Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, fellow shareholders, colleagues, and visitors. Welcome to our 2025 Annual General Meeting. Thank you for taking the time to join us in person 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 am the Chair of Pinnacle Investment Management Group Ltd. Before we begin with today's agenda, I'd like to introduce my fellow board members. First, on my left, Ian Macoun, our Managing Director. Next to Mr. Macoun, we have Ms. Lorraine Berrends, then Ms. Christa Leonard, Ms. Deb Beale, and then on our far left, we have Andrew Chambers, our Executive Director. Also here today is Mr. Terence Kwong, our Company Secretary, Chief Legal Risk and Compliance Officer, Mr.
Kyle Macintyre, our Head of Wholesale and Retail Distribution, and Mr. Dan Longan, who is our Chief Financial Officer. I'd also like to welcome the Company's Auditor, Mr. Marcus Laithwaite, and Ms. Rebecca Otto from PricewaterhouseCoopers, who are here to answer any questions that shareholders may have in relation to the 2025 financial statements. I now turn to the agenda for today's meeting. As shown on the screen, the meeting will commence with the formal business. After that, Ian will provide the update from the Managing Director. I've been informed by our Company Secretary that we have a quorum, and I now declare the meeting open. I am also advised that there are no apologies recorded prior to the commencement of the meeting, and the Notice of 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 will 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 Meeting. There are five items of business to attend to, being the tabling of the 2025 financial statements, the adoption of the remuneration report, re-election of directors, issue of shares to Andrew Chambers as part of the Omnibus Incentive Plan, and issue of securities to Christa Leonard in lieu of director fees under the Omnibus Incentive Plan. Shareholders may ask questions prior to each resolution being put to the vote. Shareholders attending in person, please raise your blue or yellow card if you would like to ask a question. Shareholders joining online, please click on the Q&A icon.
Select the topic your question relates to from the drop-down list. Type your question in the box. Once you finish 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 will be placed in 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 that shareholders limit themselves to two questions and only ask questions at this time in respect of matters relevant to the business item being considered. Questions may be moderated or amalgamated if there are multiple questions on the same topic.
After Ian provides the full update on the formal business, Ian will be providing a full update after the formal business of the meeting has been dealt with, and there will be an opportunity for shareholders to ask general questions after that. Voting. The persons entitled to vote are shareholders, representatives and attorneys of shareholders, and proxy holders, all of whom should be holding blue admission cards. On the reverse of your blue admission card is your voting card and instructions. Please ensure you print your name where indicated. When you have completed your voting card, please lodge it in a ballot box. Ensure your votes are counted. If you require any assistance in voting, please raise your hand. If you're joining 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 also change your vote up until 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 five 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 30th of June, together with the director's report and auditor's report as set out in the 2025 Annual Report, which has been made available to shareholders.
I formally table the financial statements of the company for the year-end 30 June 2025, and the related director's report, director's declaration, and auditor's report. If I may, 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 30 June 2025, the accounting policies adopted by the company in relation to the preparation of its financial statements, or the independence of the auditor in relation to the conduct of the audit, please submit them now or raise your hand.
Good morning. It was a microphone, but that's fine. I set the ceiling microphones on.
Ceiling microphone is on.
Okay, good. David Kingston, K Capital. Congratulations on sustained good performance. It's impressive. It's interesting because 20 years ago, I invested in Treasury run by Mike Fitzpatrick and did very well because the stock performed well. However, more recently, it's now Pacific Current, and it hasn't done very well. River have taken it over and effectively are starting to unwind it. Congratulations to Pinnacle for your achievements, that you continue to grow when perhaps your closest peer in the listed space has actually declined. I'm just interested in what is the secret sauce that enables Pinnacle to keep growing? It's a complex business. You have a lot of investments in funds managers. We all know that there's plenty of egos in funds managers. Sometimes you could regard it as herding cats. Obviously, Ian and you and the team have done a great job in achieving what you've achieved.
It just does stand out that your most direct peer has struggled and is basically closing down, selling its interests in the funds managers, whereas you continue to grow. Appreciate your thoughts on that.
David, I'm very happy to take that question now or take it after the end of Ian's discussion, but let's address it now. I think I'll probably get Ian to first address it, and I might also ask Andrew Chambers to talk a bit about it because I think that goes to the total addressable market. The total addressable market is enormous. But Ian.
I think I need to stand over here on total balance. David, thank you very much for that question. That was a very flattering statement from you, and it means a lot to me personally and to the company that you should say such things. It raises a very good and very important question for our shareholders. Pinnacle's been operating for almost 20 years now, 19 years. I've been in the multi-affiliate business for something like 25 years because I was involved in Perennial back in the days that you're referring to when Treasury Group started. I remember back in those days, my partner, Mike Crivelli, used to say, "Ian, we need to keep this model secret because people will copy it." I used to say to him, "Mike, look, of course people will copy it.
It's a great model, but they're going to find that executing on it is a lot harder than it might seem." You have to do a lot more than just have a good model. Treasury Group did indeed, I believe, copy the Perennial idea. I always said to Mike, "But I hope that those who do copy it do a great job, and I hope the banks don't do it because they will screw it up." Lo and behold, the banks actually did do it and didn't do a very good job. I admire quite a few of the people who were in Treasury Group at the beginning, the Investors Mutual people and so on, and it worked well for a long time. I have to be careful answering that question because I can seem immodest if I'm not careful.
What I would say to you is that this business of helping to start up and then nurturing over a very long period of time talented investment professionals, it is our core competency. It is at the heart of everything we do. It's the reason our business model was designed the way it is, to have the most talented investment people operating in an environment where they can go about their very difficult work. It's incredibly difficult to succeed as active managers. We need talented people in the right environment, but they need to be well- supported. Our model was designed to do all of that, but it means that the people in, call it the parent company in Pinnacle, have to be always focused on the needs of those investment professionals. Herding cats, absolutely. Difficult personalities, personality traits, that's all part of it. To us, that's what we do.
That's why we're set up the way we are, and we are very confident we can continue to do that. We are very careful in who we choose to partner with. There are a lot of talented people we wouldn't partner with who, I call them rock stars, people who think they are so amazing that you can't work with them. We don't bring such people into our stable. It was also flattering to me when Pete Rutter and his colleagues, when we finished doing the deal of Life Cycle Investment Partners. We were sitting around chatting, and they said, "You know, one thing has amazed us. We searched the world looking for the right kind of backer, knew what we needed, and we didn't find anyone other than Pinnacle who we thought were right for us." That's on the one hand kind of flattering.
