Okay, I think it's now 9:00 A.M. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, fellow shareholders, colleagues, and visitors. Welcome to our twenty twenty-four annual general meeting, and thank you for taking the time to join us in person at our Sydney office and online. I begin by acknowledging the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, traditional custodians of the land on which this AGM is being held, and pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging. My name is Alan Watson, and I'm the Chair of Pinnacle Investment Management Group Limited. Before we begin with today's agenda, I would like to introduce my fellow board members. First, on my right, we have Ian Macoun, our Managing Director. Next to Ian, we have Ms. Deborah Beale, then Mr. Andrew Chambers, Ms. Lorraine Berends, and Ms. Christa Lenard. Also here today is our Company Secretary and Chief Legal and Commercial Officer, Mr.
Calvin Kwok, Mr. Kyle McIntyre, our Head of Wholesale and Retail Distribution, Ms. Caitlin Priestley, our Sustainability Manager, and Mr. Dan Longman, who is our Chief Financial Officer. I would also like to welcome the company's Auditor, Rod Balding, and Director Rebecca Otto from PricewaterhouseCoopers, who are here to answer any questions that shareholders may have in relation to the twenty twenty-four financial statements. The next slide contains important information and disclaimers in relation to the presentation, which I encourage shareholders to read. I now turn to the agenda for today's meeting, as shown on the screen. The meeting will commence with formal business. After that, Ian will provide an update from the Managing Director. I've been informed by the Company Secretary that we have a quorum, and I now declare the meeting open.
I'm also advised that there are no apologies recorded prior to the commencement of this meeting, and that the notice of the meeting was sent to all registered members within the notice period required. I now table the notice of meeting, and unless there are any objections, I'll take the notice convening this meeting as read. I will now proceed with the formal business of the meeting in the order that it appears in the notice of meetings. There are five items of business to attend to, being the tabling of the twenty twenty-four financial statements, the adoption of the remuneration report, election and re-election of directors, renewal of the Omnibus Incentive Plan, and issue of shares to Andrew Chambers as part of that Omnibus Incentive Plan. Shareholders may ask questions prior to each resolution being put to the vote, particularly in relation to that resolution.
We will also have some question time at the end for... after Ian's presentation for more general questions about business. Shareholders attending in person, please raise your blue or yellow card if you would like to ask a question. Shareholders joining online, please click the Q&A icon, select the topic your question relates to from the dropdown list, type your question in the text box. Once you've finished typing, please hit the Send button. Shareholders joining online who would like to ask verbal questions, please follow the instructions below the broadcast window. You'll be placed into a queue to ask your question. When it is your turn to ask a question, the moderator will advise you to introduce yourself and ask your question.
I request shareholders to limit themselves to two questions and only ask questions at this time in respect of matters relevant to the item of business being considered. Questions may be moderated or amalgamated if there are multiple questions on the same topic. As I mentioned before, Ian will be providing a full update after the formal business, and there will be opportunity for shareholders to ask general questions after that. Persons who are entitled to vote are shareholders, representatives and attorneys of the shareholders, and proxy holders, all of whom should be holding blue admission cards if you are attending in person. On the reverse of your blue admission card is your voting card and instructions. Please also ensure you print your name where indicated and sign the voting card.
When you have completed your voting card, please lodge it in a ballot box to ensure your votes are counted. If you require any assistance, please raise your hand. If you're voting online, please click on the Vote icon to access your voting card. Please select For, Against, or Abstain on each resolution. Please note there is no Enter or Send button, as votes are automatically recorded. You may change your vote up till the time I declare voting closed. As noted in the notice of meetings, resolutions will be decided by a poll, which I now declare open. I will put four resolutions to the meeting shortly. All valid proxies received have been recorded, and these will be reported to the ASX after the meeting. For shareholders' information, we will display on the screen, prior to the consideration of each resolution, the proxy voting for each resolution.
Okay. The first item of formal business on the notice of meeting is to consider the financial statements of the company for the year end June thirtieth, twenty twenty-four, together with the directors' report and the auditors' report, as set out in the twenty twenty-four annual report, which have been made available to shareholders. I formally table the financial statements of the company for the year end thirty June 2024 and the related directors' report, directors' declaration, and auditors' report. I will take all of these reports as read.
If anyone has any questions in relation to the financial statements, the content of PwC's audit report for the year end June thirtieth, twenty twenty-four, the accounting policies adopted by the company in relation to the preparation of financial statements or the independence of the auditor in the conduct of the audit, please submit them now or raise your hand. Okay, there are no questions. Thank you. The next item of business is to consider the adoption of the remuneration report for the twenty twenty-four financial year. The remuneration report is contained within the twenty twenty-four annual report and forms part of the directors' report. The remuneration report incorporates information required by Section 300A of the Corporations Act, and sets out the remuneration policy for the company, and reports the remuneration arrangements in place for key management personnel, including the directors.
Section 250R(2) of the Corporations Act requires companies to put a resolution to their members that the remuneration report contained in the directors' report be adopted. If anyone has questions in relation to this resolution, please submit them now or raise your hand. There are no questions. I now put the resolution to the meeting. The number of proxies received by the company as at 48 hours prior to the meeting for the resolution are now shown on the screen. Please cast your vote on the voting card. Thank you. Election and re-election of directors. The meeting now needs to consider the election and re-election of directors in accordance with the Constitution. Under the Constitution, any director appointed by the director holds office only until the end of the next following general meeting and is eligible for election at that meeting.
Krista Leonard was appointed as a director by the directors, effective from second of August 2024. Accordingly, she is required to stand for election at this year's AGM. The explanatory statement attached to the notice of meeting provides information in relation to Krista. In summary, Krista has twenty years' experience in advising and representing clients on a wide range of contentious and non-contentious employment law and HR matters, including discrimination law, industrial disputation, enterprise bargaining, and day-to-day employment law advisory, managing psychosocial welfare and organizational change, workplace investigations, and alternative dispute resolutions. Excuse me. If anyone has questions in relation to this resolution, please submit them now or raise your hand.
Alan, we do have a question submitted by Mr. Stephen Mayne in relation to this resolution. The question asks questions around what's the reason for the little change in board size and composition, and whether you and Krista could comment on the recruitment process on her becoming a director and just her share ownership levels.
Okay. Well, let me take the. So the first question was on the stability of the board over the past few years. As since we, and we've got Steve here, but Steve will obviously be able to tell us some of the history. But when we started as Wilsons, we then changed and rolled up into Pinnacle in 2016. So that was when a new board really came together, and it's been pretty stable from that period on. Gerard Brad- Oh, excuse me. Everyone should turn off their phones. Gerard Bradley retired from the board last year, and we've been. Since then, we undertook a wide process to find someone to join the board. This process took us about a year.
