a month in order to find the best investment opportunities for Macquarie. Going forward, we've seen the emergence of new tech hubs in Europe. For instance, Portugal is very interesting to us. Portugal is a good example of new hubs emerging with AI, where they can compete on a global level for enterprise innovation.
Welcome back, everybody. I'm now going to reconvene the meeting and continue with the formal business. Please be reminded that the polls remain open. Let's now move to take questions and comments. As a reminder, we need to ensure that people attending the meeting feel safe and respected at all times, and so we need to conduct the meeting in an orderly fashion.
We'll start with questions submitted in advance, and there are a few of those, and then take turns through written questions submitted online during the meeting. Questions from members here in the room and audio questions. As is our past practice, you're welcome to ask two questions, after which we'll give other shareholders and proxy holders an opportunity to ask their questions, but you can come back after that for further questions if you wish. In order to address as broad a range of topics as possible, I may defer some questions on a particular topic if we've already had a lot of questions on that matter. If you have an individual customer issue or other inquiry unrelated to the items of business for this meeting, there are staff members here at the shareholder table that can help you with your query. I'll note that Ms.
Vula Papagio from PricewaterhouseCoopers, our external auditor, is present at today's meeting. She's available to respond to questions relevant to the conduct of the audit, the preparation and content of the auditor's report, the accounting policies adopted by the company in relation to the preparation of our financial statements, the independence of the auditor in relation to the conduct of the audit, and so on. There were no pre-written questions for the auditor prior to the meeting. I'm now going to take questions that were submitted in advance.
Chair, our first question is from Aaron Whittaker. Their question is, "Many observers have pointed out that lowering standards in the name of diversity can lead to unintended performance decline.
Can we expect a firm commitment that performance criteria will remain consistent for all individuals, regardless of race, sex, or background?
Yes, you can be assured that standards have never been and will not be lowered in Macquarie. In any way. We are strictly meritocratic. That said, we want the smartest, most capable people working in our organization, and they are very likely to come from all sorts of different backgrounds. We want that group of people, and we want that diversity of background and thought because that makes a stronger business. No, standards have never been lowered and never will be. Can I have the next question, please?
Chair, our next question is from Daruni Suksamran. Their question is, "Why are Macquarie's shares underperforming for about three years against the broader market?"
I am not sure they are underperforming over that period against the broader market, actually. The share price has.
More or less gone up with the market over that time, and I note that it's today 26% higher than it was on this day three years ago. Over the medium term, which is where most shareholders, I think, are focused, Macquarie over a five-year period or a ten-year period or any longer period that you might choose to focus on, has well and truly outperformed the ASX 200, say, through a range of economic conditions. We don't underperform, or at least we have not thus far, and we have diverse income streams, deep expertise. We think we're invested in areas which have structural growth tailwinds, and we think we're well positioned for the future. Next question, please.
Chair, our next question comes from Barry Investment Holdings Proprietary Limited. The question is.
Macquarie's 2023 net zero and climate risk report stated our commitment to aligning our financing activity with the global goal of net zero emissions by 2050, but we have no restrictions on investment in new oil and gas fields and currently provide funding to operators whose Northern Territory projects are entirely incompatible with this stated intent. Furthermore, we have reduced our reporting on issues relevant to climate change and are no longer a signatory to the net zero banking alliance. We now lag substantially behind other major Australian banks in this area, yet we claim green credentials. This is hypocritical, and hypocrisy is an easy target for negative campaigns. The current market forces campaign against Macquarie concerns me greatly, both for the hypocrisy it has identified and for its potential reputational damage. I would like to understand how we intend to respond to it.
Are we committed to net zero by 2050? If so, what will we do to ensure our operations align with this goal?
We haven't reduced any commitment that we've previously made on net zero matters. The commitments we made in earlier years remain in place. To my knowledge, we haven't reduced any reporting in this space. We're still reporting the things that we previously were, both at a group level, and MAM has its own targets and reporting. For Macquarie Asset Management, we are focused on increasing renewable energy capacity. As everybody knows, this is a thing Macquarie is highly involved in. That's one contribution the company's making to a transition to a decarbonized energy world. The fact is that while we make that transition.
There will need to be the use of hydrocarbon fuels for quite some time yet on the best available evidence that is available to us. We do do some investment and some financing in that space. That is part of the transition. Macquarie is involved in that within the limits of our risk appetite and subject to being within the carbon emissions budgets that we've set out in our targets. All the projects that we look at and invest in are subject to a test of whether they will align with those objectives that we've previously announced. Regarding the net zero banking alliance, it's true that we left that body earlier in the year. A number of global banks had already left it, and a number of others have left it since we did.
I think that was a useful body for us to be part of at a point in time when people were still trying to work out how to galvanize thinking and measurement and actions in this space. The world's moved on quite a bit since then. We've got other processes in place now. We're moving towards mandatory sustainability reporting, which will be something that Macquarie is subject to for FY26. We'll be reporting in next year's annual report. That's only nine months away now. There's a lot of work getting underway to make sure that we will be able to comply with those standards. The world's moved on, and we felt it was appropriate for us to kind of focus on the things that are more relevant to Macquarie and our businesses and enhance our decision on the NZBA.
But the commitments that we've made in the past, which we made carefully and thoughtfully. On emissions targets and so on, those targets remain in place, and we continue to report against them every year. Can I have the next question, please?
Chair, our next question comes from Wenderholm Proprietary Limited. The question is, "Would the Chair or board explain why the return on equity and return on capital are declining year on year, and what steps the board and CEO are taking to improve these figures? The figures are on par with Australian banks, which are really building societies, whereas Macquarie Group is an investment bank and should be achieving much better performance."
The ROE did not actually go down. In FY2025, it went up. That being said, it is still a bit lower than we have typically achieved over the past decade or more. And.
I can assure you that the board does engage very actively with management on the question. "What is the path back from here to higher ROE?" Excuse me. That path involves discipline, as I said in the earlier remarks, disciplined allocation of capital, being prepared to reposition businesses that are no longer core to our strategy, seeking new opportunities. It also involves doing better with regulators so that we can, in due course at some point, remove some of the overlays that we have. All of these things are part of the story. We will be on that journey. I'm confident that we'll get there. Anything you'd like to add, Shem, on that?
No, I think you've covered it, and I think we've explained to shareholders where we're investing capital as a transition that should drive returns in the asset manager and Macquarie Capital. Okay, thanks.
Could I have the next question, please?
Chair, our next question is from Philip Martin Hartwig. The question is for the auditor. "As this company is financing fossil fuel projects, will the board members, company, or shareholders be legally liable for any damages claims from individuals or countries at some future date?"
Yeah, thanks, Mr. Hartwig. You say that's addressed to the auditor, but it seems like more of a broad governance sort of question to me. If the auditor wishes to contribute, I'm happy for her to do so. I think the main thing to say is the approach we're taking to fossil fuels is quite consistent with Australian government policy. It's quite in line with what peers are doing. Let's remember we're all towards this end goal of eventual decarbonization as difficult a goal as that is to meet. I'm not particularly concerned that.
In pursuing strategies aligned with our net zero commitments and in line with government policies and obeying the law, that we are likely to be subject to legal action or damages as a result of that. Could I have the next question? No, nothing. Thank you. Could I have the next question, please?
Chair, our next question is from Meredith Jane Pitt. The question is, "As an account and shareholder, I would like to ask who was and is responsible for Macquarie Bank's call center being offshore. Please consider returning the call center to Australia. At present, it is not possible for an account holder to have any resolution of problems associated with Macquarie Bank's inept system of account clarification, sudden shutdown, etc.
No profits are worth having such an aggressively hostile banking environment."
On this one, I think, Greg, I might pass this to you if I could on the call center question. Greg Ward, Head of Banking and Financial Services. Thanks.
Thanks very much, Chair. Most of our customers enjoy our online services, and we've spent a lot of money and time building our digital capabilities, and we get lots of feedback on how well that works for customers. We do have call support as well. There's online chat support and asynchronous chat and call center support as well. Most of our call centers are in Australia, in Brisbane and in Sydney. There is a very small team in the Philippines for some after-hours support. Very, very soon, all of that activity will be back in Sydney and Brisbane.
Thanks, Greg. Could I have the next question, please?
Chair, our next question comes from Lachlan Michael Wells. The question is, "Macquarie Asset Management is a signatory to the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, which encourages the use of science-based targets aligned with 1.5 degrees. Yet in its net zero approach, Macquarie Asset Management stops short of committing to the Science-Based Targets Initiative, the most widely recognized global standard for 1.5 degree alignment. If the board is confident that Macquarie Asset Management's assets are on track for net zero, why hasn't it adopted the framework that provides the most credible way to demonstrate that alignment?"
I'm going to ask Ben Way, head of MAM, t o comment here. We are still a member of the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, I think. I think that body has temporarily suspended its operations while it reviews those, but we're still a member of it.
We have adopted various frameworks for reporting for MAM. Would you like to say a little bit about that in more detail? Thank you.
Good morning, everyone. As Glenn said, MAM is a signatory and a member of the Net Zero Asset Management Alliance, which is the main alliance for most asset managers around the world and in our industry. As part of that, we have adopted their net zero investment framework. We apply that to all the asset classes that we invest in. In our portfolio companies, each one of those portfolio companies also has its own net zero business plan so that it can get to net zero targets by 2050. We regularly report on that, as we did in November last year, where we disclosed that and will continue to update that.
That's the approach we've taken, which is in line with that asset management alliance and in line with our industry with that 2050 target.
Thanks very much, Ben. Could I have the next question?
Chair, our next question comes from Stephen Main. The question is, "PWC has been the auditor of Macquarie for 32 years, and we never tendered the job until this year. After Macquarie entities paid PWC more than AUD 2 billion in audit fees since the 1996 IPO, it's time to move on. The AFR has been causing trouble about audit committee chair Michelle Hinchliffe's KPMG history, implying she should be conflicted out of the selection process. Please resist this pressure and confirm that she's a full-voting member of the selection committee. When are we likely to announce the outcome of the tender, and what stage is the tender process currently up to?