On the other hand, the challenge that you're putting, we have to continually stay vigilant that we don't lose our way. I'm not going to comment on Treasury Group. I don't comment on others, but there are other organizations that have business models sort of similar to ours that don't do as well. I regard it as just a reminder to us continually, we have to keep executing. We're doing that, and we're confident we can keep doing it.
Andrew, something you would addressable market? I think that's an interesting one.
I would just simply say that large-scale centralized distribution is a really distinguishing feature relative to the PAC model, Treasury Group model. No one else has invested in distribution in quite the same way that we have. It really is the beating heart of the business, and it's the reason why we're relevant to our affiliates. We can help them scale rapidly, but also when they go through tougher periods of time, protect them as well in terms of from outflows until they can turn their performance around. I think it builds greater endurance and sustainability into those businesses and greater relevance to our underlying affiliates. I think the succession piece and managing succession management is critical as well. We've embedded in our shareholder agreements succession mechanics at the very outset, so that is a smooth process. You build multi-generational businesses.
Our approach has always been one of growth, a growth orientation rather than a yield orientation. A lot of the people that take minority stakes in asset managers have a yield orientation, where everything about growth for these particular businesses. Therefore, multi-generational sustainable growth is always the core of what we do. It's those very human things that Ian Macoun was talking about before, which is so critical. It's about avoiding risks to the downside when, for example, partners aren't getting along inside a business to ensuring that when they're going particularly well, you're setting yourself up for when things aren't going as well as a business. Succession is absolutely critical for us, and we've had succession operate pretty well across multiple affiliates today.
I think also the total addressable market factor, which you talked about, the fact that we can take what we've done, replicate it in larger addressable markets beyond Australia. I mean, we're a AUD 3.5 trillion, AUD 4 trillion market here in Australia in Aussie dollars, but the U.S. market elsewhere is over $100 trillion U.S. dollars outside of Australia, managed by third-party money managers. You take a business model which is novel in a global context, and you prosecute it the same way like we've done with Life Cycle , IKEA, Palestine Real Assets, Langdon in Canada. The reality is you've got white space because there's nobody else competing in that area. Execution is going to be absolutely key to doing that. We need to be able to find talented people, which culturally are very similar to the people within Pinnacle.
Having culture bearers, which can be abroad, carry that same culture and facilitate that across local hires becomes very important to repeat the success we've had in Australia in bigger addressable markets.
Thank you very much for those comments. They're very useful. My understanding is that actually from a competitor, your distribution is as strong as anyone's in the game. So well done. I think that's a key part of it all, that you actually do distribute the products well and you help the fundies grow. It's just interesting. It doesn't matter how brilliant you are, every now and again, you will have a fundie where there's an internal issue. I have two partners in the fund who don't get on or they're getting older or whatever.
I know it will vary on every investment you make, but what's the general situation you have about what are the rights in the event that there is an issue in a fund? Again, PAC has had that problem of sometimes it gets taken out at NTA because of their divorce clauses in their shareholders' agreements. I don't expect detail, but just as a general comment, clearly there needs to be some mechanism if things don't work. Sometimes you actually increase your holding. I see you've increased your holding in Coolabah recently, and they're going very well. I'm sure you're making a nice profit on that. It's just interesting with all those affiliates, you might only have one a year that has a challenge. What happens if you have a challenge? What are the arrangements in the shareholders' agreement?
I don't know if you want to answer that, but certainly the minority protections which are embedded in our agreements are an important starting point to ensure that we have the right little soft activism, if you will. Ian, do you want to answer that more in more detail?
As Andrew Chambers said, we've got minority protections, so we can't be treated badly as a minority shareholder. We've been at this game for a very long time. We know how to protect ourselves. The short answer to your question is we're here to help. We've seen a lot of these issues over a very long period of time, and they actually fall into a very small number of categories. They are all about personal relationships, etc. We've experienced some of those issues over time, but we've always got through them and helped our affiliates to stay on track. We're confident we can keep doing that.
I think the other thing we've talked about in the past is if we have to refer to the formality of the shareholders' agreement, we've probably not done a great job.
In our coaching, mentoring, assisting the affiliates, there's a lot of time that the Pinnacle reps who are on the boards of these affiliates spend helping and assisting, counseling where required. I genuinely believe that if you're doing the distribution and you're on the board and you're doing the back office for these things, you probably know a little bit earlier than the actual affiliate does if there's an issue about to surface. Being able to address that at that initiation stage, it won't remove the challenges you describe, but it allows you to address them earlier, which can be assistive in minimizing any damage.
We see problems emerging early, as Alan said, and we're able to help. We've always gotten through them. We've never had a major problem.
You're on the board of all the affiliates, and who is on the board?
Pinnacle reps are on the boards of all of our affiliates. Sometimes it's one, sometimes it's two. It is certainly enough for us to know what's going on. In addition to, as Alan said, where the distribution partner, we're out there every day with them, where their ops partner, we see everything going on. The other point, as Chambers said, distribution, if you're successful at distribution, it helps avoid a lot of problems. A lot of the problems of fund managers arise when they're not having business success. We are different in that regard. I just want to say, then we can move on, I am incredibly grateful to Chambers, Andrew Chambers, Kyle Macintyre, who leads our retail and wholesale distribution. Chris Meyer here leads our listed distribution. Half of all of Pinnacle is distribution, and it's an incredibly powerful asset. That's a big part of the answer.
If I may, are you happy for us to return to the form? We can take some more questions later about this. Okay.
Chambers, are you taking questions on the Director's Report now?
Yes, we are.
Two questions. Can you perhaps include next year in your report the tenure of directors in the report?
Sure.
Doesn't show that on their profiles.
I think it's all right. Yes, we'll make sure it's clear. I thought it was in there, isn't it?
Employment dates are there for all directors.
Sorry? Employment dates are there for all.
Employment dates are there. Employment dates.
Sure, we'll make it clearer if you can't find it. It's not on their profiles.
Second question. One of the directors doesn't own any shares. Does Pinnacle consider doing what other listed companies do and ask directors to hold?
Yes, we have a policy on that. There is a set period when you have to get up to the multiple of your salary. One of the motions that's being put today, one way to do that is to allow directors to sacrifice the cash in their salary to acquire shares. Effectively, it's buying shares.
I think all directors do now own shares. They may not have at the date you looked at.
We can take questions.
That is there, and you'll be asked to, if you want to go into details on that, there's a particular motion on that. We can take it at that.
All right.