Everyone in the board was involved, so everyone in the board met with Krista at various times. We set out various criteria that we were searching for, and perhaps I, it might be helpful for me to share them with you. First thing that we all agreed upon is that the person that would join the board had to be someone we could all trust, and the way we decide it was that would be someone that has probably worked with them in the past. And Krista has been known to the firm, both as a professional lawyer in the past, and Ian, in particular, has worked with her for quite some years.
Secondly, we determined that we would most likely want a female director, and that's as we see the ASX continuing to move to board representations of up to 40% in due course. We wanted to have that in place as quickly as possible. Thirdly, the person must bring skills that are relevant to our growth agenda. If you think about what we're trying to grow, it's all about affiliates, more affiliates, both here and internationally, and that's about people. And having someone on our board, who is perhaps one of the most skilled people in Australia on managing people issues, which run from legal to HR to psychological, in a business that's all around people, is critically important to us, and is a skill that basically we didn't have on the board previously.
So it's hugely additive, and I think I can speak on behalf of my other non-executives to say Krista's already made a strong contribution in that area as a non-executive. And finally, and again, with respect to our existing NEDs, it was important that the demographic of the new people or new person was significantly younger than us.
Shock!
And, you know, we're building this company for the next ten years, next twenty years. So we want to put in place a demographic of people who are. I'm not going to use the exact number, but I think it's transparently obvious, younger than the rest of us. And I think-
Not that obvious.
But I think that's-
Still.
But I think that's important that shareholders understand that we're building this demographically for the future as well. The final thing that attracted us to trying to persuade Krista to join us is she's built her own firm. So one of the things you may not know is that she was a very successful partner at K&L Gates, and then she was a founding partner of Kingston Reid. And what that meant is, similar to what our affiliates do quite often when they leave a big institution and set up their own firm, Krista's actually done that, and she's undertaken many of the challenges and stresses that our affiliates face in that process of building her own firm. And in that way, she's very uniquely skilled on our board as a non-executive who has built that business. So I think that's. It's a great question.
I hope that's answered it. Any further questions before I put the motion to the... Are you ready for us to go to the, Mr. Secretary, can I proceed? Yep. Okay. So I now put the resolution to the meeting. The number of proxies received by the company as at forty-eight hours prior to the meeting is now shown on the screen. Please cast your vote on the voting card. The constitution also requires that one-third of the company's directors eligible for rotation stand for re-election every three years. The directors to retire by rotation at each AGM are those that have been longest in office since their election or last re-election. Deborah Beale and Andrew Chambers are retiring from office and offer themselves for re-election. The explanatory statement attached to the notice of meeting provides information in relation to Deb.
In summary, Deb has had a distinguished career in the finance industry, having worked for Merrill Lynch and Ernst & Young, and has broad experience in corporate governance, risk management, government, and public relations. If anyone has questions in relation to this resolution, please raise your hand. Okay, there are no questions. I will now put the resolution shown on the screen to the meeting: that Deborah Beale, who retires from the office of Director by rotation, being eligible, offers herself for re-election, be re-elected as a director. The number of proxies received by the company as at forty-eight hours prior to this meeting for the resolution are now shown on the screen. Please cast your vote on the voting card. Thank you. Turning to Andrew. The explanatory statement attached to the notice of meeting provides further information to Andrew.
In summary, Andrew is currently responsible for leading the company's institutional and international distribution divisions, and has been a senior executive with the company since 2008. If anyone has questions in relation to this resolution, please submit them now or raise your hand. I will now put the resolution to the meeting: that Andrew Chambers, who retires from office of Director by rotation, being eligible, offers himself for re-election and be re-elected as a director. The number of proxies received by the company as at 48 hours prior to this meeting for the resolution are now shown on screen. Please cast your vote on the voting card. Okay, the next item of business is to consider the approval of the renewal of the Omnibus Incentive Plan.
The board remains determined to sustain an environment that promotes the continuation of the success of the business and believes that this is inextricably linked to its ability to attract and retain a consistently high-quality management team, operating in a flexible and entrepreneurial environment, within which individual behaviors and interests of the leadership of the executive group are directly aligned with external shareholders through common long-term equity ownership. The plan constitutes a set of long-term incentive arrangements that provides the ability to offer options, performance rights, and loan-funded shares to employees, and this was first approved by shareholders at the company's 2018 annual general meeting. If anyone has questions in relation to this resolution, please submit them now or raise your hand. Thank you. There are no questions in relation to this resolution. I will now put the resolution as shown on the screen to the meeting.
The number of proxies received by the company as at 48 hours prior to the meeting for the resolution are now shown on screen. Please cast your vote. Sorry, it's there now on the screen. Please cast your votes. Thank you. The next item of business is to consider the issue of shares to Andrew, Andrew Chambers, under the Omnibus Incentive Plan. Shareholder approval is being sought to grant 100,000 loan shares to Mr. Chambers. These loan shares form part of the company's FY 2024 remuneration program and are proposed to be issued on the same terms as the long-term incentive grants issued to other staff, except that the issue price will be determined after receipt of shareholder approval, noting that the price of grants are based on volume-weighted average price, VWAP, for the five trading days immediately prior to issue.
If anyone has questions in relation to this resolution, please submit them now or raise your hand. There are no questions. Thank you. I will now put the resolution shown on the screen to the meeting. The number of proxies received by the company as at forty-eight hours prior to the meeting for the resolution now shown on screen. Please cast your vote on the voting card. Please ensure that you have cast your votes on each of the resolutions. Okay. Shareholders in the room attending in person, please lodge your completed voting cards in the ballot box, which is coming round, and either raise your hand or type a message in the Q&A box if you require more time to complete your card. Yep. Anyone else to lodge a card?
Anyone else?
Anybody else?
All good online.
Okay, so everyone in the room and Mr. Secretary online, can I, may I declare the... Okay, I now declare the poll closed. The results of the poll will be announced to the ASX as soon as they're available. I thank you for your attendance. That concludes the formal part of this meeting. I'll now hand over to Ian for an update from the Managing Director.
Thanks. Thanks, Alan, and good morning, all. Just have next slide, please. So this slide shows the main topics that I plan to address today. Firstly, I'll review the key themes and outcomes for our company for the twenty twenty-four financial year. I'll briefly review the financial results for the twenty twenty-four financial year, then provide an update on developments during the first quarter of the new twenty twenty-five financial year. I'll elaborate on our growth agenda and why we are confident we can continue to execute on our strategy of increasing the diversity and robustness of the business, while delivering strong average annual rates of growth.