Is this the trickiest and most lucrative tender in Macquarie's long history, given it pays more than AUD 70 million a year and will likely run 10 years until the next scheduled tender under our new policy announced last year?
Thank you, Stephen. As usual, a multi-part question. The tender process is being run in Alex's world, and that is well advanced. I think we'll be ready to make a decision later this calendar year. Would that be right? Yep. The Audit Committee oversees that process. They do not actually do it, but they oversee it. Michelle, of course, is the Chair of the Audit Committee. I would say, just on that, to have such a highly credentialed, highly esteemed former senior partner of a Big Four firm chairing our Audit Committee, Macquarie is very fortunate to have such a person, and she is doing a fantastic job chairing that committee.
The process works incredibly well. She does not get to make the decision herself, of course. The idea that somehow there is some untoward thing happening here is just silly. She will not be conflicted out of the process. She will take her appropriate part in the process. The obvious connection to the former firm is well known. I think she will probably not be part of scoring KPMG's application, but in other respects, she will take her proper full part in the process. Ultimately, this is a decision that the board will take, and ultimately, you take it as shareholders, the ultimate appointment. It is not as though the idea that one person could skew this, which seemed to have been the basis for some of this commentary, is just silly. You can be assured Michelle will take a proper part, as you would expect.
We will probably be ready to announce the results this year. I think that's right. Yeah, that's right. Next question, please.
Chair, our next question is from Stephen Main. Their question is, "Really? After the ISS recommended a vote against the 2023 remuneration report, we suffered a 19% protest vote, our second biggest in history. The only bigger one was the 21% protest vote against the 2007 REM report triggered by RiskMetrics, which led to sweeping changes driven by the late Chairman David Clark, particularly a move away from short-term cash bonuses to long-term deferred equity payments. ISS recommended in favor of this, but both Ownership Matters and Glass Lewis recommended against based on the lack of bonuses penalties for executives after various regulatory infractions.
Why was it left to the CEO to reportedly ring around key institutional shareholders to persuade them not to oppose the REM report when it should be the Chairman Glenn Stevens and Remuneration Committee Chair Jillian Broadbent doing this? Were they asleep at the wheel, and have they been captured by management? What changes are planned after today's big protest vote?
I will just answer that multi-part question by saying that it is normal practice for the Chair of the Board and the Chair of the REM Committee to engage with proxy advisors and large investors at this time of year. Jillian and I did 36 meetings, I think it was, over the past several weeks. Some of those, there were some follow-up meetings as well. We have done the normal things that we do. Those meetings, I think the last one we did was about a week ago.
I've been available, and I work very closely with Sam Dobson and his team in investor relations to make sure that we are available to speak to large shareholders, proxy advisors, and so on. I think we spoke to people that covered nearly half of the top 200 shareholding by value, and we were available to do any further that the IR team thought was useful. It was not left to Shemara to call around the investors. We did the normal things that we did. I'd say had more of those meetings this year than last year because, as everyone can tell, there is at least some concern among some shareholders over the decisions we took on remuneration, as I acknowledged earlier. We did all the normal things. In fact, we did a bit more than we probably normally do. And Shemara did what she did.
I do not know if you want to add any commentary, but. I might not have been very effective, Stephen, but I was not asleep at the wheel.
I will just reinforce that, that as Glenn says, he and Gillian did what they ordinarily do. In fact, spoke to many more shareholders than they usually do this year. The unusual thing this year, as Stephen was saying, is that we had one of the proxy advisors recommend against voting for the REM report, and then another one Stephen mentioned, but there were a couple that recommended in a qualified way against the REM report, which we have not had. The feedback I was getting from all the discussions was that there was a lot of shareholder concern about our REM. For a couple of reasons.
One is that I have very deep and good relationships, as does Alex, with these owners of ours, the larger ones, and was keen to hear from them directly. I only spoke to a handful of the very large ones to get a representation of what these concerns were. The second reason is because our REM framework is so fundamental to how we have delivered value for 56 years to our shareholders by ensuring alignment in the staff outcomes with the shareholder outcomes and holding them accountable for delivering solutions and earnings as well as if issues happen. It would be very difficult to keep delivering that value for our owners if we had fundamental issues and changes in that framework.
It was very pleasing from those few conversations I had to hear that people did support the fundamental remuneration framework that we had, but the issues they had were more in relation to issues in this current period. Those were issues the board is well across and is considering them in terms of future addressing them. That was the reason for the supplementary handful of discussions that I had this year.
Thank you. Next question, please.
Chair, our next question is from T. Un-Yo. Their question is, "Macquarie Asset Management's net profit contribution was down due to timing of investment-related income from asset realizations. Are you able to share the impact of this contribution shortfall in terms of Macquarie Asset Management's total contribution?"
I think you should take that one.
Yeah. And Ben, feel free to elaborate.
I think if you're talking about last financial year, it was up on the year before, and I had those numbers. It was up 33% on the year before. If you're talking about this first quarter versus a prior quarter, that's quite idiosyncratic and lumpy in terms of what happens quarter to quarter. We particularly had some legacy assets that were being run off first quarter last year. We realized one, a U.K. smaller asset, and this quarter we had an impairment on one that we closed down. That was the reason quarter on quarter it was different. We've said for this financial year, we expect the base fees to grow broadly in line with where they have been and net other operating income. We think underlying the Macquarie Asset Management franchise continues to grow. We raised another AUD 18.5 billion last year.
We're getting assets well invested. The funds are performing well. Last year, as I say, we had a step up, including the Australian asset here, Air Trunk, the data centre asset, but we had good performance fees, etc. Ben's saying he's happy with that.
Okay. Thank you. Next question, please.
Chair, our next question comes from T. Un-Yo. The question is, "Regarding ASIC legal proceedings, what is the expected financial implications and impact to Macquarie's market reputation?"
It's too soon to know what financial implications might be. These matters have only just begun and presumably have some time to play out, and they're before a court. It would be wrong, I think, to speculate on that. Yes, there is some reputational hit. I think we have to acknowledge that. That said.
I think if people see us respond appropriately to the problems and rectify them, which we have, to the best of my knowledge. If we deal with the legal matters, then we can continue to have a strong reputational position with people. There is no doubt there was a bit of a short-term hit. That's certainly true. I think that's something from which we can recover. Next question, please.
Chair, we will now take a question from the floor from Michael Sanderson. Please make your way to the nearest microphone to ask your question.
Thanks, Mr. Sanderson.
Thank you. One first prize from all. Something completely different. It relates to management and risk management. Sorry. Is that better? Thank you. I refer you to the IMS working paper titled Chicago Plan Revisited, dated 2012, which proposes separating money creation from bank lending and using 100%.
Reserve-backed government-issued money to reduce debt and improve stability. Ex-regulators, Ms. Broadbent, Mr. Stevens, and Mr. Byers. Do you see long-term value for Macquarie in exploring such reforms? With household debt and asset volatility at historic highs, should Macquarie support a shift towards a sovereign money system to reduce systemic risk and protect long-term profits?
I haven't read the paper you're referring to, but the concept sounds like the narrow banking concept where everything is basically backed by government debt.
Federal government isn't debt. It's the issue of the currency. That's another. Government debt is government debt. That's a government obligation.
Now, the three regulators who were in power in 2012, I'd be astounded if one of you wasn't aware of it. I'm aware.
I'm not going to carry on a debate about the narrow banking versus broad banking concept here.
It's probably not relevant to today's proceedings, but I'm aware of those issues. In that world, there's an extremely limited role for private banking as we know it today. Would that be a bad thing? I'm not sure it's entirely in the interests of Macquarie shareholders. Quite the contrary, I would say.
My second question. CBA CEO Matt Comyn recently confirmed what many still don't realize, that banks like Macquarie create money when they lend by expanding their balance sheets, not using savings or reserves. Why then is interest on these loans based on the RBA cash rate, which reflects interbank liquidity, not actual funding costs? Does the board accept this system shifts wealth from wage earners to asset holders and risks reputational damage as more people realize it's not a free market, but a rigged system dressed up in jargon and ESG messaging?
It's just not true that an individual bank can create money by expanding its balance sheet. That idea refers to the system as a whole because one bank makes a loan, it goes into an account, into a deposit at another bank, and that creates deposits. That's true for the system. For an individual bank like us or the Commonwealth Bank or any other bank, every dollar you lend, you have to raise from somewhere—your money, shareholders' money, or other bondholders' money or deposits. That's where the funding comes from. At every moment in time, if I write you a loan, I have to have the cash today to fund that loan, and I've got to have raised that from somewhere. Is it creating deposits? Is Macquarie? It hasn't created deposits. I already had to have the deposit in order to lend you the money. Okay.
I'll read you the quote.
What Matt Combin says is for him, but it is just not true that an individual bank on its own can just create money. The system, the private banking system as a whole, yes, there's a credit creation dynamic that works there, but it doesn't work for any individual bank.
You're saying that the capital requirement is the only—there's a commitment from the bank over and above the APRA capital requirement for lending. You do not create—
if I lend you $100, I've got to have found the $100 first before I lend it to you.
Matt says you create it. He says, and I want to read this, "We also do create deposits in the system. We expand money supply when we lend money."
Yeah.
I'm not going to comment on what Matt Combin said, but if he's suggesting that an individual bank can just create money, then I disagree with that .
Okay. I think you're misleading, but.
Be that as it may, I did actually spend my entire life studying these things. Can I have the next question, please? Our next question. No, that's two. You can come back. Next question, please.
Chair, our next question is from Susan House from the Australian Shareholders Association. Please make your way to the nearest microphone to ask your question. Hi, Su.
Hi, Glen. Can you hear me?
I can. Thank you.
Good. Okay. I'm Su House. I'm representing the Australian Shareholders Association this morning, and I am holding proxies for just over 91 million of Macquarie shares. I've got two questions this morning. The first one is.
