The conference is now being recorded. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Macquarie Group Limited 2023 full year result announcement. All participants are in a listen only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone pad. Now I'd like to hand the conference over to Sam Dobson, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Macquarie's 2023 full year results presentation. Before we begin, I would like to... On the line, we also have our group heads. At the end of today's presentation, as the operator mentioned, we'll have a Q&A session, and we're looking to conclude by about 11:15 A.M. With that, I'll hand over to Shemara. Thank you.
Thanks very much, Sam, and welcome and good morning everyone from me as well. As usual, we'll start this presentation by looking at the footprint of our business across our four operating groups. Those are, as long-term investors will know, our Australian digital banking business, BFS, our global asset manager, Macquarie Asset Management, our global Commodities and Global Markets business, and our global Macquarie Capital business that is a specialist advisory in capital solutions and balance sheet investment business in our areas of expertise. Across those four businesses, we get very good diversification, not just by geography but also by product exposure, and they all respond differently in different markets. We get a lot of resilience in our earnings through cycles as a result.
In this most recent cycle, which was conducive for particularly the Commodities and Global Markets business, but the market-facing businesses to an extent in general, we had 59% contribution from the market-facing businesses and 41% from the annuity style. Now, supporting those four operating groups are four very important central service groups that ensure, again, that we deliver strong results through cycles. Those are our legal and governance group and our risk management group that give us very strong second line review and also assist in executing in terms of initiatives we take. Then our financial management group, which is responsible not just for our financial and regulatory reporting and our engagement with external stakeholders, but also our funding and capital through cycles.
Lastly, our Corporate Operations Group that delivers our entire platform across technology, HR, premises, strategy, et cetera. All those eight areas together in this last financial year delivered, as you saw, a record result of AUD 5.182 billion, and that was up 10% on the previous financial year. The return on equity at 16.9% was down a bit on the 18.7% last year, but that was principally due to much increased capital position with our capital surplus now materially higher than it was at the end of last year, and we'll touch on that as we go through the presentation. I won't dwell on the half-on-half changes, but year-on-year, the contribution from our operating groups was also up nearly 10%.
It was up 9% on the previous financial year. That was made up of the annuity style businesses being down 17%, principally due to some large one-off items last financial year. In Macquarie Asset Management, we had the Macquarie Infrastructure Company contribution and large realization of green energy assets. In Commodities and Global Markets, we had the realization of our industrial and commercial meter business in the UK last year. The market-facing businesses were up 38% on the last year. That was principally driven by the contribution from Commodities and Global Markets, where we had elevated volatility and market price movements in commodities. Overall, we, as I said, on net profit, we're up 10%. Our operating income was also up 10%. Our earnings per share were up 6%.
The dividend per share is up 21% at the AUD 7.50 approved by our board. Our assets under management are also up 10% at AUD 870.8 billion. I'd note that we're now including our dry powder in assets under management for previous years as well as the current year to be consistent with global peers. The big drivers of that increase were investments made in the private markets managed funds and foreign exchange movements. That was partially offset by market movements impacting the public investments business. In terms of the geographic diversification of our income, Australia contributed 29%. We had 71% coming from outside Australia, with the Americas being the largest contributor, again at 38% this year.
I'd also note in terms of our now 20,500+ headcount, more than 51% of that is also outside Australia. In terms of the trends of growth in income in all of our regions, you can see on this slide the underlying trend is increase in all of our four regions. The Americas last year, as you will probably know, had a very large contribution from realizations in the Green Investment Group and some Commodities and Global Markets income. Turning then to look at each of the four operating groups and their contribution over the last year, starting with Macquarie Asset Management. Macquarie Asset Management contributed 23%, and that was down 23% on the previous year at just over AUD 2.3 billion.
As I mentioned, the reason for that drop is principally because last financial year we had the Macquarie Infrastructure Company and the large Green Investment Group realization contributions, which didn't repeat. Despite that, the underlying franchise is growing very well. In the private market side, we have record equity under management over AUD 200 billion, and we had record raisings of over AUD 38 billion compared to the record last year of AUD 27 billion. We have dry powder of nearly AUD 35 billion to invest as we potentially go into what could be a better investing environment. On the public investment side, the assets under management are down slightly, and that's mostly driven by market movements, plus the rotation from equities to fixed income that we've seen happen over this last year, partially offset by foreign exchange.