I'll explain how we've created an excellent platform from which we can continue to grow, both in Australia and internationally, in a variety of ways, with three mutually reinforcing horizons of growth, whilst being robust to the kinds of external adversity experienced in the 2020, 2022, and 2023 financial years. I'll provide a brief update on our most recent affiliates, and I'll share some detail on the strong progress we've made in the vitally important area of corporate sustainability and the great work of the PNI Foundation. The slide now showing on the screen has been extracted from our annual results presentation of the first of August. It sets out how we summarize the key themes and outcomes for the company for the 2024 financial year. For quite some time now, we have been emphasizing our strategy of further increasing the diversity of our business.
Our momentum in both private markets, asset classes, and internationally, has underpinned a year in which we have achieved robust growth in funds under management, in revenue, and in earnings. We delivered record opening funds under management of AUD 110.1 billion as we moved into the new 2025 financial year. That was up 20% on one year earlier and up 10% over the six months since thirty-first of December. We delivered net profit after tax for the 2024 financial year of AUD 90.4 million, up 18% on the previous year. Earnings per share of AUD 0.455, up 17%, and dividends of AUD 0.42 per share, up 17% on FY 2023. As I mentioned, we achieved continuing growth in private markets and other alternative strategies during the year. International distribution momentum is building.
Our overall retail net inflows were strong, despite weakness in investor appetite in public equities over the first three quarters. Our net Horizon 2 spend reduced as expected as revenues grew, demonstrating operating leverage across the platform in the second half of the financial year, and many of our affiliates produced continuing strong investment performance, resulting in performance fee contributions from a diverse set of strategies. I'll provide further detail on our profit, FUM, and fund flows shortly. Slides 24 and 25 elaborate these themes. In point one, net inflows into private markets assets represented 57% of total net inflows for the year. This is the first year that private markets' inflows exceeded public markets' inflows, and private markets FUM represented AUD 22.8 billion or 21% of total FUM at thirtieth of June. That's up from AUD 1.5 billion eight years ago.
Looking at point 2, more than $18 billion of our FUM now comes from more than 40 countries outside of Australia. Approximately $7 billion or 70% of total net inflows for FY 2024 was from international investors. This is a very strong platform for future growth in FUM from investors outside of Australia. To point 3, retail inflows. Despite challenging conditions for the first three quarters of the financial year for public equities, our diverse product set enables strong retail inflows of $3.9 billion, including $2.3 billion into private markets asset classes and $1.3 billion into listed credit. Slide 25, please.
In theme four, our net Horizon 2 spend reduced from a net cost of AUD 7 million in the first half to AUD 4.5 million in the second half of the FY 2024 financial year. Look at theme five, investment performance. 85% of affiliate strategies with a track record of five years or longer have outperformed over the five-year period to 30th June 2024. More than 25 strategies, representing 35% of our total FUM, have the ability to deliver performance fees. With such a diverse and largely uncorrelated set of strategies, we have the ability to deliver meaningful performance fees in each financial year across differing market cycles. Slide 26 sets out the financial highlights for the 2024 financial year.
As I mentioned, we reported net profit after tax of AUD 90.4 million for the year, 18% up on FY 2023 NPAT of AUD 76.5 million. Our diluted EPS was AUD 0.455 per share, up 17% on the FY 2023 EPS of AUD 0.39 per share, and we delivered a final dividend of AUD 0.264 per share, taking total dividends for the year to AUD 0.42 per share, up 17% on FY 2023. To the top left-hand side of the table, our aggregate affiliate FUM at a hundred percent at 30th of June 2024 was AUD 110.1 billion. This was up AUD 18.2 billion or 20% on AUD 91.9 billion at 30th of June 2023, and up AUD 10 billion or 10% on 31st of December 2023.
Aggregate retail FUM was AUD 28.8 billion at 30th of June 2024, up AUD 6.1 billion or 27% on a year earlier. The ASX 300 index was up 7.7% over the year, and the MSCI World Index up 17.5%. The NASDAQ, which is relevant to Hyperion Global, was up 28.6%, and the Global REIT Index, relevant to Resolution Capital's global REITs, was up 2.9%. Total affiliate revenue at 100% was up 30% at AUD 663.4 million, of which AUD 553 million was base fees, up 22%, and AUD 109.8 million was performance fees, up 89%.
Pinnacle's net share of performance fees after tax were AUD 31.2 million, up 112%, so a little over double the AUD 14.7 million in FY 2023. Total net inflows for the year were AUD 9.9 billion, of which AUD 3.9 billion was retail. AUD 7 billion was from international investors, and we had AUD 900 million of net outflows from Australian institutions. During the second half of the 2024 financial year, total net inflows for the half were AUD 5.4 billion, of which AUD 2.1 billion was retail, AUD 3.9 billion was from international investors, and we had AUD 600 million of net outflows from Australian institutions. Slide 27 shows our record of earnings growth over the eight years that we have been listed Pinnacle.
Slide 28 elaborates our track record of strong earnings growth through the periods which incorporate some less favorable stages of the market cycle. Earnings per share have grown at a compound annual rate of 21.7% over the five-year period to the 30th of June, 2024. Slide 29 shows some detail on our performance fee record and opportunity. As mentioned, we are growing the size and diversity of our performance fee potential and look forward to our strategies with larger performance fee FUM delivering in future years. Slide 30 shows in graphs our 18-year FUM growth and net flow history. FUM has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 23.2% per annum over the past 10 years. Our FUM sourced from international clients have grown strongly over the past few years, and particularly in FY 2024.
Aggregate retail and international FUM, which tend to have higher fee rates than domestic, international... Sorry, domestic institutional, now represent 43% of total FUM. The bottom graph shows the strong growth in retail and overseas-based FUM. We have continued to win business into private markets, asset classes, and from offshore. Slide 31 provides detail on the growth of our private markets businesses and of our international asset classes. Slide 32, turning now to the September quarter, the first quarter of the new financial year. The aggregate of the affiliates funds under management stood at AUD 128.1 billion at thirtieth of September, 2024.
This was up AUD 18 billion, or 16%, on the 110.1 billion dollars at 30th of June 2024, up AUD 8.2 billion, or 7%, excluding FUM acquired by a Pinnacle affiliate during the first quarter of FY 2025. Total net inflows for the three months to 30th of September 2024 were AUD 1.8 billion, AUD 1.6 billion of which was retail net inflows, with AUD 100 million of net inflows into each of the international and domestic institutional markets. Equity markets had a positive impact on aggregate FUM levels from the beginning to the end of the quarter. The S&P/ASX 300 Index was up 6.5% over the three months ending 30th September. The MSCI World Index was up 6.2%.