The next item of business is to consider the adoption of the remuneration report for the 2025 financial year. It's contained within the 2025 annual report and forms part of the director's report. The report includes information required by Section 300A of the Corporations Act and sets out the REM 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 director's report be adopted. If anyone has particular questions in relation to the remuneration report, please submit them now or raise your hand. I now put the resolution shown on the screen to the meeting. The number of proxies received by the company as at 48 hours prior to this meeting for the resolution are now shown on the screen.
AUD 140 million in favor. The meeting now needs to consider the re-election of two directors in accordance with the Constitution. The Constitution requires that one-third of the company's directors eligible for rotation, being all directors other than the Managing Director and any director appointed as a casual vacancy, stand for re-election every three years. Directors to retire by rotation at each AGM are those who've been longest in office since their election or last re-election. Ms. Lorraine and myself are retiring from office and offer ourselves for re-election. I will now hand the meeting to Ian to chair the next item that relates to my own re-election.
Thanks, Alan. The explanatory statement attached to the notice of meeting provides information in relation to Alan. During his executive career, Mr. Watson has worked in investment banking, accumulating over 30 years of experience within various global equity markets. During this period, he was responsible for starting and leading a number of securities businesses, both in Europe and Asia, advising many companies on capital structuring, initial public offerings, takeovers, mergers, and investment relations strategies. Mr. Watson held positions as Managing Director at Barclays de Zoete Wedd Limited , Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Corporation, Lehman Brothers Holdings, and Macquarie Capital Europe Limited. Subsequent to this, he has been an independent director of various public companies both in Australia and North America. In addition to the company, currently, Mr.
Watson is also an independent director of Airbus of America, listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, and an independent non-executive director of Australis Oil and Gas, listed on the ASX. If anyone has any questions in relation to this resolution, please submit them now or raise your hand.
David?
I'd just be interested in, clearly, Pinnacle's been hugely successful. When we look at page 100 of the accounts, the total investment in the affiliates is AUD 341 million. Now, that's a little bit irrelevant because clearly you've been enormously successful and there's very large uplifts. There's not a huge amount in the accounts. I think you talk about four of your more material investments on page 101, but there's not a huge amount in the accounts about the performance of the individual managers. It may be commercially sensitive, Ian, to talk about current market values, but in the context where the success means that the market cap is miles above the carrying value, it basically makes the carrying values pretty irrelevant. The only carrying value that's probably in there in anything like market value is Five V because you've bought that recently.
Some of them, you bought at terrifically low prices, so well done. It's just not a huge amount in the annual report, and I've scanned most of it to give anyone a great deal of comfort about the breakdown. I would imagine Coolabah's being pretty successful at the moment. You bought over 3% recently. I presume that indicates you've bought that at a premium to your original purchase price, I presume.
It's no relevance here to what we're voting on.
It's relevance, okay. It's relevance because I was going to ask the question of the view of the gentleman up for re-election. That's the relevance.
Pretty clear.
David, you're correct that the balance sheet value doesn't bear relationship to the true market value of our affiliates. The accounting rules are the lower of cost or market, and that's what we have to apply. Valuing fund managers is, in some respects, in the eye of the beholder. You get a big range of opinions, and they do vary, of course, from time to time. We're not in the business of putting out valuations of our affiliates. Our shareholders, the analysts who follow our stock, and there are a lot of them, they all do that, and that's their job, and I think that's appropriate. It wouldn't really be sensible for us to be giving our opinion of values. When we buy equity in an affiliate, obviously, that only happens if it happens at a value that we're happy to buy at and someone's happy to sell at.
We think we do very well when we buy additional equity in affiliates. We know them very well. We know their prospects, etc. I think over time, we're likely to end up owning some more of quite a few of our affiliates, and that's a good thing. That works very well. In terms of the financial statements, I think most of our affiliates lodge their financials, and they're able to be discovered. I know a lot of the analysts in fund managers and stock-broking firms who follow us get to the bottom of the financial performance of a lot of our affiliates. We think we put out so much information already on our company, our various presentations, and so on. We do our best to outline the things that shareholders are really interested in, which is our strategies, how things are going, rather than specific some of the financial information.
You'll probably see more detail in our footnotes in future as our affiliates get bigger, some of our affiliates get bigger.
Thank you.
Yes.
[audio distortion].
If there are no more questions, I'll put the resolution that's shown on the screen to the meeting. The number of proxies received by the company as at 48 hours prior to this meeting for this resolution are now shown on the screen. Please cast your vote using your voting card. Alan, I would ask you to please resume the chair.
Thank you. [audio distortion].
Congratulations on your election.
Thank you.
Turning to Lorraine, the explanatory statement attached to the notice of meeting provides information in relation to Lorraine. Ms. Berrends has worked in the financial services industry for over 40 years and possesses extensive experience in both investment management and superannuation. Before moving to a non-executive career in 2014, she worked for 15 years with U.S.-based investment manager Marvin & Palmer Associates. Ms. Berrends contributed extensively to industry associations throughout her executive career, serving on the boards of the Investment Management Consultants Association for 13 years, 7 as Chair, and the Association of Superannuation Funds Australia for 12 years, 3 as Chair. Ms. Berrends has been awarded life membership of both the CIMA Society and ASFA. Ms. Berrends holds a BSc from Monash University, is a Fellow of Actuaries Institute, and a Fellow of the ASFA.
She is an independent Non-Executive Director of Plato Income Maximiser Limited, Spheria Emerging Companies Limited, and Hearts and Minds Investments Limited. All three are listed investment companies. She is a Non-Executive Director of the Pinnacle Foundation, PNI Foundation, Chair of the Qantas Group Super Plan Superannuation Committee, which is now part of Australian Retirement Trust, and an independent member of the Australian Commonwealth Games Foundation Investment Committee. If anyone has questions in relation to this resolution, please submit them now or raise your hand.
Again, it may be more for Ian. I'm not sure, but as a Director up for re-election, obviously an excellent CV. Everyone supports that. Just be interested in your guidance and thoughts on Metrics in particular. We all dine at Rockpool. The loan actually had some challenges. Instead of reaching an agreement with Quadrant and potentially taking it at this point, they took over the loan and the equity investment in Rockpool Group. Is that a good use of Metrics' time to become entrepreneurial and become restaurant managers? Are they avoiding taking a write-down when Quadrant weren't prepared to put any more money in? Again, it may be, Ian, you prefer to comment, but it's a topical issue and I appreciate your insights. Thank you.