That business franchise has also stepped up a lot with the acquisitions made over the last financial year, and I'd note that 70% of its assets are beating their benchmark on a three-year basis. Turning to Banking and Financial Services, it contributed 12% over this last year of the net profit, and it was up 20% on the previous year to just over AUD 1.2 billion earnings. That was driven by strong growth across the entire platform. The home loans were up by 21%, the business banking up by 13%, the funds on platform up by 4%, and importantly, our deposit book growing by about 30% to support all of that.
A couple of things I'd note is that in our growth in our books, not just home loans, but all of them, we're very focused on high-quality growth in terms of good credits and good returns. The average LVR at origination remained around 65% and the average dynamic LVR at about 55% for home loans. I'd also note with the deposits, the diversity of the sources from which we have our deposits. Turning to Commodities and Global Markets, this was the largest contributor to net profit contribution at 57% this year. That was up 54% from last year at just over AUD 6 billion of contribution. We had solid contribution consistent again from the asset finance business and also the financial markets business that grew their contribution.
That was in areas like foreign exchange and interest rates where we benefited from volatility and from client engagement. In the futures business, a strong step up from significantly higher interest in commission revenues. The biggest contributor was the commodities business, where we had both strong risk management income across areas like gas and power, global oil and resources, and substantially increased contribution from inventory management and trading, particularly given demand, supply dynamics impacting North American gas and power opportunities. Macquarie Capital contributed 8% of our net profit contribution. That was down 47% at just over AUD 800 million. The main drivers there were that we had weaker market activity compared to a very strong prior year, which impacted fee revenue and capital solutions advisory and capital raising revenue.
On the principal side, we had slightly lower investment income, but we continued very good investing across particularly private credit and also across equity and had stronger private credit income underneath that. The private credit book is now at, I think, AUD 18 billion. We invested about AUD 7 billion over the year.
We saw a slowing in deployment in the H2 , so probably about three and a half in the H1 , two and a half in the H2 , as the environment was tighter. I should have mentioned in relation to BFS as well, Alex will give more detail, but the growth in our home loan book also we saw slower in the H2 than the H1 . Those results from the four operating groups are supported by a very conservative and strong funding and capital position.
In relation to our funded balance sheet, that remains strong with our term funding continuing to comfortably exceed our term assets. Over this last year, deposits across the group grew 33% to AUD 134.5 billion. We also issued another AUD 23.3 billion of term lending, coupled with the AUD 48 billion+ that we did last financial year. We've done over AUD 70 billion of term funding in the last couple of years. Again, as Alex will elaborate, we're very strongly positioned now not to need to go to markets for some time if that were the case in terms of meeting our funding needs. On the capital front, our APRA voluntary capital surplus has increased from the half year AUD 12.2 billion to AUD 12.6 billion at the end of the full year.
That's after absorbing AUD 2.4 billion of capital requirement due to the APRA unquestionably strong reforms. I'd particularly note that our capital surplus at the end of last financial year was at AUD 10.7 billion. We're now at AUD 12.6 after absorbing AUD 2.4 billion of regulatory capital requirements. The drivers in this half in terms of increasing the capital have been clearly the earnings net of the dividend. We also had AUD 1 billion of capital released from the business requirements, and there's more detail of that you can see here, where the biggest contributor was AUD 1.7 billion of release we had from the Commodities and Global Markets, as we had a reduction in credit risk capital due to lower commodity prices and exposures.
That AUD 1.7 billion release was absorbed to some extent by the other businesses. Macquarie Asset Management absorbed about a half a billion in terms of co-investments and seed investments to grow our offerings and our franchise. That was offset slightly by realizations in the green energy, Green Investment Group area. In BFS, we absorbed about another AUD 300 million in capital in growing our home loans and our business banking books, partially offset by runoff in the vehicle leasing. In Macquarie Capital, we absorbed about AUD 500 million-AUD 600 million in investment, as I said, in the private credit lending activity, but also in some targeted equity investments in our areas of expertise and focus in that business.
With that, we are ending the year with very strong regulatory ratios well above APRA's three minimums. I'd particularly note our Liquidity Coverage Ratio at the moment is sitting at 214%. Those ratios ordinarily, of course, run off unless there's issuance as the funding runs down, the liquid funding. I would also note in terms of dividends, as I said, that the Board has approved a dividend of AUD 4.50, 40% franked for the year-end dividend. That results in a full year dividend of AUD 7.50, 40% franked, which is up from the AUD 6.22 declared for the last financial year. The last thing before I hand over to Alex is just updating on some of the Board changes that we've had recently.