The NASDAQ, relevant to Hyperion Global, was up 2.6%, and the Nareit Global REITs index, relevant to ResCap Global, was up 10.9%. Good to see some improvement in REITs. Slide 33, headline net inflows were positive for the quarter, led by a strong retail result. Retail net inflows were strong, with resilient demand for private credit, fixed income, and private other private market assets, as well as improving retail investor sentiment in equities. We achieved modest institutional net inflows, both domestic and internationally. As we have said previously, these flows are lumpy and can vary significantly over shorter time periods. We remain confident in our institutional pipeline. Equities markets ended the quarter at higher levels than at the start of the financial year, which had a positive impact on revenue. Conversely, exit conditions in private equity are less favorable.
Again, most of the affiliate strategies have continued to deliver performance to expectations or better. Slides 34 and 35 provide the specifics of the five-year performance track records of the 39 affiliate funds or strategies. Slides 36, 37, and 38 provide further performance detail. Slide 39 updates on our more recent major industry awards. We were delighted at the Zenith Awards last week to win the Distributor of the Year award. This is a tremendous endorsement and recognition of the quality and success of our retail distribution team, led by Kyle Macintyre, Mark Cormack, Jed Williston, and Andrew Reidy, and the marketing team led by Jarrad Brevi and Simon Kawaguchi. Metrics won the Private Markets Fund Manager award. Hyperion, Resolution Capital, and Solaris were finalists in five other investment management categories. In slide 41, we remind shareholders that we think in terms of three horizons of growth.
Horizon one is the main game. It is continuing to pursue net inflows into existing strategies of existing affiliates. We remain very confident of our ability to continue to do that, and particularly to continue to grow affiliate revenues. We conservatively estimate the capacity of the affiliates' existing strategies at approximately AUD 500 billion. So there is plenty of Horizon One runway left, with the attendant strong gains in operating leverage that will be accompanied by such growth. Horizon Two is the subject of an enormous amount of activity, both within Pinnacle itself and within all of the affiliates. We've stated that we estimate the cost to Pinnacle's bottom line, NPAT, in FY 2024 was in the order of AUD 11.5 million. Slide 43. This is a slow...
We're still talking about Horizon Two here, a slow, patient process where we invest now for medium-term gain, but we've been doing this for a long time and have a strong record of very high returns on our past Horizon Two investments, not even including unrealized capital gains on the value of the businesses and strategies we have built. We are confident that we will continue to do this, and that will continue to be the case in the future. We have mentioned specific Horizon Two initiatives in slides 44 and 45. Slide 46. In relation to Horizon Three, which of course, is where we use capital to buy into existing businesses. Slides 46 explains that our most recent transaction was the acquisition of a 25% interest in private equity and venture capital manager Five V in December 2021.
This slide explains that we have continued to explore further Horizon 3 opportunities and but have remained disciplined in relation to the quality and valuations of candidate investments. We've explored many Horizon 3 opportunities, seeking the characteristics that we've explained previously. We seek investments that are strategically attractive and diversifying relative to the current affiliate composition. We are seeking internationally based opportunities, but have also looked at select opportunities in Australia, and we seek asset classes that are in high demand, including private credit, infrastructure, real estate, and hedge funds. Slide 47 provides in timeline format an update on Five V progress since then. Slide 48 provides in timeline format an update on, as well as a reflection on the history of our partnership with Metrics, which has already spanned 11 years, including initially a distribution partnership. Our partnership with Metrics has been tremendously rewarding.
Slides 50 to 52 provide updates on our most recent affiliates, Langdon, Metrics, and Five V. I don't have time to go through these now, but we can elaborate on them in if shareholders wish during question time. Slide 53 commences the section of the presentation on corporate responsibility. Over the course of the year, we continued to progress our sustainability agenda, which is structured around three principal focus areas: purpose, people, and planet. Pinnacle affiliates approach responsible investment in ways that are most relevant to their investment strategies, with all affiliates integrating ESG considerations into investment decision-making. Our role in this regard is to support and advise. We do not take part in their investment activities. This year marked a significant milestone in our company's history as we formally committed to advancing reconciliation through the publication of Pinnacle's Reflect Reconciliation Action Plan.
Through this plan, we aspire to deepen our understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, cultures, and histories, strengthen existing relationships, and forge new relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stakeholders. Over the year, we continued to promote a work environment of inclusion. We introduced 40/40/20 gender targets for the board, senior executives, and all employees. These targets seek to achieve balanced gender representation of 40% male, 40% female, and 20% either gender across our organization. Most notably, we awarded 12 Women in Finance scholarships to students across 5 universities. This is the sixth year of the program, which commenced in 2019. Since the program commenced, 87 scholarships have been awarded, and 16 scholarship recipients have been actively employed across Pinnacle and affiliates. We continue to disclose our progress in addressing modern slavery risk and our operations.
Sorry, in our operations and supply chain through the submission of an annual modern slavery statement. The statement details our commitment to partnering with suppliers, communities, and affiliates who respect and protect fundamental human rights. During 2022, we formed the Pinnacle ESG Working Group, which is attended by key executives from Pinnacle and all of our affiliates, and is underpinned by a charter that Pinnacle and all affiliates were invited to adopt, setting out our combined commitment to corporate responsibility. Working together, we can be much more effective, a much more effective force for good than operating alone. This group has identified two key focus areas: supplier engagement and workforce diversity, with focus groups formed to work on each initiative. The Pinnacle Group Supplier Engagement Group is a collective initiative aiming to maximize leverage in supplier engagements and promote key sustainable themes within our corporate supply chain.
We remain committed to reducing the environmental impact of our operations. Pinnacle is proud to have received Climate Active carbon neutral certification for our FY 2023 emissions, and we remain committed to maintaining our carbon neutral status each year. Our commitment to carbon neutrality enables us to accelerate climate action in the near term as an interim solution, and support organizations like the Aboriginal Carbon Foundation to implement their fire management program. However, our primary focus remains on reducing our environmental impact. More detail is set out in our corporate sustainability report on our website, which we would encourage you to read. Slide 56 explains that total donations by the PNI Foundation in FY 2024 exceeded $677,000, with a further $445,000 donated by affiliates.