Just very simply, Metrics' view is that they will do whatever it takes to get the best outcome for their investors. It is an area where private credit managers can have a competitive advantage over banks because they don't have the same pressures on them with underperforming loans, etc. It's probably not appropriate that we get into too much detail. It's a question for Metrics. I would say, I know that in the Rockpool situation, the view of the Metrics leaders is that they're doing whatever it takes to get the best possible outcome for their investors. Time will tell. We'll see probably what we can say at the moment.
Thank you.
I'll put the resolution on the screen to the meeting. The number of proxies received by the company as at 48 hours ago are shown. Please cast your vote on the voting card. The next item of business is to consider the issue of shares to 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 2026 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 the receipt of shareholder approval, noting that the price of grants are based on the volume-weighted average price, the VWAP, five trading days immediately prior to the issue date. If anyone has questions on this resolution, please submit them now or raise your hand.
Alan, we have a question online from Mr. Stephen Maine asking Mr. Chambers to summarize his experience of incentive grants and his history in terms of the stock.
Summarise his.
You have to stand over here.
Stand over here, Andrew Chambers.
Summarize your experience across investment grants, etc. Have they vested or lapsed?
Correct. I guess I was a founding partner in the business alongside Ian. I've been with the business almost 18 years now. All of the shares which have been issued to me have vested under, obviously, the various performance conditions which were assigned to those. To the degree that this is issued to me today, of course, it's actually not my key motivation. I think it's the end of it. I would work just as hard for the business if they were there, if they weren't there. I'm very much aligned and motivated by the sheer number of shares I have today, but also my passion for the business as well, ultimately. I guess my 18 years' experience having delivered on, I guess, performance expectations, hopefully, to hopefully satisfy that.
These LTR grants are subject to various performance hurdles.
100% of them, yeah.
I don't want to be distasteful talking about money publicly and all, but these numbers in the report, your remuneration for 2025, just shy of AUD 1.4 million, the year before that, AUD 1.2 million. Is that correct? That is a fairly low number, given how key you are to this business and the success that you've had and the team that you oversee. How's that? Are we issuing enough to this level? Are we paying him enough?
It's actually a very good question.
Hopefully.
There are a lot of people who'd love to have this guy working for them. I can tell you that. He's not motivated by money in the way that a great many people are. In fact, we have to more or less push these shares on him. Put it that way. Every time I have a talk to him about LTR, he says, "Don't give me any. Give them to my people." That's the kind of person he is. He does a fabulous job. He's led that function for 18 years with incredible success. It's not the shares and so on that motivate him and the money.
We shouldn't take too much advantage of that.
No, but honestly, you have a high purpose around the mission of the business ultimately. I'm financially independent. You always understand that, so I have the luxury of saying that, of course, as well. It's about how you feel about the business ultimately, and that's much deeper than any financial motive at the end of the day.
I would say as a long-term shareholder, the efforts of you guys, everyone here, has changed my family's life. That's financially what it is.
I do.
I'm very grateful for your efforts, and your remuneration have done this to me.
Fantastic. Thank you very much.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, our company's mission is enabling better lives through investment excellence. It really does warm our heart to hear a story like that. Thank you.
Thank you.
I will now put the resolution shown on the meeting to the screen. Number of proxies received by the company at 48 hours prior to this meeting for the resolution are now shown. Unlimited in favor, 130,000 against. Please cast your vote on the voting card. The next item of business is to consider the issue of securities to Christa Leonard in lieu of director fees under the Omnibus Incentive Plan. This was the bit that we talked about earlier. Shareholder approval is being sought to make a grant of performance rights to Ms. Leonard. The board recognizes the importance of aligning the interests of non-executive directors with long-term interests of shareholders and considers that meaningful investment in shares by non-executive directors, such as a grant of performance rights as contemplated in this item, demonstrates this alignment.
Each non-executive director is required to acquire and hold shares equal to 150% of their annual gross director fees, inclusive of board committee fees, as soon as is practicable, generally not more than four years from the date of their appointment. If anyone has questions in relation to this resolution, please submit them now or raise your hand. If there are no questions, I now put the resolution shown on the screen to the meeting. Number of proxies received by the company as at 48 hours prior to this meeting are now shown on the screen. Please cast your vote on the voting card. Please ensure that you have cast your votes for each of the resolutions. Shareholders attending in person, please lodge your completed voting cards in a ballot box. I think it's being walked around now.
Yeah.
Please raise your hand or type a message in the Q&A box if you require more time to complete your voting card.
Thank you. Just wait till everyone's got that.
All right. I'll just let us close up.
Thank you.
Does anyone else require any time? Oh, there's one over there to your left. All right. I now declare the poll closed. That concludes the formal meeting of the business. I'll hand over to Ian for the Managing Director's update.
Thanks, Alan. Good morning, all. This slide that's on the screen shows the main topics that I plan to address today. Firstly, I'll review the key themes and outcomes for our company for the 2025 financial year. I'll briefly review the financial results for the 2025 financial year, then provide an update on developments during the first quarter of the new 2026 financial year, including introducing our newest Horizon 3 affiliate, Advantage Partners. Since we provided an update to the ASX on the 22nd of October, several stock-broking researchers, including Macquarie, Barrenjoey, Canaccord, Morgans, RBC, UBS, and Ord Minnett, have published update reports. We urge shareholders to read these. 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 whilst delivering strong average annual rates of growth.
I'll explain how we have 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 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 5th of August, 2025, and sets out how we summarise the key themes and outcomes for our company for the 2025 financial year. For quite some time now, we've been emphasising our strategy of further increasing the diversity of our business.
Whilst this can suppress earnings in the short term, particularly in respect of Horizon 2 initiatives where we build new capabilities or new affiliates, it serves to increase the robustness of our platform and provides further avenues of future growth. During FY 2025, the benefits of this deliberate strategy continued to become evident as strong growth in core earnings, expanding affiliate profitability, and our robust platform drove scalable, diversified earnings growth on the growing Pinnacle platform. The continuing execution of our Horizon 3 strategy has been adding and will continue to add new capabilities that can harvest the full value of the Pinnacle engine to accelerate growth. Adding to this. It was a strong performance fee outcome for FY 2025. A particular note was the contribution from Hyperion in the first half, resulting from the delivery of exceptional performance for their clients. I think I've got that message through.