First of all, Sue Lloyd-Hurwitz, who will be well known to investors as the CEO, retiring CEO of Mirvac, will be joining our board effective the 1st of June onto the group board, and then following approval at the AGM, will also become a director of the bank board. Nicola Wakefield Evans, who has been our longest serving director, has also confirmed that she will seek re-election at the AGM, which will happen in July. I think she's expected to continue on our board in 2024. I'll hand over to Alex to take you through the results in more detail.
Thanks, Shemara, and good morning from me as well. As Shemara said, I'll now take you through some more of the detail of the financial results for March 2023, and also some of the other aspects of financial management across the group. Starting with the income statement, I thought I'd start by looking at the H2 in comparison with the H1 and then move on to the full year. From a H1 viewpoint, if you look at net operating income, it was up 21% for the H1 in comparison with the H1 . The key drivers of that were a 50% increase in net interest and trading income, a AUD 506 million increase in fees and commission income, partly offset by a reduction in investment income.
We talked about this at the half in terms of those realizations that were skewed to the H1 of the year. In combination with that, expenses for the half were up 16%. Tax rate was slightly up based on the composition of income. As a result, the group delivered a profit of AUD 2.877 billion for the H2 , which of course is a record, a record half. Turning now to the full year result and bringing together the first and the H2 , you can see operating income for the year was up 10%.
That was driven by a 53% increase in net interest and trading income, offset by a 5% reduction in fee and commission income, a reduction in the investment related disposal proceeds during the year, and a lower contribution from joint ventures and associates coming through the group in the full year. Expenses were up 12% for the period. The key driver there is really employment expenses, there's a few things happening there. We saw an average increase in headcount of 12% across the group, skewed toward the central service areas and to the Banking and Financial Services group. We also saw wage increases coming through the group. The other thing we see is an increased profit share and share-based payments expense coming through consistent with the underlying performance of the group.
Effective tax rate up slightly from where we were at the full year FY2022. Bringing that all together, an underlying net profit across the group of AUD 5.182 billion, up 10% on where we were this time last year. I'll now turn to each of the operating groups and give you a little more detail about the performance over the course of the year. Starting with the Asset Management business, you can see the net profit contribution of AUD 2.342 billion, down 23% from where we were in FY2022. The key drivers there are lower proceeds associated with realizations across the group, particularly realizations through our green energy portfolio, so fewer material realizations.
The other thing we saw, obviously, is the non-repeat of the gains from the disposition of MIC in the U.S. in it, which came through in FY2022. Up in operating expenses associated with the platform. Those reductions were offset by a 75% increase in performance fees, largely coming out of MiFID II in Europe and MIP III in the United States. We also saw the non-repeat of acquisition-related expenses associated with Waddell & Reed, AMP, and CPG through FY2022. We've also set out the split from a base fee viewpoint. Base fees in the private market business up 14%, up AUD 164 million, and that really reflects the strong period of investing, AUD 27.2 billion worth of investment made through the year.
That was almost offset by the reduction in base fees coming through our public investments business that relate to market movements, and as Shemara said, the switching of portfolios away from equity investment portfolios toward fixed interest. In terms of the underlying drivers, the assets under management up nearly AUD 871 billion at March 2023. As we said before, that now includes the dry powder, which makes it consistent from a comparability viewpoint with where other firms are around the world. Turning now to the second of our annuity-style businesses, the Banking and Financial Services business. A really pleasing result. Up 20% from where we were this time last year. You can see the drivers of that.
From a personal banking viewpoint, a AUD 206 million increased contribution. That really was driven by a 31% average growth in mortgage volumes over the course of the year, albeit slowing in the H1 of the year as we foreshadowed at the half-year results. We saw an increased contribution from our business bank, AUD 184 million. That reflects the growth in loan volumes. It also reflects the growth in deposit volumes and improving margins in that business.
An increase of AUD 191 million in terms of the contribution from the wealth channel in that in that business, reflecting a growth of 13% in terms of average volumes, improved margins associated with those with those deposits, and an improvement in average funds on the platform through the year. You can see a step-up in the credit and other impairment impairment charges, and there's a couple of things happening there. Firstly, the macroeconomic outlook has deteriorated relative to where we were. The other thing is we've weighted slightly more to the downside scenarios.