Slides 62 to 91 in the additional information section provide an update on the institutional and international markets and flows. Slides 72 to 74 provide an update on the wholesale and retail market and retail flows. We will likely discuss these further during question time. In conclusion, I'd like to remind shareholders of the basis on which we remain so confident of our company's ability to grow and prosper, which is the strong funds management platform that we have built and our highly regarded distinctive business model. These slides provide some further detail in this regard. Shareholders can be assured that nothing has fundamentally changed in your company's ambitions, strategies, and growth plans.... We've simply had to show some patience in the face of market turbulence, and it is not the first time we've had to do that during our 18-year history.
That concludes the commentary I wanted to provide on the slides and on the performance of the business during the last financial year and the September quarter, Q1 of the current twenty twenty-five financial year. Thank you, everyone, for listening.
Boring, isn't it? Shit. Thank you. Now, I'll turn to the general Q&A of the meeting and invite shareholders to ask any general questions they have. Yeah. Over here.
Brian Allison, shareholder. Just a question about Metrics and the area that they deal in. They're launching new funds, which is obviously good for us, and in ways we'd be pleased about that. But... And the other, there's quite a lot of competition happening in that area now, and the other funds are also expanding as well. And there's been some commentary that possibly the proliferation of this sort of investing would mean a necessary move down the curve of quality. Just wondering if Ian might have some comments to make.
Yeah. No, thank you for that question. It's an extremely important one because Metrics is a very important part of our business and, even more important, important part of our future as it grows. It's early days for Metrics. They have roughly AUD 20 billion of assets under management, which has grown from... It was only two-point-something billion when we bought our equity, so we're delighted with the way they're growing. Of course, we always worry about the environment of our affiliates, the risks, the possible, the things out there that might damage future growth or damage our affiliates. So we think a lot and talk a lot about Metrics and the very things you've talked about. Absolutely. So there are a lot of players coming into the space. That's not surprising. It's very attractive.
The demand from investors is enormous, and it's at the early. It's gonna grow enormously. And that's a global thing, but it's also very much in Australia. Now, a lot of these players are smaller, and they differ widely. As Andrew Lockhart would say, if he was here, "It's not a homogeneous group," private credit fund managers. There is a massive range of quality, skills, sort of assets they're into, et cetera. We would expect that at some point there will be some issues, some problems. Metrics, we think, stands out from the field. They are the largest by far. That was deliberate. Andrew and his team said more than ten years ago, "This is gonna be a large space.
We need to get out there, we need to be a leader, and we need to own that space." So outside of the banks, Metrics is the largest in Australia. That gives them some major advantages. The skills and experience of the partners and their teams is tremendous. They are very seasoned bankers. They've been through... You talk to them, they've been through everything. They've been through the early nineties, real estate and banking crash, they've been through the GFC, et cetera, et cetera. They are always very focused on risks. They believe, and it's true, that their positioning enables them to pick and choose credits. They are in a good position in that regard. They don't have to play in that riskier space that some of the players are in, which I agree, there are likely to be some problems at some stage.
But look, it is a huge market. The banks are shrinking from the space, forced by regulators. That makes way for a very large amount of assets for the non-bank players. They look ahead, and they think they can grow enormously without prejudicing the quality of their lending. So not complacent, not for a minute, ignoring the sort of things you're talking about. In fact, they're incredibly focused on them, and it's talked about all the time. So we are very confident. Pinnacle is delighted with our partnership with Metrics.
Thank you.
The shrinking of balance sheets is a very significant one. Pre-GFC, a lot of these banks were twenty times levered. Today, I mean-
Yeah.
15-16 times levered, so someone has to fulfill that gap. So it's not lower credit, it's just... Thank you.
Yeah.
Lower grade credit is just simply you're fulfilling a vacuum left behind by the banks shrinking their balance sheet, and the demand on risk-weighted assets is actually going up next year, I think for most of the major banks as well. So again, that greater pressure you're seeing in the hybrid market as well. So you're gonna make them, you know, really very strong and safe banks, but ultimately, that leaves an opportunity for private credit players to fill that void.
Yeah.
So-
So globally, regulators are just pressuring the banks more, and more, and more to reduce their exposure. Now remember, banks are regarded as systemic risk because they're deposit takers and very highly leveraged. Private credit doesn't have that sort of leverage. They're not deposit takers. The investors in their funds are big enough and ugly enough to worry about themselves. They're big sovereign wealth funds and so on. They know exactly what they are investing in. But, banks are shrinking, someone has to fill that. This is trillions of dollars, like, these are enormous amounts. So, it's a wonderful opportunity, and it's relatively early days.
There's a lot of regulatory reporting for all the private credit players above 50 million of assets to APRA on a monthly, quarterly, and half-yearly basis anyway. There is a lot of disclosure happening, which people don't see on the surface.
Yeah, it's not about Metrics in particular, but there seems to be a gold rush happening at the moment, and as Ian has confirmed, there's likely to be some underperformance that will maybe affect the reputation of the whole system.
Absolutely. And again, we've spoken about that at Metrics. By the way, Andrew and I are the two Pinnacle reps on the Metrics board, so I hope you'd like to think that we know a lot about this. But... Oh, lost my train of thought there.
In any shakeout that does materialize-
Yes, that's right.
... we actually think that Metrics as the premier quality player, I mean, yes, there'll be a time, but actually that will be a great opportunity for them-
Yeah
... when it materializes.
It will make it obvious the differences among various private credit managers.
It's not dissimilar to some of our equity investments. If you go back, you know, when you've seen big shakeouts in the market, fortunately, our affiliates have outperformed.
Yeah
... and that's actually positioned them well for the subsequent time.
It's not surprising there'll be a rush into it. Everyone can see, you know, blind Freddy, Freddy can see the size of the opportunity.
Yeah, well, thanks, thanks for that. That's, it's very, very good. It's just that, when problems occur, whether it's with Metrics or with other people, it's going to affect the reputation of the asset class.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Absolutely, but as Alan said, it's a double-edged sword.
Mm-hmm.
There'll be negatives for Metrics, as you say, that there'll be lots of chatter in the press and, you know, "Oh, private credit's bad, bad, bad.
Yeah.
Our investors understand, and their advisors and their gatekeepers understand this, and as Alan said, pretty quickly, we think it'll be a benefit for Metrics because it will just put up there in lights quality differences.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay, thank you.
I think that segues nicely to a couple of questions we received online in relation to Metrics. One on the regulatory change that will possibly come to private credit, and given Metrics' size, how they will be managing the risks of that growing sector, and also the exposure to the Pacific Hunter restaurant businesses that Metrics now owns 100% of, and how that exposure might impact on Pinnacle's.