Hyperion have an outstanding track record, having delivered strong outcomes for their clients for over 28 years. We are delighted to be partnered with Hyperion. We also delivered record net inflows over FY 2025, with new affiliates, particularly Life Cycle, making a substantial contribution. Entering FY 2026, all affiliates are now at run rate profitability, and many key performance fee strategies ended the new financial year either at or close to their high watermarks. I'll provide further detail on our profit, funds under management, and fund flows shortly. Slides 21 to 23 provide further detail on these themes. In point one, we elaborate on the strong financial outcome for FY 2025. Pinnacle net profit after tax was up 49% on FY 2024, representing a 37% increase in earnings per share.
Over the five years to FY 2025, we've delivered compound annual growth rates of over 25% in net profit after tax, diluted earnings per share, and dividends per share, despite conditions in some of those years not being broadly supportive. This growth in FY 2025 was underpinned by a 39% increase in affiliate revenues on the previous financial year, which delivered a 43% increase in Pinnacle share of affiliate profits. The flow outcome was also strong, with AUD 23.1 billion net inflows for the financial year, a record outcome. AUD 18 billion was raised in globally domiciled affiliates, AUD 6.7 billion was into alternative credit, and AUD 3.9 billion was into private markets assets, underscoring the benefits of the strategic expansion of our platform into global and alternative asset classes. The continued strong outperformance of public equity strategies also provides the opportunity for market share gains in public market equity flows.
In point two, we provide further detail on the continuing execution of our three horizons strategy. The high quality of affiliates, combined with Pinnacle's large multi-channel distribution platform, provides the opportunity to take market share in existing Horizon 1 strategies. Our latest Horizon 2 initiative, Life Cycle Investment Partners, domiciled in the U.K., ended FY 25 with AUD 15.4 billion. In funds under management, and has reached profitability rapidly, a truly outstanding start and a demonstration of the quality and character of the team and their relevance to a broad range of clients. We executed the strategic acquisitions of new Horizon 3 affiliates, the United Kingdom and the United States, Pacific Asset Management, and VSS, diversifying and further expanding Pinnacle's global affiliate platform.
Our flexible balance sheet, strong global platform, and proven track record of success in partnering with world-class teams across the globe strengthens Pinnacle's reputation and appeal, reinforcing the ability to export the Pinnacle model as we seek to prosecute further opportunities. We will discuss progress on further initiatives shortly. We believe that this is further evidence that the Pinnacle platform has demonstrated that its value is greater than the sum of the parts. Slide 22, point three, provides further detail on the performance fee outcome in FY 2025, which was strong overall, albeit low in the second half. The PNI share of performance fees after tax was up 49% on FY 2024, on performance fee fund that was 31% higher. As mentioned earlier, Hyperion was a key contributor.
There are now 31 strategies with the ability to deliver material performance fees on AUD 50 billion of funds under management, up from AUD 25 billion and AUD 39 billion at the 30th of June 2024. Twelve affiliates contributed performance fees in FY 2025. The strategy set is diverse and largely uncorrelated, with the ability to deliver meaningful fees in each financial year across market cycles. We believe that it is now well- understood that performance fees are a consistent, significant, and ongoing contributor to Pinnacle's earnings. We were well- set heading into FY 2026 with 82% of total performance fee fund at or within 2% of high watermark, 60% at high watermark as at the end of June. I'll provide an update on the numbers at the end of September a little later.
Point four gives further information on our record net inflows, which were AUD 23.1 billion in FY 2025, with AUD 16.4 billion in the second half, driven by a dominant contribution from Life Cycle. Internationally sourced fund and private markets fund have continued to grow strongly, and international and retail fund now represent more than 50% of total group fund. The strong start for Pinnacle's newest Horizon 2 initiative, Life Cycle, was our fastest to date in terms of fund growth and speed to profitability. Whilst there has been good progress in our latest Horizon 3 initiatives, Pacific Asset Management delivered AUD 2.5 billion of net inflows since Pinnacle acquired an interest just through to the end of June, and VSS has seen strong early support for its upcoming Fund 5. Slide 23. As mentioned earlier, point five outlines that all affiliates ended FY 2026 at run rate profitability or better.
The overall cost of Horizon 2 within Pinnacle and affiliates trended downwards as expected, but significant opportunities do remain requiring investment, particularly in Metrics , which continues to build and diversify origination capabilities. Pinnacle and affiliates will continue to pursue Horizon 2 opportunities where quality and growth potential are compelling. It is a vital and differentiated part of our platform and strategy. Finally, point six reminds us that the diversifying Pinnacle platform offers multiple earnings drivers. Opening FY 2026 funds under management of AUD 179.4 billion was 63% higher than opening FY 2025 fund and 24% higher than the average fund in FY 2025. Affiliates continue to deliver strong investment performance, with 91% of affiliate strategies with a track record of five years or longer having outperformed their benchmarks as at the end of FY 2025. Horizon 2 initiatives, both within Pinnacle and within affiliates, are progressing well.
Slide 24 sets out the financial highlight numbers for the 2025 financial year. We reported net profit after tax of AUD 134.4 million, 49% up on FY 2024 NPAT of AUD 90.4 million. Diluted EPS was AUD 0.624 per share, up 37% on FY 2024 EPS of AUD 0.455 per share. We declared a final dividend of AUD 0.27 per share, taking total dividends for the year to AUD 0.60 per share, up 43% on FY 2024. To the top left-hand side of the table, our aggregate affiliate funds under management at 100% at 30th of June 2025 was AUD 179.4 billion. This was up AUD 69.3 billion, or 63%, from AUD 110.1 billion at 30th of June 2024, and up AUD 24 billion, or 15%, on the 31st of December 2024. Our aggregate retail fund was AUD 39.7 billion at 30th of June 2025, up AUD 10.9 billion, or 38%, on a year earlier.
The ASX 300 Index was up 9.9% over the year, and the MSCI World Index up 14.4%. The NASDAQ, which is relevant particularly to Hyperion Global, was up 14.9%, and the Global REIT Index, relevant particularly to Resolution Capital, was down 1.3%. Total affiliate revenue at 100% was up 39% at AUD 925 million, of which AUD 771.4 million was base fees. That was up 39%. AUD 153.6 million was performance fees, up 40%. Pinnacle's net share of performance fees after tax were AUD 46.6 million, up 49% on AUD 31.2 million in FY 2024. Total net inflows for the year were AUD 23.1 billion, of which AUD 6.9 billion was retail, AUD 4.8 billion from international investors, and AUD 11.4 billion was from Australian institutions. During the second half of the 2025 financial year, total net inflows were AUD 16.4 billion, of which AUD 3.2 billion was retail, AUD 4 billion was from international investors, and AUD 9.2 billion was from Australian institutions.