We also had, you might recall, in the FY2022 year, the release of provisions associated with the sale of the dealer finance business and the reduction in the car loan portfolio. That didn't come through in FY2023. You can also see the step-up in expenses through the year, 21% step-up in expenses. Really, expenses associated with driving the growth of the business with the investment that the team is making in the data capabilities and the technology platform that supports the business, both in terms of front office customer experience, together with the capabilities necessary to meet the obligations that we have in that business. We've also seen a step-up in regulatory and compliance spend through the course of the year.
Really pleasing result, up 20% from this time last year. In terms of the drivers, with the exception of the motor vehicle business, everything moving in the right direction in terms of growth in both loan assets, deposits to support the business and also funds on the platform. Now turning to the first of our market-facing businesses, the Commodities and Global Markets business. Obviously a tremendous result, up 54% from FY2022. Really reflective of the opportunities the business saw through the year to grow the customer franchise, and I'll talk a bit more about them, that in a moment, to provide solutions to those customers. Obviously, the market conditions provided opportunity to manage those customer positions on balance sheet and generate trading income for the group. Really a tremendous result.
We have seen those conditions taper off a little bit in the Q4 or our Q4 , the Q1 of calendar 2023. In terms of the components of the movement, you can see commodities up 82%. Risk management income for the year up 50%, and that really reflects the work that the team is doing with customers, particularly in the global gas, power, and emissions business, in the global oil business, and the global resources business. We also saw a step-up of $1.6 billion in inventory management and trading coming through there, reflecting those demand and supply imbalances that we've talked about, particularly in the North American market now for many results. Financial markets up $114 million, a little under 10%.
A really strong contribution from financial markets, particularly in the H1 coming through as we saw lots of volatility in interest rates and FX markets. There are opportunities to extend credit in that business which we were very pleased to provide and provided opportunities to grow the revenue base. We didn't have the repeat of the gain on the disposal of the commercial industrial meters business in the UK. We also had a step-up in expenses coming through the group, about 22% step-up in expenses, really associated with the investment that we're making in the platform to support the growth of that business and to support the obligations that business has around the world in relation to regulatory compliance data and so on.
A really pleasing result for the group. Just as we've done in the past, just looking at some of the hopefully the slides that help to contextualize some of the result over the period, and starting with the chart that's on the screen now, which is obviously indicative of some of the volatility we saw through the year. This is the volatility we saw in European gas prices and in US gas prices. You can see from about the middle of FY2022 all the way through until the end of calendar 2022, we saw a very volatile period. That provided opportunities for us to grow our customer base and provide solutions to those customers to help manage that volatility.
It also provided good opportunities from a trading perspective for the group. As we talked about at the operational briefing, the Q3 in particular, exceptional trading results through CGM. Those have normalized, if you like, in the Q1 of FY2023, back towards where we saw prior to the H1 of FY2022. In terms of a chart that will be familiar to people, obviously on the right-hand side, you can see the growth in customer numbers across CGM. Really pleasing to see that underlying customer franchise continue to grow. Where the team's seen opportunities particularly is in the European gas power and emissions market, in our agricultural sector, as well as our resources, upstream resources. There's been good growth in the customer numbers there.
On the left-hand side, obviously that's reflected, continued to be reflected in the operating income of the group, which is very much skewed towards income associated with our underlying client franchise. That growing client franchise deal with clients more often in more locations, really driving the opportunities for the group. Finally, in terms of the capital position for CGM, on the left-hand side, you can see the capital position over the last few periods. You can see the reduction in credit capital from at March 2022 all the way to March 2023, reflective of prices coming down and volumes coming down over the course of that period.
Market risk, as we've talked about through the year, stepped up a little bit as the, as the size of the opportunity and the size of the business increased. You can see market risk capital a little higher than what it was back in March 2021 and previous periods. You can see the impact of that, those trading opportunities on the daily P&L chart on the right-hand side of this page, which is a reasonably familiar shape to what we've had in the last couple of years, albeit flatter and slightly more skewed, further to the right of the Y-axis.
Still very much skewed to the positive, which is reflective of the focus that the group has around client activity, and slightly higher in terms of the average daily P&L, which really relates to the opportunities the team saw during the course of the year. In terms of Macquarie Capital, of the last of our business units. Macquarie Capital, a more challenging period, down 47% for the year, just over AUD 800 million worth of contribution. You can see where the drivers are there. The fee and commission income down 27% over the period. Investment related income, lower contribution than the prior year and obviously skewed to the H1 of the year.
Operating expenses up both in terms of continue to invest in those sectors where we have really deep capability across the world, so great opportunity I think for us to grow there. Also, increased investment in the platform to support, the business activity. Partially offset by an increase in the contribution from the private credit portfolio. In average terms, the private credit portfolio is up, just over AUD 5 billion. Consistent sort of margin profile through that business.