Yeah. So in terms of the regulatory question, so I guess this is asking whether the non-bank lenders, so the private credit groups, will become subject to greater regulation. So Andrew might well be more on top of the detail of this, but my quick answer to that is, first of all, there's already a lot of reporting and regulation of these. Metrics is subject to enormous scrutiny. Some of its funds are listed funds, so they're subject to all of the governance that applies to that. They've got any amount of external valuations, and, like, there's extensive governance. It's speculation as to whether or not the regulators will want to increase the scope of their regulation. Personally, I don't think there's any justification for that. It's all about systemic risk.
I don't think there's the systemic risk in private credit fund managers that there is in banks. As I mentioned before, they don't have the leverage, they don't have deposit takers. But there is an argument that actually, as they become so big, the banks are actually lending to the private credit groups and. Anyway, it remains to be seen. As I say, I don't think the justification is there, but who knows what, under the pressure of lots of, you know, public chatter, what the regulators might do. They will adapt, okay? These loans have to be made. Someone has to make them. I don't think the regulator wants to destroy the economy by having no lending, you know? So they will adapt, and if they have to provide more reporting, whatever, more provisioning, whatever, they'll adapt.
They will be in a better position than most to adapt because of how professional and sort of well-resourced and capable Metrics is.
But they are actually a registered financial corporation, so an RFC, and anyone, again, who has fifty million or more of lending in the market in Australia has to report that to APRA, and there's penalties if you don't, and that happens on a monthly, quarterly, and half-yearly, and annual basis today. So there's a lot of belts and braces applied by APRA today. Then there's obviously ASIC as a regulator, if you have a responsible entity involved in your funds under the DDO regime. So there's substantial requirements under that, so Perpetual and EQT, which provide responsible entity obligations to ASIC for our Metrics, have to report on those funds all of the time under that particular regime. All of the various funds are rated by Standard & Poor's. All the major banks lend to the funds. They do their own credit assessment.
All of the major vehicles are in an ASX-listed format, which requires continuous disclosure obligations in terms of the valuations of those assets, which are impairment tested by Ernst & Young on an ongoing basis, and then they're audited by KPMG. So there's lots of belts and braces around the valuation work and obviously the quality of that lending that's happening, which is unlike the majority of participants in the local market by other private credit players. Most of them have a related party responsible entity structure, or trustee, and so they actually own that, so there's a conflict of interest potentially in that, rather than the independence which Metrics specifically have around their RE relationship.
So that is a concern, potentially, for some of the smaller players in terms of their governance, but obviously we're held to the highest governance because of the ASX-listed vehicles that we run for every single strategy that Metrics has today. So that gives us a lot of confidence around that. We also lend to the large corporate institutional lending market, so, you know, all the major, you know, lenders, borrowers, such as, you know, Woolworths, Eastern Distributor, these are types of assets we're lending to in the corporate institutional book, in addition to leverage finance, project finance, and infrastructure debt, but there's really large scale loans in their book today.
We do a lot of sort of stress testing with the portfolios with insurers who are investors in the funds as well, so they're under a logic stress testing environment they have to apply. So in a GFC-style event, eighty-seven stock market crash, all at the same time, what would be the impact on the NAV of the portfolio? So they have to report that through to all their insurance clients. There's very little impact because of the mass diversification of the underlying book. So we're quite comfortable about the quality of the book, but also how would it perform under a stressed environment as well.
You'll remember that when we took our equity interest in Metrics a few years ago, that we actively made the decision not to bring the RE into Pinnacle so we've kept it independent.
External.
external and at arm's length, which I think is... serves us as Pinnacle shareholders well.
As to the Rockpool Group, this is obviously high profile, salacious, great for the press to write lots of speculative stuff about. So, Metrics have hundreds of loans out there. They are very-
Over 300.
Yeah. So, they are very careful not to have high concentration to any particular lender or, or, borrower or exposure, so they're very careful about all of that. So you are always going to get a tiny proportion, we hope, of problem credits. One of the big advantages of many, some private credit managers, definitely Metrics, is they have a much more flexibility and a greater ability to work out problems than banks do. A lot of lenders will just, "Oh, this is not going well. We'll put a receiver in, take a loss, move on." Metrics don't do that. They, they are very happy to step in, convert the debt to equity, and take time to work for their investors to get a much better outcome. They are, they are confident...
We're not going to speculate about the outcome of that group. They are confident of producing a good return for their investors on what is now equity in that group. So they were able to convert their debt to equity. Equity's gone, lost everything. The Korean banks that were in there were-
Sorry, original equity's gone, not their equity.
Original equity is gone.
Yeah.
So I won't speak too much about who they are, et cetera, but there was private equity in there. The original equity's gone. There were definitely subordinated Korean banks have lost all their money. Metrics, as senior secured lender, have been able to convert that, their debt to equity. They have flexibility in the funds that that was in. It was in the higher risk area of funds, so listed as not MXT or their wholesale invest. It's in MOT is the only listed one that has that there. And by the way, independent expert valuations of that group are within those funds, so if there are any losses mark-to-market, they're in there already, so it doesn't seem to have affected MOT very much, et cetera.
Bottom line, not going to speculate about it, but I think it demonstrates the advantage that a Metrics has over the banks and many of the other private credit groups who just do not have the capacity to work out problem loans.
To have the experience in this particular area, I mean, Brambles Industrial Services is an interesting one where, they needed to convert, debt to equity. They ultimately did that and delivered a 15% IRR to investors in the fund, but had they cut that position and walked away from it, it would have been a loss. But they ended up working really hard against all the hedge funds and then sold out at a profit. So it's having those skills to be able to take equity when you need to and get full recovery and even a profit on it, which is very unlike a banking institution, which is regulated. It's too punitive to hold it on your balance sheet.
Yeah. The capital cost of them holding an equity position on the bank's balance sheet is punitive. Steve?
Thank you. Steve Wilson, shareholder. Just on Metrics, seeing as we're talking about that, I'm just wondering. I want to ask a question about margins. So I noticed the margins that are in the annual accounts show that while Metrics is growing well, its margins only, in fact, went down slightly, so it's sort of fell to circa 15%-14%.
Yeah.
Can we take from that it's a kind of perennially lower margin, high growth, but lower margin, or is there-
Yeah.
or, you know, can we see it getting up towards the sort of fifties and sixties?
Yeah
... in net margins that we're seeing out of, say, a Hyperion?