Slide 25 shows our record of earnings growth over the nine years that we have been listed Pinnacle. Slide 26 elaborates our track record of strong earnings growth through periods which incorporate some less favorable stages of the market cycle, as well as through a period of heavy Horizon 2 investment. As mentioned earlier, this diversification provides further avenues for growth, albeit it suppresses short-term profitability. Earnings per share have grown at a compound annual rate of 28.3% over the 5-year period to the 30th of June 2025. Slide 27 shows some detail on our performance fee record and opportunity. As mentioned, we continue to grow the size and diversity of our performance fee potential and look forward to our strategies with larger performance fee fund delivering in future years. Slide 28 shows in graphs our 19-year fund growth and net flow history.
Fund has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 27.3% per annum over the past 10 years, 24.2% per annum if we exclude fund acquired in our various Horizon 3 transactions. Our fund source from international clients has grown strongly over the past few years. Aggregate retail and international fund, which tend to have higher fees than domestic institutional, now represent over 50% of the total fund. The bottom graph shows the strong growth in retail and overseas-based fund. We've continued to win business into private market asset classes and from offshore. Slide 29 provides detail on the diversification of our client base resulting from our multi-year build-out of retail and international distribution capabilities. Slide 30 provides detail on the growth of our private markets businesses and internationally domiciled affiliates, which accelerated meaningfully through FY 2025.
Slide 31 provides further color on our international expansion, showing cumulative net international flows by affiliate and client origin. Turning now to the September quarter, the first quarter of this new financial year. The aggregate of affiliates funds under management stood at AUD 197.4 billion at the 30th of September 2025. This was up AUD 18.1 billion, or 10%, from AUD 179.4 billion at 30th of June 2025, and represents entirely organic growth. That is, none of this fund was acquired. Total net inflows for the three months to the 30th of September 2025 were AUD 13.2 billion. AUD 4 billion of which was retail net inflows, AUD 2.9 billion was from international clients, and AUD 6.4 billion was from Australian institutional investors. Equity markets had a positive impact on aggregate fund levels from the beginning to the end of the quarter.
The S&P/ ASX 300 Index was up 3.9% over the 3 months ending 30th September 2025. The MSCI World Index was up 7.3%. The NASDAQ, as I mentioned, relevant to Hyperion Global, was up 11.2%. The FTSE EPRA/ NAREIT Index, relevant to RESCAP Global, was up 3.2%. Aggregate net inflows for the quarter were strong across all three channels. There were notable Australian wholesale retail net inflows, particularly from public equities and alternative fixed income.
Domestic institutional flows were robust in aggregate, but as we've previously commented, these flows are often lumpy and can vary significantly over shorter time periods. International net inflows were solid, with over half of those net inflows coming from wholesale retail channels. This is an increasingly important component of our international flows. Finally, most affiliates and strategies continue to deliver performance to expectations or better. Slides 34 to 36 provide the specifics of the 5-year performance track records of the 43 affiliate funds or strategies. Slides 37 to 39 provide further performance detail. Slide 40 updates on our most recent major industry awards. We were delighted at the Zenith Awards last week to win the Distributor of the Year award for the second consecutive year.
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 Reedy, and the marketing team led by Jared Brevi and Simon Kawaguchi. Six affiliates also won awards in various categories, which is an outstanding achievement for each of them and a demonstration of the quality of investment offerings across the group. It was a fantastic achievement for Hyperion to be named Overall Fund Manager of the Year at the Morningstar Awards earlier this year. It is the third time Hyperion has won this prestigious award and recognition of the outstanding outcomes Mark Arnold, Jason Orthman, and their team continue to deliver for clients. Slide 41 provides an outline of our newest Horizon 3 partnership with Advantage Partners.
We were delighted last week to announce that we have agreed terms to acquire up to 13% of Advantage Partners over a 3-year period. This is via an initial 5% stake for AUD 92 million and an option over a further 8% at similar valuation. Advantage Partners is the largest independent multi-strategy private markets platform in Japan. The business has strong organic growth potential, with near-term growth driven by larger fundraisers of the current Japan Buyout Fund 8 and Private Solutions 4, which are expected to take funds from the current $3 billion to more than $ 6.5 billion over the next 12 months. Pinnacle is proud to invest alongside Advantage Partners' existing strategic partner, Tokyo Century Corporation, with managing partners and staff retaining the majority stake, having continued independence.
Pinnacle has additionally entered into a business alliance agreement and distribution services agreement with Advantage Partners, covering global distribution of their strategies by Pinnacle. Working alongside Advantage Partners' in-house investor relations team and existing Blue Chip Limited partner base. Slide 42 elaborates: Advantage Partners is the only locally grown diversified private markets platform in Japan. The partnership provides Pinnacle with a leading private markets investment platform and substantial limited partner footprint in Japan, one of the world's largest pension and insurance markets. It is aligned with Pinnacle's objective to diversify internationally and increase exposure to global private assets, particularly in the attractive mid-market area. Following our recent acquisition of an interest in VSS in the U.S. and successful domestic partnerships in Metrics, Five V, Palisade, and Riparian, we will leverage Pinnacle's 17-year track record distributing private markets capabilities to global limited partners, and since 2017 to the Australian wealth market.
Advantage Partners is the mid-market private equity leader in Japan, with their flagship Japan Buyout strategy highly sought after, offering scarcity value and strong global appeal to Pinnacle's limited partner base. Advantage Partners has a highly experienced team with a unique East-West culture that includes over 140 staff, with 90 investment professionals across five offices. Over 70% of the partners have been with the firm for more than 15 years. Slides 43 to 48 provide further information on Advantage Partners. Referring to slides 50 and 51, in slide 50, we remind shareholders that we think in terms of three horizons of growth. Horizon 1 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 grow affiliate revenue.
We conservatively estimate the excess capacity of the affiliates' existing strategies at approximately AUD 500 billion. There is plenty of Horizon 1 runway left, with the attendant strong gains in operating leverage that will be accompanied by such growth. Horizon 2 is the subject of a lot of activity, both within Pinnacle itself and within affiliates. As I mentioned earlier, this is a vital component of our strategy, expanding our platform to deliver further avenues of future growth. Even though the costs moderate short-term profitability, returns on past initiatives have been exceptionally high. Horizon 3 is, of course, where we use capital to buy into existing businesses. We've explored many Horizon 3 opportunities, seeking the characteristics that we've previously explained. 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 high in demand, including private credit, infrastructure, real estate, private equity, and hedge funds. Advantage Partners exhibits these characteristics, and we retain dry powder to pursue further opportunities. Slide 51 elaborates further on our approach to continuing growth and the benefits that our platform can bring to new initiatives. We previously mentioned specific Horizon 2 initiatives in slide 52 and provided updates on the progress of Horizon 3 initiatives consummated in FY 2025, with specific asset management and VSS in slide 53. As expected, the net cost of Horizon 2 came down in FY 2025 as revenues from these initiatives began to grow.