That, that increase in contribution is partly offset by an increase in the ECL contribution, both reflective of the macro environment and the slightly larger a higher weighting to the downside scenarios, but also reflective of a couple of specific provisions in the private credit portfolio, where we've made specific provision against the performance of those credits. In terms of the underlying drivers, Macquarie Capital, capital alongside its clients grew over the period. You can see where the growth is. It's really around the private credit portfolio, the dark green at the bottom. The team also saw opportunities in the digital infrastructure space, together with the infrastructure space more generally to deploy capital, and we hope that those investments pay off into future periods.
On the right-hand side, we gave you a composition of the private credit portfolio in terms of the sector exposures that the private credit portfolio has. As we've said in the past, very consistent with sectors where we think we have deep global expertise, which allows us to generate transactions on a bilateral basis and at good risk adjusted returns. Turning to some of the other aspects of the group, the regulatory compliance and technology spend, a feature of the results over the last few years, and it continues to be so for FY2023. From a regulatory compliance viewpoint, you can see up 33% on where we were for the full year 2022. That really reflects the growth in the regulatory change.
There is a lot of change going on across the regulatory landscape around the world. That occasions spend on new projects and of course some of that's flowing through into the BAU compliance spend as we continue to invest and improve the platform around the world and ensure we meet our obligations. On the technology side, up 26% in terms of annual expenditure on technology. Just to give you a breakdown, about a quarter of that relates to changing the group, and about Q3 of that relates to running the group.
Just by way of comparison, when Nicol Sorbara presented a few years ago at the operational briefing, you'll recall that at that time, we talked about 19% of the spend coming through the change of group activities, with the balance on run the group. Of course, that change activity is a feature of what we're doing with our technology investment. Our balance sheet, as Shemara mentioned, another strong period of fundraising in terms of term funding. Just over AUD 23 billion of term funding, split reasonably evenly between the bank and the non-group. Coupled with last year's AUD 48, over AUD 70 billion worth of raising over the last couple of years.
We continue to work on diversifying the funding sources for the group, this year we're delighted to welcome another 200 investors to who own debt exposures to the group. Really pleased to say that the term funding from our point of view, weighted average term funding, still out at four years and nine months. Our deposit story is a familiar one, I'm sure to everyone. It's been another strong year for Greg and the team in BFS, with a growth of up to AUD 135 billion.
We continue to diversify the customers that we're serving and improve the product offering to those customers across all of our deposit products, and in particular our transaction and savings deposits and our term deposits over the course of this year. The loan and lease portfolio up 18%, largely reflecting the growth in the home loan portfolio, the business loan portfolio. At the bottom of the page there, you can see the growth in Macquarie Capital's private credit portfolio. Equity investments at $9.6 billion. The key drivers here really are investments where, that we're using the balance sheet to seed future future strategies for the private markets business in MAM.
The other thing you see is increased contributions across investments across transport in the in the aviation space and of course that digital infrastructure and infrastructure story I talked about within Macquarie Capital. From a regulatory viewpoint, as I mentioned before, a lot going on. I guess most significantly over the course of the last 12 months, we've had the implementation of the Basel III unquestionably strong reforms coming through that are implemented on the first of January, 2023, which is great to have a long project actually come to conclusion. The second thing is just in relation to the German dividend trading matter. Investigations authorities continue with their investigations in Germany in relation to the dividend trading matter.
Whilst nothing particularly material from a Macquarie Group perspective has happened over the course of the last period of time, we did take the opportunity to update our disclosure just to know that some of our former and current employees have, we've been notified that they'll be interviewed in relation to that matter. We continue to provide for that matter, and we'll monitor those provisions going forward. In terms of the Basel III CT1 ratio for the bank, really strong 13.7%, and 18.4% on a harmonized basis. As Shemara mentioned, liquidity and cash, the cash and liquidity position on the balance sheet continues to be very strong.
The LCR at very elevated levels, consistent with the fact that we've been raising funding ahead of the obligations to repay things like the Term Funding Facility for the sake of example, and so on. We'll see over time, whilst that elevated level exists today, that level will come down as we come to a more normalized level going forward. From a capital management viewpoint, the only thing to note really on this page is that in addition to the declaration of the dividend today, the board has also enacted the DRP at a zero discount and will be buying shares on market to satisfy any applications under the DRP.