We note the recent fines and actions regarding Macquarie and regulators. Could the board explain the activities it has undertaken to identify how these issues occurred, how they persisted, and how it has sat isfied itself that these issues are now resolved?
Thank you. Let me take perhaps the most recent one. That's the short-selling one, which, as I said earlier, was ASIC launched their action post our year-end and post our results. That was about problems that came to light in. We have a business that is a broking business, and they're required to report short sales on a daily basis and even intraday to the market operator and the regulator.
It is the case that over quite a few years, we uncovered some problems in these areas, fixed them, or at least thought we had fixed them, and it subsequently came to light that the fix had not been as effective as we had first thought. It was as a result of work that was underway to make this reporting more efficient, which basically means making it more automatic. You take out, as far as you can, human hands that do things because that can be a source of error. Trying to make it more efficient, more reliable, we uncovered some problems that had hitherto been not visible. We reported those to ASIC and the market operator and so on, and things went from there. What have we done about that? Those problems have been remediated.
I've actually sat myself with the people who do this reporting. I spent an hour with them in my office, having them explain to me what the report looks like, what they do. It is a complex thing that we probably need, I think, to keep simplifying further to the extent we can. To the best of my knowledge, we have fixed the earlier identified problem. We have followed that up. We get reporting on the remediation. I've sat in that case with the people who do the work to try to satisfy myself that it's working. There could be other problems we don't know about, of course. That's always possible. To the best of our knowledge, those problems have been dealt with. We do things like that. On other matters that are before us, there are very wide-ranging, extensive, and expensive.
Programs of remediation ranging from the things that were put in place after the APRA capital penalty. That is four years ago. There are seven workstreams there now. Four of those, I think it is, finished. There is another couple probably will be finished or close to this year. We get regular reporting on that. There is independent assurance of that from an outside body. These are the sorts of things we do, and that is the approach we take to problems that arise, that come to light. I would say the cultural piece that we are looking for as a board is when something goes wrong, which it will in a big organisation, stuff goes wrong. What happens then? Do we own it, fix it, and make sure it does not happen again? That is what we are looking for, and I am satisfied that we are on the right path there.
Long answer, sorry, but I think that's worth saying. Second question.
Thank you. Second question is, and Shemara has already touched on this in relation to Alex Harvey moving on, but given recent press on the succession planning for the CEO, could the board outline its work regarding succession planning both at board level and executive level? I was going to ask, are there any imminent changes that shareholders should be aware of?
I think you're aware of it as of this morning in Alex's case. While I'm on that, let me add my appreciation to you for the work you've done in the time I've been here. It's been incredibly helpful to me personally and to the company. The board, on board succession process, we have an active program of looking for directors, both for the group and for the bank. So that's basically.
A business-as-usual piece of work that we have underway. There is an agreed process for Chair succession when my time comes to an end in a couple of years. The board has signed off on that. That process will unfold on CEO succession and other executive succession. All the people that are here in the front row, we have succession planning processes for all of those people as well as for the Group CEO and the Bank CEO. We review them every year. We know who the candidates from inside the company would be. Down a couple of levels, we see all of those people actually at the board on a fairly regular basis, so we know them. I think we're quite well served by the strength of the bench.
When CEO succession comes around, that's not happening at the moment, but when it does, I think we'll be very well placed to make a high-quality appointment. A very strong bench in the company. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question, please.
Chair, our next question is from Kyle Robertson. Please make your way to the nearest microphone to ask your question.
Thank you. I'll keep this brief. I'm asking a question on behalf of Australian climate change scientist and a lead author of the fourth and fifth IPCC reports, Professor Leslie Hughes. As I mentioned in my speech this morning, the board said in its notice of meeting that the science around changing climate is clear and unequivocal.
Macquarie has also acknowledged that its group-wide commitment to aligning its financing activity with net zero emissions by 2050 must also be consistent with a 1.5-degree warming pathway based on the conclusions of the IPCC. Does Macquarie accept the conclusions of the IPCC that new expansionary fossil fuel projects are incompatible with the goals of the Paris Agreement?
I think what we accept is the IEA's World Energy Outlook that makes it clear that with current policy settings, which I think we have to take as a given because we do not control those, the world will need fossil fuel investment, at least for the rest of this decade and for, I am not sure about after that, but for a little while yet. That is what we accept, and we work with the best available science that we have. That is the answer.
With all due respect, I don't think that was an answer to my question. It was an answer about whether you accept that new and expansionary fossil fuel projects are incompatible with the goals of the Paris Agreement, which the IPCC has concluded.
I'm not commenting either way on what the IPCC says and what you're representing it as saying. I'm telling you what we're working on, the basis on which we're working. I think that's the honest thing to do because that's what we're doing here.
Okay. It's just that you are referencing the IPCC in your public sustainability reports, and then these are the conclusions that the IPCC have reached. I'm just taking a position.
We reference a lot of things, but the position I'm putting to you is the one I just articulated.
Okay.
Do you accept that for a Paris Alliance scenario, that fossil fuel production needs to start decreasing?
I'm not a scientist and not an expert in these things. My understanding is even with net zero in 2050, we will still be using some fossil fuels, but that doesn't preclude some decline, as you set out. I'm not offering an opinion on that. I don't actually think that my opinion on that's all that important for near-term decisions the company might take. That's your two. Come back again after if you'd like to. Could I have the next question, please?
Chair, our next question comes from Amanda Richmond. Please make your way to the nearest microphone to ask your question. Thank you.
Yes, Amanda Richmond from Australian Ethical Investment. Australian Ethical holds approximately AUD 180 million worth of Macquarie shares across our funds.
Macquarie has made some good progress on climate. It has set and progressed climate targets, and it has invested in green energy, all of which is very pleasing to see. There still seems to be a significant gap in how it's managing climate risk. Generally, Macquarie's approach to risk is to understand worst-case outcomes. So there is an assumption that Macquarie has looked at how the impacts of climate change, like physical risks like extreme weather, for example, could affect its ability to deliver long-term returns to shareholders and protect customer savings and investments. Our recent conversations with management raised concerns that Macquarie might not be joining the dots or seeing the wood from the trees in this case. Two particular things stand out. First, Macquarie isn't assessing whether the fossil fuel companies it finances are doing things that slow down or block the transition.
A transition that is in Macquarie's financial interests. More worryingly, it hasn't made the connection that those financing decisions could be exacerbating the physical climate risk that Macquarie is facing. As a major financial institution, Macquarie could still support gas in the near term but set clear conditions, for example, that counterparties aren't lobbying against sensible climate policy or producing gas far in excess of what is needed for the energy transition. That kind of condition on financing and due diligence would, one, materially impact real-world emissions, but also be an important step to protecting long-term value. My question is, why isn't Macquarie considering whether its own financing decisions could be exacerbating the climate risks that it is exposed to?
How is failing to address its role in contributing to climate risk consistent with the board's obligation to prudently manage that risk and to act in the long-term interests of its shareholders?
I don't think we're ignoring these considerations. When we do financing in this space, all these projects and proposals are tested against the targets that we've set out that are out there. That's part of the process of deciding whether to do them, whether to support them or not. There is a much broader ESG-type process that all projects go through, or all proposals go through. Those people, I think it's 900 or 1,000 per year, things get considered through that process. I think we're taking account of those things as best we can. Your second question?
My question reflected discussions that we had with management where they accepted that no, Macquarie is not making the connection between the financing decisions it's making today and the physical climate risk that it faces. Is your position that that assessment is being carried out? I think assessing against climate intensity goals wouldn't really meet that criteria.
I wasn't present at the meetings where you say management said that, so I can't really—it's hard for me to kind of respond to something that people supposedly said at a meeting I wasn't at. We do have intensity goals because we think that makes sense for our business. We don't think that absolute goals make sense for our business. We're quite open about that.
Sorry, with respect and apologies for interrupting, but I don't want to waste people's time here. I wasn't talking about.
Absolute goals. I was talking about putting conditions on your financing to say to counterparties, yes, we need gas and X amount of gas for an orderly transition from this point, but we want to make sure that you're not delaying or obstructing that transition because as a financial institution, that is not in our best financial interests.
I think the only answer I can give to your question is I'm not sure. I'm not aware of whether we do have such conditions. It's a suggestion. Thank you for that. I haven't got any more information I can convey to you, I don't think.
Okay. Thank you. It does seem like that would be the way that Macquarie could protect itself.
Did you have another question?
Yes. Under the new SBTI net zero standard, if Macquarie were applying that.
It would need to phase out financing for oil and gas expansion by 2030. It would also need to explicitly track and disclose those financed emissions both for the banking side and for the asset management side with respect to assets where it has control or significant influence. Interestingly, that part is quite closely aligned with one of the asks in the shareholder resolution. Now that we have this clear guidance, is Macquarie going to look to be a climate leader and apply this standard? I appreciate the guidance is new and Macquarie would not have made a decision on it yet, but is it something that it will consider?
I think the main focus we have at the moment is to, one, fulfill the commitments we have already made, and there is a range of things under which we report to do that.
Second, there are mandatory sustainability standards coming towards us like a freight train. And there's a lot of work. I can see the people over here who are going to have to do it. That's a very big task for us. That's our main focus. Thank you for the suggestion.
Thank you.
Next question, please.
Chair, our next question is from Christopher Shott. Please stand and make your way to the nearest microphone to ask your question .
Mr. Chairman, thank you. I have two parts to my comment. One comment is about governance. In the last few weeks, and particularly, I read an article, got a hold of an article written by a former well-known journalist, wrote Chanticleer Column called Ivor Ries. He wrote about three weeks ago an excoriating article that I think was published in Rampant. Joe Aston's new independent, whatever you want to call it.
In that, he excoriates the performance of this bank over governance issues going back. He put it together. Which you now mentioned, for 14 years, we breached the arrangements, the rules, and regulation. We only discovered it because we got challenged on another matter, which meant that came to light. This really does show that at the risk management level of the board, we really do not know what's going on on a day-to-day basis with hundreds of thousands over a period of time of transactions. I just think that that article, if it's wrong, I presume you'll take legal action against him. Are you going to answer it? You've answered some of it here today. I draw it to your attention. By the way, he also excoriates ASIC, saying they are gutless and what they do is.
