I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Andrew Schwartz, Group Managing Director, Co-Founder. Please go ahead.
Good morning and welcome to the Qualitas First Half 2025 results presentation. I'm Andrew Schwartz, Group Managing Director and Co-Founder. Joining me today are Mark Fischer, Global Head of Real Estate and Co-founder, Kathleen Yeung, Global Head of Corporate Development, and Philip Dowman, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land from which I'm presenting, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I also acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands where you are participating today. We pay our respects to their elders, past and present. Turning to slide number three. Today, I will start with an overview of our performance and key highlights for the half. Kathleen will then cover our growth initiatives and ESG strategy. Mark will provide insights into our funds management business, and Philip will take you through our financial results.
Finally, I'll conclude with our outlook for the remainder of the financial year before we open for questions. With that, let's move straight into the results and turn to slide number four. Three years after our IPO, we continue to execute on our strategy and deliver high-quality growth. Our disciplined approach is yielding strong results, reinforcing our position as a leader in Australian commercial real estate private credit. Investors have shown their confidence in us, as demonstrated by the success of the recent QRI entitlement offer. Despite growing competition and a relatively challenging deployment environment over the last three years, we have consistently achieved record deployment levels while maintaining rigorous underwriting and risk management. Our investment portfolios continue to perform well, and all credit funds with performance fees are exceeding their hurdle rates.
With a robust funds management platform, we are well positioned to capitalize on the new residential development cycle. As I said earlier, December 2025 marks exactly three years post our initial IPO. I'd like to take this opportunity to compare where our business is at today versus three years ago at the IPO. Our funds have more than doubled. Our funds under management have more than doubled. Fee-earning FUMs almost tripled, which directly drives our revenue growth. Recurring funds management revenue and principal income has more than doubled. It's 2x. Funds management EBITDA, excluding performance fees, has more than tripled. Our drawn balance sheet co-investment is up 5x . Our unrecognized performance fees attributed to private credit have increased 16x . This is a strong set of results and reflects the depth, the growth, and the maturity of our platform. Now, turning to slide number five.
I'm pleased to report that Qualitas has delivered another strong first half financial performance with double-digit growth across key metrics. Compared to the first half of FY 2024, our six-month deployment has increased by 34%, contributing to strong fee-earning FUM growth. We have maintained a funds management EBITDA margin above our medium-term target, even as we expand our investment team. We anticipate more efficiency gains in the second half. Currently, 59% of our balance sheet is drawn by co-investments, with more opportunities to optimize balance sheet returns in the second half. Our unrecognized performance fee pool has grown by 20% since August, driven by credit fund contributions. We closed the first half with a net profit before tax of AUD 23 million, which is up 28% on the prior period. The momentum we have built provides strong earnings visibility for the remainder of the financial year.
Looking at the macroeconomic environment, real estate private credit in Australia is well positioned for increasing investor allocations given the residential tailwinds and attractive returns. Momentum in the residential development sector will accelerate following our first rate cut last week. As financiers, we benefit early from the next residential construction cycle. Given our strong half-year results and the increasing macro tailwinds, we are on track with our previously stated guidance of AUD 49 million-AUD 55 million of net profit before tax. This represents 26%-41% growth on last year. Now, moving to slide number seven. Our fee-earning FUM was up 41%, reaching AUD 7.9 billion, driven by strong growth in net deployment. Fee-earning FUM is a key indicator for growth momentum in base management fees as we earn fees based on a mix of measures.
85% of our total deployment is in the residential sector, a market that continues to offer strong risk-adjusted returns. We ended the first half with AUD 1 billion in dry powder. Our committed FUM sits at AUD 9.2 billion. 60% of the pool of embedded future performance fees is now attributed to credit funds. This is up from 47% only six months ago. Now, moving to slide number eight. Our earnings quality continues to improve. Base management fees grew by 32%, supported by rising fee-earning FUM. Principal income increased by 37% as balance sheet co-investments were progressively drawn. AUD 17 million was deployed across six voluntary private credit co-investments in the first half, which delivered incremental returns. This initiative was outlined in our full year 2024 results. With AUD 105 million in cash, we have flexibility to further optimize our balance sheet.