In relation to the MREP, we will also be buying shares on market in relation to the MREP grants. There will be a share sale facility available for staff who have stock vested in their hands at the end of this period. With that, I'll hand back to Shemara. Thank you.
Thanks very much, Alex. I now will take you through the outlook, starting with the short-term outlook for the period ahead. As usual, we'll look at this based on each of our four operating groups. Starting again with Macquarie Asset Management, our expectation is that base fees will be broadly in line with FY2023, and investment related income will be significantly down, principally due to the large gains we had in FY2023 on green energy asset realizations. In Banking and Financial Services, we expect growth across the platform in the loan portfolio, in the deposits and the platform volumes. Of course, market dynamics will continue to drive margins. We also expect to keep investing in terms of volume growth, in terms of technology, and also in terms of regulatory requirements.
Finally, we will continue to monitor provisioning in terms of expected credit losses, et cetera. Macquarie Capital, subject of course to market conditions, we expect transaction activity to be up on what was a challenging year in FY2023, and we're expecting investment related income to be significantly up, principally due to the growth in the private credit book, partially offset by the timing of realizations in terms of investments that we have. We are committed to continuing to deploy capital in both equity and credit across the areas of Macquarie Capital's deep expertise. With Commodities and Global Markets, we are expecting a continued consistent contribution from the asset finance business and the financial markets business. In relation to the commodities business, we obviously benefited from exceptionally strong trading conditions during FY2023.
For FY2024, what we're saying is we expect Commodities income to be up on FY2022, subject of course to any volatility that we see during the year. In terms of Central, for both, compensation ratio and effective tax rate, we expect it to be in line with historical levels. That is as ever subject to a range of factors, which include market conditions, global economic conditions like inflation, interest rates, volatility events, and the impact of geopolitical events. Completion of period and reviews and completion rate of transactions, the geographic composition of our income and the impact of foreign exchange, and potential tax or regulatory changes and tax uncertainties.
Given all that, we continue to maintain a cautious stance with a conservative approach, as you've seen, to capital funding and liquidity that we think positions us to respond in the current environment. Turning to the medium term, as we've said, we remain of the view that we are well-positioned to deliver superior performance over the medium term, given the diversification we have across our four operating business lines, which are exposed to different thematics and are also very complementary to each other in terms of how they respond to underlying economic conditions, as we saw during FY2023, with different businesses responding differently, and are also very well-positioned for growth, structurally well-positioned over the medium term.
Those four businesses, of course, are our Australian very customer experience focused digital banking offering in BFS, which still has small market share in all its business lines in Australia, where its focus is. Our three global businesses, which also are still small in terms of the size of the markets they're addressing and servicing on a global basis being our asset management business with a focus on private markets, real assets, but also a good public investments footprint. The Commodities and Global Markets business and our Macquarie Capital business focusing on areas of specialist expertise in the main regions in which it operates around the world. That is, of course, supported by our ongoing investment in our platform in terms of technology and regulatory spend to support the group's delivery over the medium term.
Our independent proven risk management framework and culture and our strong and conservative balance sheet. That has helped us over the medium term, deliver strong results. If we look at the 17-year average, the annuity style businesses have delivered 22%. In this last year, they delivered 18%, principally due to the extra capital absorbed currently in Macquarie Asset Management, both in particular seed and co-investment positions, and also the recent acquisitions that are coming through. Then in the market-facing businesses, we've delivered a 17% ROE average over the last 17 years. In this last year delivered 28%, particularly due to the strong contribution from the commodities as lines in the Commodities and Global Markets business. The whole group together has delivered on average, 14% ROE over the last 17 years.
This year delivered 16.9% after, as Alex and I have mentioned, taking into account the AUD 12.6 billion of surplus capital that we're holding. Higher contributions obviously from the operating groups at the 18% and 28% and 16.9% net. With that, I will hand back to Sam to take your questions. Thanks.
Thanks, Shemara. I'll now hand over to the operator for Q&A. Thank you very much.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from John Storey with UBS. Please go ahead.
Thanks so much, and thank you, Shemara, for giving us the opportunity to ask a few questions. My first question is just on the dividend, of AUD 4.50 in the H2 of the year. How should the market be reading into this just in terms of potential inorganic growth opportunities?
Yeah. Thanks, John, for that question. The dividend basically is in the middle of the range that the board has for its dividend payment of 50%-70% at 60%. I think what we're saying is that we had a very good year, and we want to share that with our shareholders. We're paying 60%, which is up from the.