Our company is like getting hit with a piece of wet lettuce. Is how they describe the regulation. He excoriates them and said, "What the bank did here in the last few years, if it was in America, the fine would be $400 million US dollars and $50 million dollars individual charges." He's made it very clear that the government of Australia has been asleep at the wheel as well. I just make those comments. I also want to just acknowledge that. Only two days ago, Rear Window in the Financial Review, who's not noted for being a Bolshevik left-wing magazine or newspaper, got stuck into the issue about the new. Auditor. I would point out, if my memory is right, about four years ago, it was Mr.
Maine at this AGM who raised the issue, "Why hadn't we had a tender process for 30 years to get an auditor?" The board, one way or the other, took it on, and we're going through that process. Others have written about it. I just want to say, Mr. Chairman, the governance issue would mean today I voted not at an individual level. I voted against the reelection of the three board members. I voted against the remuneration report. There is absolutely no way that a remuneration report of any concert could be put through when you have this public investigation by the government of the breach of the law and regulation of how the finances of Australia, the banking industry runs. It's just impossible to put those two together. I just wanted to make my one question is, have we had any.
Investigation query from AUSTRAC, the Financial Transaction Authority, about any transactions we did on putting money in and out of the country above AUD 10,000 a day from anybody? I remember the Royal Commission found four years ago that Westpac had. Transactions that went on for years that pedophiles in the Philippines and Australia, gangsters, drug runners, had used their system to transfer millions of dollars, including baby terrorist organizations. They got wrapped and had to pay a very big fine. I want to know, has AUSTRAC been in touch with us and raised any issues about our management? These are different from the other one. So that's my first question on that. The other one is quite different. We've talked about risk in the future. In the last year or so, I've been reading material and others about. A dramatic change is going to take place in the world.
It's called population decline. Only one continent in the whole of the world has now got a population that's still increasing. That's Africa, but it's rapidly coming down. Our biggest customers, we had a woman up from South Korea. South Korea has a fertility rate below 1%. Its population is going to over half in the next 30 or 40 years. China will lose 600 million people on these rates. Japan will lose 40 million over the next few decades. Now, I'll long be dead before this takes an impact, but this is going to be dramatically deflationary on all sorts of policy, particularly a company like ours, quite rightly, who invests in infrastructure. I think in the next 10 years, China will have every city and village connected to a very fast train or a freeway. There's just so much more.
There's a limit to what they can do happening. I just want to say, longer term, you're going to have to get hold of the fact that the population of the world is not the Malthusian nightmare of overpopulation. 8 billion people last year, UN said. It will never get to 9 billion on the birth rates going on, not the fertility rates around the world. It probably means on environmental levels, our environmental frontier today may well find there is a lot less demand for energy when the world's population starts to go down. All I want to know is that somewhere in the great empire, we may have a few people. Acknowledging a lot of demographers are writing about this and what it's going to do that the world's economy will be deflationary, not inflationary, because there's people making demand.
That's quite different from my first point. I appreciate the opportunity to raise it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for your comments. On the AUSTRAC question, we have regular engagement with AUSTRAC because basically, they're kind of a supervisor. I think we're in pretty good shape. With that, I'm not aware of any correspondence regarding alleged criminal flows or anything like that.
We accept that under the rules of AUSTRAC, which is federal legislation, any transaction of AUD 10,000 or more coming in or out of Australia to someone's account within, I think, 36 hours or something, you have to report it. We've got to report it. We've had no query internally that there's been—always a little slip-up occasionally, of course—but there's no systemic problem.
No. Thank you. Not to my knowledge. Thank you. I think that's Greg, anything to add?
Okay. On demographics, well. You raise a very good point about birth rates, fertility, Africa, and so on. It could be deflationary. There's a few other inflationary things around right now, though. A few things to worry about. Can I have the next question, please?
Chair, our next question is from Terry Lee. Please make your way to the nearest microphone to ask your question.
Hi. What are the key drivers behind the 5% increase in the 2025 net profit? And how sustainable are they? And what are you. Are they sustainable under the current microeconomic climate?
I think these are things that perhaps Shemara is better to address based on the presentation earlier, perhaps. Over to you.
Yes, of course. Thank you for the question, Mr. Lee.
We do think that the things that drove our growth, excuse me, in this FY25 financial year are sustainable things. If I start with our Australian digital banking offering in BFS, we've been growing earnings every year, year on year now for at least all of my time as CEO and well before Greg, 15 years. We have about 6% of the Australian mortgage market now and just over 1% of the business banking market. Supported by our deposits, which have similar single-digit % of the Australian market. We think there's a long trajectory for the digital banking business to keep growing at the sort of pace it has been. That one we think has scope to grow. In our asset management business, Ben, we think we have a long trajectory of growth there as well.
We're one of the biggest managers in the world, with the largest by assets under management in infrastructure. We're growing adjacently into real estate, into private credit, into the green space, into agriculture. We're growing into new channels of investors as well, largely an institutional asset manager, but serving insurers, serving the wealth market. There's a lot more scope for that organic trajectory of growth to continue. In our Commodities and Global Markets, we share information, Alex, every year at our financial reporting, showing our customer numbers growing across a range of financial markets and commodity solutions by geographies, but also by sectors like the private equity players, etc. We've had underlying customer and franchise growth there that should continue. We're again a small player in the global markets there. In Macquarie Capital, we've been growing our private credit book and.
Our fee advisory and brokerage business, but also our equity investing, where I mentioned when I talked about results, we've grown the capital that we've put into those businesses where our teams have been delivering mid-20% returns on the capital they have. We should hopefully see them continue to deliver that on the increased book. We think all four of our businesses are structurally well positioned to deliver to things, to Mr. Shott's point, in terms of what's playing out in the world on urbanization and need for infrastructure, on digitization, both need for infrastructure and other solutions in banking, climate change responses. We're structurally well placed with those sectors we're in growing and our position being small and our having a great team that can keep growing.
I think we should be able to, as I said in my stuff since listing, we've been delivering 10% a year. In the last 10 years, we delivered 7% a year. This last year, we delivered 5%, but we should hopefully be well positioned to deliver that growth.
Thanks, Sumayla. That's very, very detailed. My second question is on capital management. The bank is in a very well maintained position in the capital at the moment. On November 2024, I think it was, if I recall correctly, there's AUD 2 billion for share buyback extension. You've still got about AUD 1 billion to go on that. Now, I saw the recent dividend coming through, and you've got a share purchase plan. Now, I just want to know what's the rationale behind that, because you're buying back the share on market at a premium, and we're discounting it, going back in.
What's the purpose of having a buyback and then you buy more share discount, and then we're buying back to the market? What is the purpose doing that? We're basically back to nothing.
I think there's two separate things happening there. Maybe Alex can explain that share purchase plan.
Yeah, thanks, Mr. Lee, for the question on the buyback. Obviously, as you said, we've extended the buyback. In November 2024, as Glenn said before, a billion dollars, just over a billion dollars, have been bought back through that program. Obviously, we like the flexibility of the buyback. It enables us to balance the opportunity to buy shares back when the moments arise versus the opportunity for the groups to deploy capital into new business initiatives. As we said, the full year result.
I guess it's been reiterated here today by Shemara and Glenn, the teams are seeing good opportunity to deploy that capital, which we're really, really pleased about. We like the flexibility of having the buyback. In terms of the dividend reinvestment plan, which I think is what you're talking about, obviously, it's customary to have a dividend reinvestment plan. The way we think about that in the context of the buyback is that we actually buy shares on market to satisfy any applications under that DRP. The reason we're doing that is to the points you're making. We're obviously sitting on surplus capital, and so it would make no sense to issue new shares to satisfy the dividend reinvestment plan. Having said that, obviously, shareholders enjoy the opportunity to acquire more shares through their dividends via that DRP.
We keep the DRP in place with a zero discount, and we neutralize it by buying shares on market to satisfy the issue. I think we're trying to be thoughtful in terms of the business is well positioned from a surplus capital viewpoint. The buyback gives us flexibility, and we think hard about how we offer the DRP to shareholders.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Lee. Next question, please.
Chair, our next question comes from Xi Qilin. Please make your way to the nearest microphone to ask your question.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
On the 24th of June, The Guardian published an exposé which claimed leaked Northern Land Council documents show the consulting firm called Good Advice, working on behalf of Beetaloo Energy, "promised private deals, gathered signatures, and hired land council members to smooth the way for gas sales." The article contains allegations that, working on behalf of Macquarie's client, Beetaloo Energy Australia, formerly known as Empire Energy, Good Advice engaged in practices including directly offering bribes to traditional owners. Now, these are clearly very concerning allegations. My question is, has Macquarie initiated a review or an investigation into these allegations? Secondly, what steps is the board taking to ensure Macquarie is not supporting a company that is accused of violating human rights and the right to free, prior, and informed consent?
I'm not going to respond to particular allegations that were in The Guardian.
I have no idea what the veracity of those is, so I'll leave that.
I can send a copy of the.
What. Thank you. What I will say is that we've had a good deal of engagement with Empire, Beetaloo, and so on on what their processes have been to consult with the traditional owners up there. To the best of our knowledge, those processes have been conducted correctly and in line with the standards, and it's been through the Northern Land Council and so on. While it's not our job directly to undertake those negotiations, to the best of our knowledge, they've been undertaken correctly. At this point, on the information available to us, we're satisfied with that.
There will be no review or investigation into this?
We're not proposing to launch our own review of allegations in The Guardian, no.
My second question was, what steps is the board taking to ensure that Macquarie is not supporting a company that is accused of violating human rights?
We would not obviously want to be supporting a company that is clearly in violation of human rights, but it has not been established that that is the case here. We do lots of management of these sort of relationships from all those sorts of lenses, and we keep an eye on that sort of thing. I am not aware of any reason to not deal with this company for such reasons in this case.
Thank you. We will send the article to you afterwards as well.