Yeah. Thanks, Steve. So absolutely, we can't take the current margins as representative of the longer term, more steady state margins. This is very attractive business if you're good at it. So their longer term margins will be far higher than we've reported so far. Metrics, we talked a lot about Horizon Two, and Metrics are the principal group engaging in Horizon Two. So they have been spending very large amounts, adding resourcing, because they're creating additional origination. They're doing a lot of marketing. They're building a lot of things. So their P&L is affected by that, including consolidating PayRight and other things. So, no, their P&L in the year just gone, the previous year, those margins will end up being much higher. It's a, it's very attractive business, ultimately, but they are growing a big business, and we are delighted with that.
Many of our affiliates, people ask me, including you, Steve, I think, why our operating margins aren't higher, and it's because our affiliates are all doing a lot of Horizon Two, building new strategies. Hyperion had a huge margin, then they added all these resources to do global. Fantastic. Happy days. We're delighted with that because eventually, the operating leverage, when they're at 30 billion in global instead of 3 billion, will be very attractive. The same thing with Metrics. I mean, they're not the same as Hyperion, but the same general sort of style, that they are. They're investing off their P&L for future growth.
It's worth just mentioning in the evolution of their product set as well.
Yeah.
So Metrics started out with its diversified senior loan fund, which is a much lower margin, lower risk product. And then as they've matured and added on secured private debt real estate, and then in time they'll go into consumer lending, they're much, much higher margin products.
Yeah. Our 35% of Metrics is worth a lot more than we paid for it. Any other questions?
There was a follow on for us to potentially help support those restaurants by holding our AGM there next year. But, we'll see what we can do with that one.
Yeah. So there was a question about a write-down component to that Rockpool, but obviously, it's held in the funds and on the balance sheet of Metrics, which I think is a really important distinction to make. So no, it wouldn't be a write-down in Metrics' balance sheet as a result of that. So I just wanted to clarify from the question.
It's fully reflected in the current map, just so to be clear.
Correct.
Yes.
Sorry.
In terms of having our AGM at a Rockpool venue, so probably, Chairman-
Un- unlikely.
Unlikely. I'm responsible for this inexpensive venue. We don't have to rent premises, et cetera. We're always very careful with cost in Pinnacle. We will incur some more cost if it becomes, you know, appropriate. And I can see the day when we will have our AGM in, you know, a hotel or-
A bigger space.
A bigger space that we might have to rent, but, I don't think,
Don't worry
... Rockpool's
The answer is no. Sorry. Yes.
Greg Hoffman, shareholder, proxy holder. On the Horizon Two, the level of Horizon Two investment that we've seen, if we look forward over the next three, four, five years, would you say this year is typical, or has it been unusually high, or how do you see it in the context going forward, obviously, of a bigger business and all that kind of thing?
Yeah. So it's hard to predict because it depends on opportunities. We will always happily take up outstanding Horizon 2 opportunities if we find them, because, you know, the return, we've got some material on this, the return we've earned on Horizon 2 is enormous. But yes, we felt that it reached a kind of a peak. Up until the middle of last year, we were running at, like, AUD 7 million a half, and then it came down to AUD 4.5 million in the second half. That was probably a peak. It's probably unlikely. And on the existing Horizon 2 investments, it'll come right down because we're growing revenue on them. But will new ones come? Possibly. So Lifecycle is a new Horizon 2 investment for us.
As it turns out, it won't cost us a lot, we believe, because we think revenue will come quite quickly. So no promises because actually shareholders don't want us to promise not to do Horizon 2 in the future, because it's a good thing. But yes, it kind of peaked, and we've called that out.
On a separate issue, the franking level, now down below 100%. Again, looking out, or could you talk a little bit about the detail behind that? I assume it's offshore affiliates or making maybe performance fee contributions or-
Yeah.
You could talk to that. But then as we go forward, should we expect that franking level to drop off?
Yeah. So it's a couple of things. Dan might help me, but what one of them is that a couple of our affiliates we earn our share of the profits pre-tax there, and pass that through the same way, so you don't get the franking. You get a larger amount of profit, but you don't get the franking on it. But yes, from overseas, that's gonna grow. So it's gonna grow. Our job is to maximize profits. We recognize the benefits of franking in the return that we're getting to our shareholders, but the profits we are gonna earn from overseas are gonna be so large that you will not resent it not being fully franked.
One quick one on the detail of the acquired firm in the affiliate that recently made the acquisition. I don't know if we're avoiding the names, but was there additional capital required to go into the affiliate by-
Yeah
... by other shareholders or by Pinnacle or, or both?
Yeah. So we're not particularly avoiding the name. We just, we just think out of respect to our affiliates, we don't put out there too explicitly lots of things they're doing. But I noticed that an analyst last night said, "Well, this was Antipodes acquiring Maple-Brown Abbott," so you can figure that out for yourself. I think our auditors know that people will figure that out. We put in about AUD 3 million, Dan. We just topped up to retain our share of Antipodes. Not big.
Yeah.
Not big. And that was, that's accretive, that investment.
I'm just conscious of the time, Alan-
Yeah
... so I might finish up on one more question online. And this one possibly a hopefully optimistic one. Ian, what's your view on the prospects of Pinnacle being admitted to the ASX 100? And, yeah, given our capital raising, or given our surging share price capital raising and takeovers of existing ASX 100 companies.
So we don't have an explicit objective to get into the one hundred. But we've talked about our growth ambitions. Personally, I think it's clear that without putting a date on it, it's very likely that at some point we go into the one hundred. That has positives and challenges. There are a lot more index investors that would come onto our register. We already have some. The challenge is we'll need some big new shareholders. That's a nice challenge as far as I'm concerned. That'd be a nice problem. We're not gonna stop growing so as not to go into the hundred, I can promise you.
Sorry, Ian, can you just explain that? Why do, why do you need big new shareholders?
Well, some of the small cap fund managers have rules.
That they quite often they're allowed to hold it, but they may not be allowed to add to it.
Top up.
So you then need a transition through to a different set of fund managers.
Look, we shouldn't overstate this. A lot of our shareholders can go up to the 50 as mid cap or small cap, so it's not a huge deal, but by definition, as your market cap grows,
Shareholder base.
Depending on how you grow, you're gonna need more.
Okay, any other questions, Steve?
I just have two bigger, sort of, bigger questions. Two questions. One, and they're both long-term questions. So one is risk. Other than things you can't control, like equity markets or, you know, markets generally, what do you see the biggest risk to Pinnacle? And then the other is a sort of positive, which is: What's the kind of light on the hill ten years out? So, you know, we're at AUD 128 billion now. Give us an idea of where we could end up. What, you know, as we expand to the world's biggest markets, where might we end up? Not just necessarily in FUM, but some idea of, you know, what we, what we, what you're shooting at.