It's also important to remember that these initiatives are made in partnership with affiliates, demonstrating the commitment by affiliates to growth and a strong degree of incentivization and alignment to achieving growth objectives. Slide 54 commences the section of the presentation on corporate responsibility. Slide 55. Over the course of the year, we continue 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, and all affiliates integrate 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. We are committed to building a sustainable, inclusive, and resilient firm.
This means fostering a work environment that recruits, retains, and supports exceptional people with diverse experience, aligning firm growth with our climate ambitions, expanding the reach and impact of our philanthropic partnerships, and supporting affiliate transitions to a more sustainable future. During FY 2025, Pinnacle was certified as a family-friendly workplace. We understand the importance of creating a workplace culture where equality, integrity, and respect are core values. With a work and family action plan now in place, we look to further embed a family-friendly and flexible working culture at Pinnacle. We submitted our third voluntary modern slavery statement and continue to work towards our 40-40-20 gender target in representation across our board, leadership team, and workforce. We continued our women-in-finance scholarships, with 11 scholarships currently being offered across five universities. These scholarships are now being offered over multiple years to further enhance the internship experience.
In addition, a new women-in-asset management scholarship was introduced in New South Wales this year. We set an interim target to ensure that all our significant suppliers disclose greenhouse gas data aligned with recognized standards by FY 2028. We again submitted our FY 2024 GHG accounts for the Australian government's climate-active carbon-neutral standard for organizations. We've maintained carbon-neutral certification since FY 2020 under this standard. Engagement across our broader group, including with affiliates, continued via the Pinnacle Group ESG Working Group, with a strong focus on sustainability reporting preparation and climate-related disclosures. More detail is set out in our corporate sustainability report on our website, which we would encourage you to read. Slide 56 elaborates on the outstanding work of the PNI Foundation and the support provided by Pinnacle. Slide 57 explains that total donations by the PNI Foundation in FY 2025 exceeded AUD 800,000, with a further AUD 375,000 donated by affiliates.
Slide 73, the additional information section, provides an update on the institutional and international markets and flows. Slide 75 provides an update on the wholesale and retail market and retail flows. We will likely discuss these further during question time. Slide 60, 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. Slide 61 provides some further detail in this regard. Shareholders can be assured that nothing has fundamentally changed in our ambitions, strategies, and growth plans, and we believe that we have made meaningful progress on these plans during FY 2025 and as we begin the new financial year.
That concludes the commentary I wanted to provide on the slides and on the performance of the business during the last financial year in the September quarter Q1 of the current 2026 financial year. Thank you, everyone, for your patience and listening.
Thanks, Ian. I'll now turn to the general Q&A question session of the meeting. Are there any online questions?
There's one question from a shareholder asking for an update on Metrics and some of the issues that pressed them, whether any measures have been adopted to address some of the issues.
Do you want to take that in?
I can maybe start. Andrew and I are the two Pinnacle directors on the Metrics board. We can't go into a lot of detail in this forum. Metrics can speak for themselves on most of these issues. Suffice to say that Metrics is the leading private credit manager in Australia.
We have partnered with them from their very inception when they were a group of very experienced bankers, mainly from National Australia Bank. We are delighted that they've grown from scratch to AUD 30 billion of assets under management and are doing great work. I mentioned several times in my presentation that they are doing a lot of Horizon 2 work, expanding their origination platform. Some of the commentary that they've been subject to has been unhelpful and has probably delayed some of their plans in some respects and impacted their flows. It's well- known that ASIC, the regulator, will be producing a final report on private credit before long. Private credit is getting a lot of attention in the press and amongst regulators on account of it having grown so much in Australia.
It's not that big in Australia compared with most parts of the world, particularly the U.S., but it's grown in Australia and therefore, appropriately, is getting that sort of attention. Probably not a lot more that we can say at this stage. We wait and see the regulator's final report and so on. Metrics is important to us. It's one of quite a number of major contributors, and we expect it to continue to grow in the future. Andrew, is there anything you want to add?
Other than to simply make the comment that I think that the review by ASIC itself will actually be very helpful for the market. In terms of setting some expectations around what governance should look like in terms of best practice, we actually welcome that.
I think many of those things Metrics is already currently doing or is in the process of doing as a function of becoming a much larger organization. It's important to note the world's largest investment consultants have deployed capital with Metrics. These are the very biggest operational due diligence firms in the world that support those particular consulting groups, and they've passed muster with it, never failed an operational due diligence on the basis of governance or any of those factors. For experienced investors in this space, they're absolutely top-notch in terms of their governance practice. There's obviously a regulator too, and we want to make sure that there's confidence in the market for people that allocate to the space.
I think it's healthy that there's some guidelines and some benchmarks set so people can ask the right questions of their firms that they may be investing with and maybe give them pause about ones that they've currently invested with. We think it's healthy. Thank you. Anything else online? Any other questions from shareholders in the room? David?
Yes. Yes, thank you. I'm just interested in the clearly massive contributor to profit is the share of associates. Profit of AUD 129 million. Firstly, is that actually distributed to or part of it distributed to Pinnacle, or is it retained in the associates? Secondly, I assume the associates are paying tax on that, so your share is effectively of the after-tax profit for the entities?
Correct. Yeah. So David, that's all absolutely correct.
Our business model is that we make our profits in alignment with our affiliates, so the vast bulk of our profits are our share of affiliates' profits. The affiliates mostly all pay their own tax within the affiliates, and so our share of their profits is after-tax. We then receive dividends from the affiliates, and they are franked dividends to the extent the affiliates have paid tax already. It's not as if tax is paid twice on that, so we get the credit for that. The affiliates, the vast majority of them pay the vast majority of their profits out in dividends. There's no reason for them to retain significant capital. They are very capital-light businesses. We have minority protections, which include minimum dividend payout ratios, except with our agreement that we may agree to vary those.