Thank you. Next question, please.
Chair, our next question comes from Peter Gregory. Please make your way to the nearest microphone to ask your question.
Thank you very much for this morning's presentations, and thank you this afternoon for listening to shareholders' questions and responding to them and also hearing points of view. I'm a happy individual shareholder, but I'd like to ask a question about technology within Macquarie. We see every day the speed of change that's happening in the world of technology in particular areas like cybersecurity, cyber currency, cyber assets, the whole broad thing that's described as artificial intelligence and quantum computing. I see from looking at the board skills matrix that there is only one director who has identified as having a primary skill in that area. In the context of preventing things going wrong, and in the context of business opportunities that those new technologies I described present to Macquarie, I would like to understand from the director who has that primary skill how he or she has maintained that.
Contemporary knowledge to be able to provide effective oversight, and how the board as a whole is keeping its knowledge up to skill so it can provide oversight in this technology space.
Look, it's a good question on technology, and it's a thing that the board spends quite a lot of time debating and thinking about. We have a lot of external presentations. AI is just one topic on which we've had those. We've also had, I'd say, the part of Macquarie where technology has been most front and center, and where the adoption of new technology is driving the business would be our BFS business, which Greg heads. I might ask him to add something here in just a moment. The BFS business, a digital offer, very much we feel on the sort of the front of the curve of adoption of technology.
We have strong cyber security defenses. We get regular reviews of that, incident reports, and following up of the things that befall other companies to ensure that we are across how to ensure they do not happen here. I would say as well that one benefit we do have on the board, which would not show up in the skills matrix for the group, but on our bank board, we have David Whiting, who is sitting here, who has an extensive career background in technology matters in a number of large international banks. He has lifted, because we have a single conversation for the bank and the group around the board table, David has lifted, I should say, the level of our conversation and questioning a lot. I know the team in the Coles area greatly value his engagement.
I'm not sure who the director was who nominated the primary skill in that area. It wasn't me. That's all. I'm not quite sure who it was and if they want to say anything, but I might ask. Greg, do you want to say anything on the tech stack in BFS and how we're keeping ahead of the curve and managing the threats? I could get Nicole perhaps to talk about cyber if that's helpful.
Yeah, thanks very much, Chairman. Yeah, I think the shareholder identifies quite correctly just how important technology is. It's fundamental to the offering we have in BFS. We've got an extraordinarily large technology team, both here and in Asia, parts of Asia and India and so forth, with some incredible world talent. You saw at the start of the presentation Louis Ayuna on the screen. He's our Chief Digital Officer.
He was the Global Chief Digital Officer at BBVA in Europe, and they had a team of 50,000 IT professionals, and he led their global digital capability. We hired Louis back in 2014 to build our digital capabilities. We have similarly gone on to search for world professionals like this. One of the important things in our retail business is making sure our services are always available. You will find that with Macquarie. We do not have scheduled outages that you see at a lot of other institutions. We want our services to be running 24/7 and never go down. That is a big focus on what we call site reliability. We hired a gentleman from Google who works for us, and he was working for Google for 15 years running Google's reliability.
These are the sort of experts that we attract to our business and we are able to bring in to run the services. We have similar capabilities in cyber as well. As the Chairman said, with David and his expert knowledge, we have spent time with him as well, and he still is completely up to date and spends time in Silicon Valley and other areas, and that knowledge is shared across the board. Nicole, anything on cyber? Thank you.
Thank you. I might just make a few broad comments about technology, if that is okay. We have been investing in our technology for well over a decade. We have over 5,000 people in technology here at Macquarie. We are constantly looking at upskilling our people and also how we can hire expertise externally. We also partner.
With the world's largest and most innovative companies around the world as well. We are very mindful to keep abreast of emerging technologies. We experiment with emerging technologies. We are well advanced with AI, machine learning, generative AI technologies across all of the businesses as well. As it relates to cyber security, it is an area that we are constantly investing in. It is an area where we have a defense-in-depth approach, and that means we are not relying on one singular control. We have many layers of control across all of our businesses. Our people are our first line of defense. All of our people across Macquarie are constantly trained around phishing techniques as well. We have external penetration tests. We learn from what is going on in terms of incidents that happen. We are not immune to issues that happen across the world. Our team has been able to.
Defend Macquarie so far, but we've been able to also bring the learnings into our environment where issues have occurred in other organizations.
Thank you. Did you have another question?
I'd just like to comment, Glenn, that I'm encouraged to hear that you have that kind of depth and experience within the management team, within the executive team. It still leaves me with a concern that the board perhaps does not have that kind of contemporary knowledge and experience to be able to provide the right kind of oversight. I would ask you if in your succession planning for the future, if you see that as, identify that as an area where the board could be stronger.
It is, because we need a group of different skills on the board. We're a bank or a financial house, so we need a lot of that.
We do a lot of energy, so it's good to have some energy expertise there, which Rebecca, for one, brings. It's also good to have an international focus. I think it would be good if we had a little bit more of international directors, and I'm trying to find some at the moment. I'll disclose I'm not pre-announcing any particular appointment there, but those sort of skill sets are things that I think would be handy to have. If some of those people also have tech, that would also be great. We can't have a whole board full of tech people any more than we can have a whole board of bankers, so I'm trying to get the right mix. Thank you for the suggestion.
Thanks for considering it, Glenn. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question, please.
Chair, our next question is from Philip Laird. Please make your way to the nearest microphone to ask your question.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have two questions. As we know, there is a high-speed rail authority that has been formed. Has Macquarie Bank looked at all at the prospects of investing in high-speed rail in Australia? My interest in it is that high-speed rail is much more energy efficient and less emissions-intensive than aviation.
I do not know whether we have. Can anybody here say whether there have been any proposals we have looked at?
Not aware of anything in Australia. The team are just saying to me, no. Overseas? Ben, are we looking at anything in offshore markets? No, not at the moment. From time to time, he is saying in Asian cities, etc., and European.
Okay. Sorry, no. Not at this point. Not a shit. Thank you.
The second one is, as we know, Sydney has a real tollway mess, the most tolled city in the world, which, in a way, puts up emissions as well. Particularly when people want to take alternative routes to tollways. Is it possible that Macquarie Bank could consider helping the New South Wales government sort out Sydney's tollway mess? And we've had an inquiry led by Professor Phelps.
Thank you. Macquarie has on occasions had appetite for tollways in some jurisdictions. I'm not sure about Australia at the moment and whether we have appetite to get into what you describe as the tollway mess. They're yours, not mine. I don't know the answer to whether we've looked at any proposals there. It doesn't sound like it.
Not a shit.
Thank you. Thank you. Could I have the next question, please?
Chair, our next question is from Christopher Nudson.
Please make your way to the nearest microphone to ask your question.
Mr. Nudson. Is there a question? If not, perhaps we could go to the next one, and we can come back if needed.
Chair, our next question comes from Morgan Picket. Please make your way to the nearest microphone to ask your question.
Thank you. I have here a letter signed by over 10,000 people, calling on Macquarie not to provide any more financial support to companies developing gas fracking operations in the Beetaloo Sub-basin in Australia's Northern Territory. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and International Energy Agency have both been clear that there can be no new or expanded fossil fuels if we are to limit global warming in line with the goal of the Paris Agreement. Macquarie is both an investor and lender to gas companies pursuing an enormous fracking development in the Beetaloo Sub-basin.
Macquarie's clients, Beetaloo Energy and Tamboran Resources, are engaged in preliminary exploration activities with the aims of turning Beetaloo into a gas fracking precinct rivaling the biggest in the United States and has the potential to be Australia's biggest new gas development. As my colleague made clear in his presentation, burning the gas reserves from Beetaloo would produce an estimated 1.1 billion tons of CO2 equivalent equal to Australia's largest coal plant operating for more than 83 years. These companies have no revenue streams. They are relying on debt and equity capital to explore and develop the Beetaloo Sub-basin, both of which Macquarie is providing. Macquarie's financial support is vital to these companies achieving their goal, a goal which is so clearly out of line with Macquarie's climate commitments.
At Beetaloo Energy's annual general meeting just a few months ago, the company's CEO and Managing Director, Alex Underwood, stated, and I quote, "Macquarie is the predominant financier of oil and gas projects in the Northern Territory." He also stated that their support, meaning Macquarie, has been critical. If Macquarie truly wants to support real-world emissions reductions, it cannot support the development of a giant new gas basin. It simply doesn't add up. My question is simply, will Macquarie commit to not provide any new financial support to fracking companies developing the Beetaloo Basin?
The answer to that's no, I think, sir. Thank you for the comment.
Are you assessing these clients for alignment with the Paris Agreement?
We're assessing them for whether they fit into the climate commitments that we ourselves have made.
So you're reviewing a climate transition plan to ensure they're aligned?
We have transition plans where that's appropriate for particular customers. It's not a one-size-fits-all. Typically for people that are not actually in production, there isn't a transition plan as yet because they're not producing anything yet. In some cases, later on, there can be transition plans required, but it's case by case, not one-size-fits-all.
You're not looking at the future of emissions of these projects or developments. You're just financing them until they get up. Then you'll review and go, "Oh, it's not Paris-aligned." It doesn't make sense at all.
It does to us. The answer to your question was no, we won't make that commitment. That's contrary to the interests of shareholders in the company. Did you have another question? Okay, thank you. Next question, please.
Chair, our next question comes from Mireya Caulfield. Please visit the nearest microphone to ask your question.
Good afternoon, Chair, board members, and fellow shareholders. I have two questions, please, after the following statement. ASIC's May media release imposed new license conditions on Macquarie. Citing systemic failures, some undetected for a decade. Commissioner Simone Constant called out weak compliance. Poor change management. And an incomplete understanding of your own systems. That's regulator speak or chaos. My first question is. How can this board claim to uphold governance and your "what we stand for" principles of opportunity, accountability, and transparency, when it took a regulator to force an independent expert to assess basic reporting functions? My second question is, will the board commit to disclosing the expert's findings to shareholders in full? Thank you.