So Steve asked us for a light on the hill estimate eighteen years ago, which we ended up providing privately, and happily for all of us, we've greatly exceeded all of the light on the hill, which I thought was pretty fantastical when we did it. Now he wants to go again.
You wanna go.
Yeah, absolutely. So Steve, we mustn't put numbers on these things. My chairman counsels me constantly that we mustn't make projections, make promises, et cetera.
I think we'd say, though, that we think as we take further steps offshore, albeit slow steps at the moment, and we've made some, you know, we've done things incrementally, we haven't bet the farm, and we won't.
Right.
But as we've done that, I think we're getting increasingly confident that the Pinnacle model works there, and therefore, the addressable market is stunningly bigger than we are now.
Yeah. We always thought our model would work overseas. We've been tremendously, pleasantly surprised at how attractive it is and how much opportunity there is overseas. So, I say things like, you know, "You ain't seen nothing yet." I've said, "It's early in our journey, really," and we've got this platform that provides so much opportunity. It's just as applicable to other asset classes and subclasses and styles that we don't yet have, and it's just as applicable overseas than it, as it is here. In fact, you know, we're finding that, for example, in the UK and Europe and the US, we're ahead, the Australian industry is ahead of what they have there in many ways, and we'll put that to the test in the UK wholesale retail market very soon. So, watch this space in that regard.
Yeah, it's very optimistic. It can be very large. We're a small player in the global funds management market, so there's a lot of room to grow.
And risk-
As to risk, there are always risks out there, and we talk about them extensively. I like to say if we worry about things that could happen, they don't happen because we've addressed them, and we constantly are thinking about what could go wrong. I would say Andrew anticipated the changes in the Aussie insto market way before most people, and we were well-positioned and so on. Besides, you know, markets generally and the environment... I mean, I think the overall environment for funds management is a huge tailwind. Despite everything, despite all the problems in the world, the wars, all the things that we worry about, wealth grows over time. It will keep growing. The world grows in prosperity. That's been happening forever. That will continue to happen. Investing is as hard as ever.
The need for it is as great as ever, so the opportunity, tremendous. The risk, I personally think, and it won't be my problem, it'll be my colleague's problem, the biggest risk is complacency, overconfidence, hubris. "Oh, we've grown at more than 20% a year for..." You know, and very few others have done that. "Aren't we fantastic?" You start to believe your own bullshit, and you become bureaucratic. "Oh, my goodness, we're so big. We've got so many things to do. Let's get lots more people." And all of a sudden, you're just another second-rate, mediocre funds manager that really shouldn't exist. So we are working constantly to keep our flat structures, the culture that we had as a start-up and a boutique. The biggest risk is that we lose that culture, and we're-
A subset of that is that, or the consequence of losing that culture will also be we lose key people.
We lose people, clients.
People, people are our most important asset, and if you work for Pinnacle, you are on everyone's shopping list in Australia. We are targeted continually, so we have to work to keep the environment here correct and keep our great people, you know? And to my point earlier, that's one of the great reasons that we've got Krista on board.
That's attracting, retaining, and transitioning talent.
Yes.
The way to summarize it, or partly in terms of that's the risk. You've got to continue to manage that one, particularly in people business.
Including as you grow overseas.
Yep.
So we've been careful, careful about that.
But the opportunity really is we have an utterly unique business model in a global context. We haven't found a peer globally, which does what we do at size and scale in terms of the supported independence model, so that is a huge opportunity we have in front of us because no one today has replicated that model in any geography that we've come across to date.
That's really interesting, isn't it? It's a great model. People should be copying it. And in fact, a couple of the partners of Lifecycle said to me, "We scoured the world, and we arrived at you." Why aren't there more? Logically, there ought to be. And the bottom line conclusion, after going through lots of things, is it's harder than it looks. It's a lot harder than it looks.
But can I just add one thing to that, which I think was in the back of the slides and didn't get to?
Mm.
I think you made a mention about the ability to put seed capital into some of these strategies-
Yes
... is turning into quite a valuable and powerful-
Yes
-factor. Could you maybe just-
Yeah
... couple words on it?
Recent example, we put AUD 15 million into the two Australian unit trusts of Lifecycle to get them started, AUD 10 million in one and AUD 5 million in another. They're not really big amounts, but that's extremely valuable to get the thing started. When they go to the market, they've got, "Here's a fund, it's invested. You can see exactly what you're getting." Then we'll roll out of that when it gets external money. We've been doing this for a long time, and we've got money as seed in a lot of our affiliates, new strategies. It's quite valuable. In-
Certainly in private markets as well, good example of that.
It's been very helpful.
So what was that you said again, James?
Providing seed capital to some of our private markets asset managers, such as Palisade Real Assets, was the case about 12 months ago or so, where we provided the initial... Dan, what was the number? GBP 12 million or... to buy the very first asset, which they could showcase to the investor base, the potential LPs investing in the vehicle, what type of assets we'd be buying, and subsequently, they received a GBP 200 million commitment from Europe's largest pension fund, which is APG Asset Management, EUR 500 billion it manages. So they're the chosen manager in the waste-to-energy space now. So I'll roll out a platform, continual reinvestment and commitments, but if we didn't provide that seed asset, much harder for people to visualize the opportunities in the pipeline.
So then we withdrew that seed because the pension fund put it up and... Look, we also have a dream that one day we'll have a very close relationship with, say, a big institutional manager that can help put an even bigger fund. So we're always looking for sources of larger seed fund.
I always have a dream that I can control what you say, but that's, thus far, I've failed.
Dream on.
But as part of wrapping up, I think there's one other slide I just wanted to share with you because Mr. Modesty here has excluded it, but perhaps you could put that slide up, the picture.
There before.
It was there before.
Zenith.
The Zenith one, yeah. Can you... Ah, lost, disappeared. Never mind. What I wanted to just draw to shareholders' attention was that at the Zenith awards last week, for only the sixth time in their existence, they actually awarded a lifetime award for-
Oh!
-industry contribution-
I didn't see that.
-to, Ian Macoun for things.
Thank you.
He won't let me put that in any of our publicity materials, but I felt it was important to share it with you, as shareholders. Anyway, thank you for your time this morning, and we're happy to chat for a little bit afterwards. Have we got orange juices and boxes of...? Are they? I don't know what they're there for, but we'll see.
It's not Rockpool quality.
Thanks very much, everyone.
Glasses.
No, that's right.