The financial statements, there is a cash flow statement that does show how much was paid to us from affiliates in dividends. It is probably worth adding as well that there are two affiliates which are set up as trusts. We obviously get pre-tax of the profits from them distributed. International affiliates, there won't be any benefit for franking, obviously, in those. What we do internationally, that will have an impact. To follow up, it's great you have protections and you've got representatives on the board of the affiliates. Is there a debate, and it will vary from affiliate to affiliate, about the actual remuneration of the managers in the affiliates? Quite often, that can happen in funds management. Without wanting to be immodest, we've been at this multi-affiliate model for 20 years.
We know the things that can go wrong, and we believe that we are very experienced at preventing those sorts of things from happening. Broadly, we agree on remuneration of the key people in our affiliates before we start an affiliate or before we buy into one. That's all agreed. It's contained in agreements. Sometimes there are provisions for them to rise with inflation, or there's various arrangements. Sometimes there are some profit-sharing arrangements for their incentives and so on, but it's all pre-agreed. We cannot be disadvantaged by individuals paying themselves more than has been agreed. We're protected from that.
I think it's fair to say Ian would be too modest to say it, but I think it's fair to say that we've now done 18 of these affiliates. I think we get better at negotiating those things because most people do it once in their lives.
Can I ask one about you talking about Advantage Partners' Japanese investment at 13%? Sounds a little bit less than what I think of your average investment, which I'm guessing is about 40%. I'm wondering, is that strategy? Is that all you could do? Would you like to do more?
Combination of all of the above, really. It was, A, what was available. Tokyo Sentry, their existing partner, followed their money. The amount that was available was a lot less, but it's a noteworthy sum of money. It's our first venture into Japan. The way it's being done at a 5% and then the option over the 8% is a cautious way to make that first step.
If I could just say, you shouldn't read into it any change in our strategy at all. It's about alignment. We think we can make a lot of money out of that investment.
We said it was AUD 94 million for the 5%. You can do your maths on it's over AUD 200 million by the time we buy the rest. It's nice to have the protection that it's an option rather than a forward purchase. It's still well over AUD 200 million. It's a material amount. Personally, I think we may be able to acquire some more in it over time. There are no hard and fast rules for ourselves on percentages. They have to meet our strategic and financial goals, and this one certainly does.
I think it goes to the point that if we hadn't had the ability to provide something extra to them, which is the distribution, we wouldn't have got the opportunity to be in that position. Similar to Life Cycle's at Horizon 2. Any other questions?
Maybe a follow-up from that.
Do you give any broad metrics on Horizon 3, the financial side? Obviously, we know you're going global, private markets, but is there an accretion in a certain amount of time? Have you stated anything about how you look at these?
I think Chris has just gone. He is more across these numbers than me. One thing we do say, we look to make large gains over time. We are not financial investors when we do Horizon 3. We are value-add investors. We will only invest in an existing funds manager if we believe we can add value, normally with our distribution. As Alan said, we have a distribution agreement with Advantage Partners. That's the whole point of us being there, and the plan is that over time, they will grow by more than they would have grown without us.
The price we pay to buy into them reflects their current prospects, not the additional prospects that we bring. Our track record with Horizon 3 is very high returns. What we've paid for each of those businesses and what they would be worth now, it's very high because we help to accelerate their growth. We should add as well that Advantage Partners' other shareholder, Tokyo Sentry, will make a commitment of USAUD 100 million into every new initiative, every new fund they launch. They're a value-add partner in terms of being a capital provider. Of course I'm saying that first USAUD 100 million is amazing the way it unlocks additional capital coming in. It helps us with our own capital raise as well. There's value creation happening, not just ourselves, but also Tokyo Sentry as well.
Yes. I seem to remember three to four years ago that you were considering. Maybe stepping down a little bit from the operations of the business. I think I've detected the sentiment in this room that we'd be disappointed if that was happening. I'd just like an update on that.
I can give a quick one, but my Chairman is probably the appropriate guy to talk about my future. The only reason we made that statement was that all of my personal net worth is tied up in Pinnacle shares because I took the decision a long time ago to reduce my remuneration, etc. I got equity instead. That's become valuable. All the advice I got from everyone, solicited and otherwise, was that I ought to diversify a little bit and sell some of those shares. I think it was a third of my holding. That, of course, would bring about questions about, does that mean I'm checking out?
We made the statement that I'm committed to the business long-term, at least for a period of time. We chose that period as being not too long because that would be making statements that we shouldn't make, but not too short either to show that I wasn't checking out. We've made statements that the board is very aware of my age and the need to have good succession. We put a lot of emphasis on succession with our affiliates, and we'll do the same in Pinnacle. I've said my personal position, not in any hurry to leave, but I will leave. I also won't stay too long. I'll do whatever's in the best interest of the company, and the board will keep talking about that. Ian, how old are you, if you don't mind us asking? No, it's public information. I've turned 70.
If I wanted to be a smart alec, I'd say how old was Warren Buffett when he retired? Not that I would want to draw any parallels between him and me, but yeah. I'm a slightly similar. Slightly similar.
Go on, Charlie.
Hello Gary.
The other thing, just to finish on that point, it's one of the things that we did when I first joined the board as Chair, is I got Ian to write a letter to the board, which is currently in the company's solicitor's safe, that in the event of his sudden and inappropriate demise, what would he be thinking about succession. Not that that has any binding effect on the board, but I think it goes to the point that we've been thinking about succession, both planned and unplanned, from day one.
Just to flip things around, do you ever get approached to sell part or all of your stakes and affiliates, and do you give it any consideration?
We've got. Close with one affiliate about 7 years ago, eight years ago. Broadly, we think they've got so much growth incumbent in them. If you think of the Horizon 1 number there, where we talked about capacity of around AUD 500 billion in aggregate, it's unlikely that anyone would give us the value that we think we can generate 4 or 5 years hence. We wouldn't turn our face against it. Thus far, nothing's been sufficiently attractive to encourage us. We have to be commercially sensible.
Can I ask a follow-up one? Has there been any approaches to purchase Pinnacle by potential buyers?
No. If there was anything like that, I'd obviously have had to announce it.
If there was a formal announcement, I wouldn't rule our face against it, but one would have to be talking to us, which they haven't.
Be a very big check. Market cap at AUD 4.5 billion, so you'd need a big check.
There's big check writers around. Any other questions?
I think it's probably worthwhile saying that if you were to sell any affiliates, which is unlikely, you would have a pretty hefty tax bill on them too. You're miles ahead on almost every one of your investments.
With the capital gains tax, that's right. Yep. Nothing else online? Okay. If there's nothing else, then perhaps, if I may, I'll declare the meeting closed. Thank you all for your attendance. Thank you for your questions and investing in the business. We hope to deliver for you and see you next year.