The matter, the license condition matter, is a thing that was dealt with earlier on, and there's an agreed set of work that's already gotten underway.
There will be independent outside assurance on that. I'm not sure that we're committing to publish that, actually, but that will be available to the regulator to satisfy them that the remediation that's getting done is adequate. That will take some time. It's going to take a few years, actually. I think from the point of view of the broader question you ask, it's an organization where when things go wrong, we have to own it, address it, fix it, and commit to do better. We have done that.
Thank you. I just go back to what you stand for, your principles of opportunity, accountability, and transparency. How are we going to know that you've fixed things if you don't actually report back to your shareholders? Opportunity, accountability, and integrity actually is. That too. That's across the board for all things.
You referenced what we stand for. That's actually what it says. Accountability is important here, and the people that are charged with rectifying these matters are doing so. That work stream is underway. As I say, it will have independent assurance that the work is done correctly. That's how we address the problems.
Thank you for that. Can it please be published? I'm not going to commit to that, but I'll consider that. Wow, that's not transparency, but thank you.
Next question, please.
Chair, our next question is from Anne Marie Beavis. Please make your way to the nearest microphone to ask your question.
Thank you, Chair. I have two brief, but critical questions today raised on behalf of a fellow shareholder and complainant. These questions relate specifically to governance concerns within our bank regarding conduct during an AFCA complaint that is currently awaiting determination.
As a reminder, AFCA is the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, an independent body that provides consumers and small businesses with fair, free, and impartial dispute resolution for financial complaints. I will ask both questions together. Question one, given our strict explicit stance against inducements and bribery, how can we justify secretly depositing AUD 3,000 into a complainant's loan account in the same direct correspondence without their knowledge and consent or a method to return the funds, while at the same time requesting AFCA to sway and expedite its decision to enable enforcement against the family home? Has the board initiated an immediate and thorough investigation to determine how this occurred and whether such conduct is systemic within our organization? If not, why not? I'm confused. Question two.
A current board member was formally notified of this serious matter via express mail on the 2nd of July and registered mail, which was received and signed for on the 7th of July. Despite this, the board member has failed to respond or take any action. Given the seriousness of this interference with an independent ombudsman's determination, the board must explain why this lack of response has been tolerated and how it is consistent with our stated commitments to governance, accountability, and integrity. I will be available immediately following this AGM to discuss these concerns further. Given this seriousness, I trust the board will agree that a direct meeting is both appropriate and necessary. Thank you.
I'm afraid I'm unaware of this matter. This is the first I've heard of it.
There are customer people here, representatives outside, and I'm sure Greg can arrange for you to meet with them to further the complaint. I don't have any facts on the matter. If it's gone to the Independent Complaints Authority, then of course that process should take its course, and we would give any cooperation needed with that process. I don't have any information with which to respond. As for writing to board members, typically when that happens, and I'm not sure which director that was, typically when that happens, they will seek assistance from the customer advocate people or the complaints people inside the companies to how to best respond to it. They'll probably be responding on someone's behalf. Since I didn't receive that letter, at least to my knowledge, can I address it directly to the more board members that are involved?
Do you have another question? I think this is a. I direct it to the board member that. I think it would be better if you were willing to speak to the customer people that are here who can actually further your complaint in a more expeditious way.
You will arrange a private meeting directly after this AGM? There are people here who. In regards to bribery and inducement of an independent.
Bribery and inducement of an independent authority is quite a claim. It is. If you want to make that claim, you'll need to make it through people who are well equipped to.
Your board member is aware of this.
I don't know whether the director, who's supposedly aware of it, wants to speak on the matter. It's the first I've heard of it. It's Phil Coffey here.
I'm aware that through this letter that claim has been made. I was actually overseas until Monday, so I don't know how the registered mail was signed on the 7th of July. I've got proof. I was in France, so it wasn't me. I don't know what proof you've got. I've now passed that.
Going back, Mr. Coffey, you did say in your speech to be re-elected, you did say you have a deep belief in doing the right thing.
Correct.
Do you believe you've done the right thing here?
I don't have enough detail on the issue to be able to make that claim. I would hope that that's the case. It's certainly my understanding of how Macquarie conducts its business.
Okay, can I have a private meeting with you after this AGM?
You can.
I'm not sure I can further advance your situation because I don't have the detail, nor do I have the resources to look into it, but I'm happy to meet with you.
All right, thank you. I think we might move to the next question, please.
Chair, our next question is from Craig Caulfield. Please make your way to the nearest microphone to ask your question.
Good morning, Chair, board, and all the shareholders online and in the room. Firstly, actually, thank you very much for all the directors every year circulating and meeting with the shareholders. That's deeply appreciated. I was fortunate enough to talk with Wayne Byres for a while, so that's a thank you there. Joyce Malarkus described your risk culture as once legendary, now tarnished. ASIC, APRA, the SEC, the FCA have all sanctioned this group. $255 million in penalties. Not one director has stepped down.
Not one executive has lost meaningful pay. Is this board's strategy to simply outlast criticism rather than meet it? I was going to ask, will you commit to publishing the risk governance review that ASIC's remediation order has now made mandatory? If that's the same one you referred to before, it seems that you're not making that commitment. I'm not making that commitment. That assurance is basically for ASIC. As part of the process of them being satisfied that we've remediated correctly, there has to be independent assurance. That's entirely appropriate, but that's its purpose. We didn't commission it as a public review. Is that the question? I think your other question. In terms of the review and in terms of talking of transparency, you almost excluded transparency as something that Macquarie is accountable to. Transparency is a universal governance term and word.
If you really want to face into this properly, publishing that in full is a candid, genuine, authentic response to say, "We will own it." You've talked of, "We will own it." The way to show it beyond words, your actions, is to say, "Here's the report. We'll publish it." It appears you're almost hiding behind the fact that you're saying, "Well, that's for ASIC, and ASIC can do it." I'm sure ASIC will not stop you from saying, "We want to publish the report." If ASIC allows you to publish it, which I'm sure that they would, that's something that you could put that line in the sand now and say, "Yes, we will own it." You're saying you own it, but we will own it, and we will publish it.
Thanks for the suggestion.
I will take that on notice, but I'm not going to make that commitment on the run. Thank you. All right, thank you. You can. You get to, yeah.
In relation to the REM report. The CEO received more than $20 million, the top nine execs more than $100 million. Even as the regulators, it's four regulators across countries. There's still a $500 million APRA capital overlay. Macquarie portrays themselves as. Perhaps not, you don't put it forward the millionaire's factory, but people know that. Come to Macquarie, you will be rewarded. There's risk and reward. What I think you would understand. That we, the public, the community, and the shareholders expect is that. If you do particularly well, if you work hard and you find your niches, and you do well for the company and the shareholders, you get rewarded. We understand that. But here we find a time.
These are not no small matters. So when these issues come up, and they're not just current. These are dating back up to a dozen years. We're finding that the REM consequences are paltry. So my question is. Can you understand how the public can't reconcile that and why it's in the media? And why what you're saying to us is not washing.
Let me just take up one point you made there. Yeah, there have been some, a sequence of things, over a number of years. That's true. There were consequences for those things when they happen. The board every year goes through a process of determining whether there should be remuneration hits on particular people. For, yes, the APRA matter, by the way, we're still withholding some profit share from 2021 pending further satisfactory resolution of that matter.
There continues to be some remuneration withheld from some executives for that purpose, people who are on the exco at the time. On the SEC thing, on the unauthorized trading thing, there were consequences for people at that time, quite material ones. A number of people are no longer working for the company. That was their consequence. There have been quite a few of those people. And material amounts of money for senior people, including the CEO. In that case and on the SEC matter. So there have been consequences. People can differ about whether they were the consequences were enough. Yeah, I can see that. I am receiving that feedback, and I will carefully listen to that, and we all will consider it. There have been consequences and steps taken, and most importantly, remediation work put in place over those matters. It's not as though we did nothing.
On all these things, and now then suddenly they've all come at once. That's not what's happened.
Yeah, we're not saying we, me, the shareholders here in the community are not saying that. But we accept that consequences occurred. We're saying they're not meaningful. When it's AUD 20 million plus. Hays and Shemara after these things have happened. That's not correct. The exemplar here would be look back at the Commonwealth Bank when the Commonwealth Bank had their imbroglio and their regulatory failings. Kathryn Livingston, the chairman, said, "All short-term bonuses for all the high-level execs go back to zero, and the board, every director loses 20%." That's what should be happening. That's an exemplar. Here, it really seems like you're glossing over, papering over some of these things, acknowledging them, but not doing it squarely. You're saying we face into it squarely.
These are current things that we're doing, but these have been going on for a long time. All right, thank you.
Thank you. Next question, please.
Chair, our next question comes from Spiro Arcusis. Please make your way to the nearest microphone to ask your question.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. Shemara, Phillip. Institutional investors and retail investors, good afternoon. If I can just bring it back to a central position that Macquarie Group is a business, a global business. We're here, or hopefully we're here because we want to see the share price increase and break through the $250 mark. I'm not a scientist, but if we address climate change, please, I encourage all the investors to read the reports by IPCC and also investigate what the professors of the university departments globally at universities, what they say about climate change, CO2 levels, and sea level rising.
You might get a pleasant surprise. With that said, Glenn, I'd like to sort of get an understanding over the plan of Macquarie Group over the next five years when you look at the investments versus equity investment versus debt investment. If you look at, are you looking at potentially acquiring any other banks or doing any mergers, or are they going to just be equity positions? The same is within the mining, whether it's rare earth metals, iron ore, or even investing in other countries that you haven't invested in. That's my first part.
Good question. It is a company that is still looking for opportunities. I would say there are dozens of potential things that Shemara and her team would be reviewing probably every week on, could we do this, could we do that? Most of those things don't pass muster because.
It's about risk as well as return. We don't have any particular large-scale acquisition or something like that to foreshadow. Wouldn't be appropriate anyway in a public meeting at this point. There'll be, I imagine, organic growth, but if there's opportunity for acquisitions that stacked up and we have the resources, yes, we would consider that. It's a continual process. How many things would you be looking at every week, roughly?
Andrew Cassidy is sitting here. I head of risk, and we have meetings. We have pipeline meetings every week, and there's probably a handful of all of those. On the most recent one we did is we bought the Scottish Power Iberdrola meter portfolio, which was about AUD 700 million. We would have rejected probably eight things as part of doing that. There's this kind of continual process of lots of ideas.
There's a lot of ideas generated in this company. They come to the filter to be assessed, and very few of them pass. When they do, you have to make sure they work well. The great thing is we're getting ideas all the time from our people around the world. Second question. If I can respond with that first part.
Shimara, Glenn, and the board, you would welcome opportunity to be brought to you globally, whether it's governments, infrastructure.
Opportunities are frequently coming, and we're going and seeking our own as well. That's a continual process.
Are you also putting further investment into the aviation sector?
We have a large aircraft leasing business, so that's the main place we invest.
Okay. That's going to grow. Have you got more investment going into that over the next five years?
The strategies are all driven by the teams, the expert teams in each area. So it's their call whether they see that we can add a lot more value or if we can't, whether we pivot away. What we've been doing with that business is we did it on the balance sheet. We've more recently been bringing third-party investors into that and trying to grow it as a fiduciary strategy. But it's really driven by the teams that have deep expertise in every subsector to advise us on how to pivot as the markets move in all these areas, I think.
Thank you for that, Shemara. Coming back to energy. When we look at the reports regarding green energy. To be able to supply what is required and not to disadvantage our Australian community, it has been proven that green energy cannot fit the bill.
I have to agree with you, Glenn, that we've got to continue and manage the process with oil and gas. At what point do you believe, over the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years, do you believe that Macquarie could still be in the game in 20 years' time?
We'll certainly be in business in 20 years' time. I'd be astonished if that were not true. I imagine that our role in the green side of energy will continue, because energy transition, despite the disagreements we might have with some people who've had questions, it's a thing. It's happening. It has to happen, and we want to play our part. I think we have some differences of views, some aspects of that part, but that will continue. I think our teams continue to see opportunities, at least in the near term, both in the BFS business.
MAM has its strategic things, which, as you know, have moved a little bit away from the public market side towards more the private market side, where we think there's more action and more value for shareholders, things like that. Macquarie Capital, incredibly innovative body that thinks of extremely innovative things to do. Yeah, I think there's a strong future for the company and all those things. Exactly how it will look in 20 years is very hard to say. I think if you'd gone back 20 years and said, would Macquarie be the number 6% of the mortgage market, Greg? We're one of the most substantial providers of mortgages today. No one would have thought of that 20 years ago. Some of the things that we're doing in the green space probably were only in their infancy at that time.
That's grown to be an enormous set of businesses. The size of the CGM business. Very few people would have kind of predicted the way that looks today 20 years ago. So we can't answer that question. What we can say is, if we can preserve the dynamism, the spirit of innovation, and keep the people that do that, the company has a strong future. That's the end of the sermon. Just to add a little bit of value to that, sorry, I won't keep him too long, Shemara. In relation to growing the home loan business, is there larger strategies in marketing to grow that business in Australia and abroad? I could probably get Greg to comment. The BFS strategy involves further growing their book within the quality segment that we play in. We don't play right across the quality stream in mortgages.
We've got a niche that we want to work in, and there's further runway ahead there in their view. I don't know if you want to add anything to that, but that's.
Yeah, absolutely, Glenn. It's a fantastic business, the home loan business. As you say, we've had, I mean, we've now been awarded the best home lender for the last five years straight by mortgage brokers, so we're pleased with that. We're just focused on the Australian market, and as Glenn said, we're focused on what we call lower-risk loans. We like to be very safe in that. In the last 12 months, our net book growth is second in market behind Commonwealth Bank, so we're very pleased with that. We think it's a good business with a good set of products, and we think there's a lot of scope to keep growing that. Thank you.
Thank you. I think, Spiro, we might need to give someone else a go at the questions.
Of course. Of course. I just want to leave on this note, if I may. Would you consider as a global business to have Ivan Glassenberg consult to the Macquarie Board?
T hat is not a decision I can make in a public meeting. Happy to entertain a proposal from you privately if you want to make that.
Thank you. Thank you, Glenn. Thank you, Shemara. Next question, please.
Chair, our next question comes from Michael Sanderson. Please make your way to the nearest microphone to ask your question.
All right, cycle through. I compliment the bank on the way they're running the meeting. It works well compared to other banks, getting the business out of the way and the questions at the end. Two questions.
Given Macquarie's top-tier seat at the Prime Minister's recent diplomatic banquet in Beijing, alongside the usual mining magnates from Fortescue, BHP, and Rio Tinto, can the board explain how this latest green transition initiative's junket meaningfully advances shareholder value beyond expanding the influence of institutional carpetbaggers in Asia? Considering this was a mission led by the Labour Party, a party historically rooted in the Labour movement, it was a mission that was free of union leaders and working Australians. Does the board see any reputational risk in Macquarie's role in what it appears to be a crony-capless-only club? Can you enlighten the meeting on what intelligence was learned about low-carbon energy?
I think if the CEO of the company is asked to accompany the Prime Minister of the country on an international visit of that nature, the CEO usually would feel they were obliged to go, and the board would be highly supportive of that. As to what was learned there, I wasn't there, so I'm going to have to ask my colleague.
I can make a few comments. I think what the government took as their view that we heard was that China is our biggest trading partner by daylight for Australia. It's about 30% of our exports. It's low 20% of our imports. It's also a massive country, and there's a lot more opportunity for Australia to engage with China in the areas that it engages in. They're not necessarily carbon-addressing areas at the moment.
We export LNG, coal, iron ore, and then education, if you call that the green one of the three. We are exporting mostly commodities to China, and I think the government is trying to uplift that trade to more services, etc., as the consumer sector in China grows. We were asked to come and meet our business counterparts. As Glenn says, we were doing what we could to help the country by going up there and engaging. We have a lot of our own counterparts in China that we have been dealing with for a very long time.
We used the opportunity of that visit to see a lot of other people that we've worked with for many, many years in Beijing, both helping investment into China, but also helping a lot of the Chinese investment, the savings invest with our asset management and our Macquarie Capital team around the world. As Glenn says, it was considered a very important initiative for Australia. We were there to support the country on that, but also our own business-to-business. If unions wanted to go up and engage with counterparts, I'm sure just like we do it ourselves all the time. We've been investing in China since 1992, I think, and we've been getting up there and doing it ourselves. It wasn't like the government was there helping our business. Did you have another question, sir?
My last thing was in relation to low-carbon energy.
Was there any engagement? Because obviously that was a key part of that junket. That's your second question, sir? In China? In China. Not my second question. I'm just trying to clarify it in my first.
As I said, I was not aware of it being a green energy-related trip. So you didn't visit the new nuclear plant, the only molten salt reactor in the world?
Let's get to the second question, please.
All right. Macquarie has a strong track record investing in essential infrastructure monopolies like airports and utilities. With over 590 Australian towns without a bank, would the board consider creating a Macquarie-led regional branch network and socializing a licensed monopoly in banking? And would the bank explore acquiring Armaguard and Prosegur to build a national cash distribution monopoly?
Such moves would strengthen Macquarie's social license, meet public purpose obligations, and deliver long-term returns through critical infrastructure that serves both shareholders and community.
I'm struggling with the notion of a Macquarie-led banking monopoly, to be honest, but I think branch banking in the regions is not something that's in our business plan or our strategy. We've never had branches. We are a digital bank. So I don't think we are really the ones to supply some kind of regional thing. I think it'd be better, actually, to base such a thing on the regional infrastructure that's already there with the long-established banks. If it was in the national interest and adequate for shareholders to take part in that, I'm sure we'd consider it, but I don't think that's been put to us at this point.
Okay. Louis, would you actively support a public post office-based bank?
That's not a question I've given enough thought to, I'm sorry. So I can't answer that. It's not obvious that we would, but. Perhaps you would.
There's a lot of communities out there have been debanked. And. You do have access to SIMO. Not through any action of ours, though. Oh, no, granted. As I said, I just thought the opportunity of another monopoly. 590 of them would be attractive.
Thank you for the suggestion. Can I have the next question, please?
Chair, our next question is from Olivia Caulfield. Please make your way to the nearest microphone to ask your question.
Good afternoon, Chair and Board. So this may be a question for Greg Ward and/or the director with Primary Skills and Technology.
In light of Macquarie Capital's investment through our venture capital arm in AI-driven regulatory technology platforms such as Shield, can the board clarify whether Shield is actively being used within Macquarie's risk or compliance functions, either for internal monitoring or to support regulatory reporting obligations? The annual report mentions Shield and BioCatch. I think it's on page 17, and it goes into detail as to the benefits of BioCatch earlier in the annual report. It doesn't disclose whether Shield is used by Macquarie. My understanding is that whilst BioCatch identifies risks to customers such as scams, Shield identifies risks to customers such as internal breaches and staff misconduct. Yeah, we do. I can.
The investments are in Macquarie Capital. Perhaps Michael Silverton could comment on those. Whether we are using these products or not, I do not know.
I think I can answer. We do use them.
Andrew, did you want to talk for surveillance? We use Shield. You can answer.
Good afternoon. Shareholders, Andrew Cassidy, the Chief Risk Officer. So we are using Shield really in two components. Firstly, in the corporate world, which allows us to store a lot of the digital information that we get through our emails, through our chats, through our teams, so that that information is there as an electronic record in the case we need to access that in the future. The second use, which is more in my world in risk, is we are onboarding Shield as we speak to.
Be effectively our e-comm surveillance product, which is a really important tool from both a risk perspective internally and, of course, for our regulators to give the organization comfort that the interactions that staff are having both internally amongst ourselves and with the outside world from, say, for example, a trading perspective, are consistent with our internal employment policies and then market conduct rules. I can also probably speak for Greg with BioCatch. BioCatch is a really fantastic piece of technology utilizing AI that can predict where we might be seeing frauds across, in particular, our retail network, and then be able to provide early warning signals, which can help our customers ultimately avoid some of the frauds in what is a very fast-moving external environment.
Does that cover it?
Yes, I have one more question to add on to that.
It's really great to hear that you're implementing Shield's technology. I think that'll be really helpful for regulatory reporting. Are you able to speak to any more detail as to how that works with discussions that you may be having with regulators such as ASIC and how you meet your reporting obligations using the technology?
Yeah, we have a number of surveillance tools. A suite of surveillance tools effectively across our risk management framework. As I said, the Shield surveillance tool tends to be more focused on our internal employee communications. We then have other trade surveillance tools. There are other suppliers in the market such as Smarts, etc., which are used to surveil how our employees then interact with, for example, other traders in the market. I will note that as part of the MDP Futures Matter, we had an issue with.
Our surveillance tool as it related to the energy futures. Per some of the comments that the Chair has made earlier, we recognize things can and will go wrong in that case. Certainly, we feel like we've fixed the known issues that are at hand. Of course, what we—and really important to me from a Chief Risk Officer perspective—when we're just trying to fix the issue that arises, we're thinking more broadly, and we're trying to read that across to where else that might occur in our business so that we're implementing sustainable fixes across all four of our really important business platforms.
Great.
Thank you.
Thank you. Are we going to online questions?
Chair, we return to questions submitted online. Thank you. The next question is from Sustainable Investment Exchange Proprietary Limited. Their question is.
Macquarie Group is one of the world's largest infrastructure asset managers, managing infrastructure utilities, transportation, digital, waste management, water, and social services. As a result, the group is acutely exposed to the long-term impacts of worsening climate change. Has Macquarie modelled the financial impacts of high warming scenarios such as 2.5 degrees Celsius to 3 degrees Celsius on the infrastructure assets in its portfolio?"
That's a technical question for the portfolio. Companies and managers. I don't actually know. We do do modelling of a number of scenarios, I think, Rick, and that's disclosed in the annual report. To my knowledge, this work is extended as far down as we can into the various portfolio companies, I think, Ben. I can't give you any more detail than that. I'm sorry.
Did you want to comment, Ben? Sorry, Ben, did you want to add?
Yeah. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for that question.
Today we have 185 portfolio companies around the world in all those different sectors that were called out in the question. Every investment we make, we don't just look at it from a financial point of view. Because we're really looking at whether any investment will deliver a risk-adjusted return given the context of that investment, we take into account all different types of risk, the work health and safety of that particular business, and how we need to improve that. We obviously take into account climate risks.
When we're thinking about an investment, we're thinking about both its robustness in terms of its financial terms, but also its robustness in different sorts of economic cycles, but also different environmental cycles, including how we might need to implement mitigants to future-proof that particular business should there be different types of changes in the weather, whether they're more dramatic or not. We are a holistic investor that thinks about the performance of our businesses, not just in good weather, but in all weather. That's certainly a factor in any decision we make.
Thank you, Ben. Our next question, please.
Chair, our next question comes from Emma Dawson. The question is, "I understand that the scenario analysis Macquarie has done to date has been quite limited, focusing just on its residential mortgage portfolio and oil, gas, and power investments.
Many of the world's leading insurers have warned of an uninsurability crisis for critical infrastructure at 3 degrees Celsius of warming. Many of the world's leading climate scientists have forecast that our current trajectory has us headed for 3 degrees Celsius of warming. Why then hasn't Macquarie disclosed any modelling for how its infrastructure assets will be financially impacted in high warming scenarios?
I think we have. Done more than just very limited scenario analysis. I know Rick Devereaux, my colleague, has done a lot of work on this. We have considered a number of scenarios and looked at them right across our books. To the best of my knowledge, that's been quite a thorough process. It isn't true that we've done it only in a very limited way. Can I have the next question, please?
Chair, our next question comes from Stephen Main. The question is.
Why is it so hard for Macquarie to admit you've made a mistake or respond positively to a request to make a change? Over the past few years, these are the requests of mine you've rejected. One, have annual director elections like News Corp, Rio Tinto, BHP, and Treasury Wine Estates. Two, disclose the proxy position early along with the formal address like ASX Limited and Qantas both do. Three, follow ASA policy and follow the agenda at the AGM rather than dealing with questions as one big job lot. Four, publish a full transcript of the AGM like Woolworths and IAG do. Five, disclose how many of our 222,000 shareholders voted with scheme-like disclosure as Computershare and Suncorp do. Six, don't break up the AGM with morning tea before the debate because half the shareholders leave and it reduces the focus on the important business of the meeting.
Are any of these six requests doable for next year's AGM? If not, why not? When are they increasingly becoming accepted market practice?
Stephen, you did not quote many other precedents, I must say. I think by and large, the shareholders that are here have been happy with the way the meeting's been running. In fact, someone said so just a little while ago. I am not inclined to make any changes at this point. Very few, if any, others have requested things on the transcript that is available on request, as you know, because you request it every year. Anybody can get that on request. It is available. Next question, please.
Chair, our next question is from Tianyou. On the market's negative reaction to Macquarie Group trading, what do you think are the reasons the market is reacting a bit negatively to the first quarter report?
Macquarie is currently trading down about 4%-5%. I do not think I am going to—I assume that you are talking about today's share price. I am not watching it moment by moment, and I do not watch it moment by moment. Because I do not think that is sensible. So I do not have any particular response to that question. I do not know if you want to add anything.
The only thing I would say, Mr. Dio, is that we have reaffirmed our guidance for the full year. Hopefully the market sees that our earnings guidance has not changed for this year. The only other thing I can assume it relates to is Mr. Harvey stepping down as CFO. And Alex, you have lost shareholders $3.5 billion today. Hopefully we can make it back as time progresses. Thank you. Next question. Next question, please. I think he is worth way more than that.
He's still got six months to go. You've got six months to get the price back up. And he's got a decent shareholding, so hopefully. Can I have the next question, please?
Chair, we return to questions from the floor. The next question is from Michael Sanderson. Please stand at the nearest microphone to ask your question.
Must be getting towards the end of the day. This is an ad lib. I didn't plan to ask this question. On the issue of energy, particularly nuclear energy. By way of example, you've got Germany, which is, I suppose, a renewable superpower. It's been dabbling in renewables for something like two decades. Their carbon footprint continues to go up. Just across the border, you've got nuclear France, which has been green for about half a century. Just using those two examples, renewables entrench. Fossil fuels, nuclear is green.
As far as potential investment goes, there is a company in America that is developing a reactor. It's a modular reactor, but not a small modular reactor. It has a capacity from 20 megawatts up to 1,000 megawatts using the same reactor vessel. Every component of this reactor can be built in a factory. In other words, it can be built, put on a truck, shipped aside, installed, so you don't have the Hinkley-type scenario. The key bloke behind this is a bloke by the name of Ed File, who developed— Can we get to the question? Yeah. That developed the reactors and nuclear submarines for the American submarine project. Is this the sort of thing that Macquarie would pursue aggressively?
We have not, at this point, had an appetite to go into nuclear energy in that way. We do have some small uranium trading, very small, I think, but.
Nuclear energy is not in our skill set. I've not at any point seen a proposal that that come into our strategy. Not to say never, but it is not part of our strategy at this time. Just taking on board the pushback you're getting. Thank you for the suggestion.
I've got one more question. One more, yeah. I'll make it my last. I have a few others. This might be a bit harsh, but it relates to CEO remuneration. It's probably aimed at—question's to Shemara, but it applies very well else on the board. I was going to use some complex data to question your very generous remuneration, but instead, I've opted for a thought experiment. That's what Einstein does, but I'm nowhere near that. Consider you're one of six people on an island.
There's a builder, an engineer, a teacher, a doctor, and a laborer, and yourself. What would you offer the other five in return for their services? What would entitle you to 250 times more of the real resources?
It is a very strange experiment because this is a country with 27 million people, much more resources than that. Our remuneration system is geared to rewarding people who add value to the company over the long run. We've had a string of highly successful CEOs who have been handsomely paid. That is true, but who've grown the company in ways that would not have been predicted when it began. Yes, people quibble with amounts on remuneration, but I personally defend, and all the directors do, the system. It's delivered for shareholders, and I'm sure that will continue to be the case.
I think we might go to the next question, please.
Chair, we return to the question submitted online. Our next question is from Qi Li. The question is, "Does or will Macquarie Bank offer shareholder benefits for home loan products similar to A&P Bank's home loan product, A&P First, with reduced rates? I had been a small retail shareholder for over 15 years. It may be a good feature to retain customers or gain market share in the home loan market in Australia."
Where we position our competitive offer in the market, I think it's a matter for Greg's business. Can you perhaps respond to that question, please?
Yeah, we've got no special arrangements. I think our rates are very competitive, and I think they're one of the most competitive in markets. There's no special arrangements, and we're not considered any.
Thank you. Next question, please.
Chair, there are no further question s.
Okay, thank you. As there are no further questions, I'll take this opportunity to remind all shareholders who have yet to cast their vote, if you could do so now, please. I'll ask now for a summary of the proxy voting to be shown on the slide, which I can't see. As you can see, the proxy votes were strongly in favor of resolutions two and four, strongly against item 5A. Because 5A was not passed, then 5B is not put to the meeting. Based on proxy voting, item three, that's the remuneration report, received slightly less than 75%. However, the result's sufficiently close that the full outcome won't be known precisely until after the polls have closed at the end of the meeting. If you've not cast your vote, I ask you to do so now.
MUFG Corporate Markets, our share registry, will act as returning officer and determine the results of the polls. Could everyone who wishes to vote ensure, please, that you do so right now? Thank you. Good to go. All right, thank you, everyone. The polls will now be closed. The results will be announced to the ASX later this afternoon. That concludes the business of this AGM, and I'll close the meeting. Please return the handsets at the registration desks. Thank you for your attendance and support. I look forward to seeing you next time. Bye-bye.