Funds management EBITDA margin was 50.9%, exceeding our 50% target. As we saw in FY 2024, margin expansion tends to accelerate in the second half of the year. Looking ahead, FY 2025 will be a year of quality earnings growth, driven by strong deployment momentum, laying the foundation for sustained growth. Now, moving to slide number seven. The left-hand chart highlights the acceleration in our fee-earning FUM growth over the last three reporting periods. Historically, our deployment was skewed toward the final quarter of each period. As a result, growth in fee-earning FUM has a lagged effect on base management fees. This means the second half of FY 2025 will fully reflect the 41% growth in fee-earning FUM over the past 12 months. This gives us confidence in the continued base management fee growth.
Beyond this, balance sheet yield has nearly doubled in the last two years as co-investment commitments are drawn. We see runway for this to increase further. As of the 31st of December, we have AUD 121 million of undrawn co-investment commitment. Before these commitments are drawn, it will be used for underwriting and voluntary co-investments. On the right-hand chart, we see the significant growth in credit funds contribution to our unrecognized performance fee pool.
Nearly 100% of the credit-related fees stem from our total return strategy, which is less sensitive to cash rate movements. We expect more frequent recognition of private credit performance fees for mandates with more back-ended fee structures. In summary, we are seeing a step change in the quality and growth of our future earnings. I'm now turning to slide number 10. We continue to see positive market conditions for private credit in Australia. A recent Preqin survey found that private credit is the top alternative asset class of interest among institutional investors, even in the face of anticipated global rate cuts.
The Asia-Pacific region, particularly Australia, remains more reliant on traditional lenders, lagging behind Europe and the United States in alternative financing take-up. This signals substantial growth potential for Australia. The right-hand chart highlights the superior risk-adjusted returns of Australia's CRE private credit market compared to the U.S., Europe, and the broader Asia-Pacific. Qualitas' total return and income strategies have achieved an average net IRR of 9.1% from 2017 to 2023. This materially outperformed other geographies with less fund leverage when the average cash rate was just 1.4%. Australia's CRE private credit market also benefits from low correlation to other global markets, strong residential demand tailwinds, and a legal framework that favors senior financiers. As an incumbent CRE alternative financier, we are well positioned for long-term growth in an expanding market. I'm now turning to slide 11. As economic conditions improve, the opportunity set continues to expand.
Last year, we estimate that we financed 10% of all apartments that commenced construction across Australian capital cities. We deployed AUD 3.5 billion for residential in that year, which in itself was more than triple our residential financings from three years earlier. With the housing supply under continuing pressure, analysts estimate that apartment development must more than triple to meet current demand. Maintaining our current market share of 10% translates to deploying over AUD 10 billion in private credit per annum. We are at the beginning of the next residential construction cycle. Our track record and scale underpin our ability to capitalize on the unprecedented opportunities ahead. I'll now hand over to Kathleen to discuss our growth initiatives and ESG platform.
Thanks, Andrew, and good morning, all. Our near-term growth strategy is focused on two areas. The first is increasing fund duration, which benefits quality of earnings and operational efficiency. And the second is increasing the diversity of our asset strategies through asset and product adjacencies and expanding geographically. As Andrew highlighted, we have successfully executed against our key strategic priorities outlined at the time of the IPO. We are winning larger mandates, which is driving larger investment sizes and translating to margin accretion.
We further complemented our core strategy by driving earnings growth by deployment of our balance sheet. Moving forward, we see further opportunity for both organic and inorganic growth. In the near term, from an organic perspective, we will continue to build on our strong foundations with new strategic partnerships. We are actively engaging with insurers and commercial banks on partnerships on both the capital and deployment side of the business, enabling us to broaden our origination pipeline across the risk spectrum of opportunities.
Ensuring that the business will continue to scale means ongoing investment in technology, product development, and in our capital investment teams. And given where we are in the cycle, we started to see interesting opportunities in our income and risk-return equity strategies. Complementing our organic strategy is our inorganic strategy. We're looking at asset adjacencies in private credit in Australia, and we're actively assessing opportunities offshore in commercial real estate debt. We diligently screen for track record, culture fit, and it needs to be additive to our existing platform.
Our focus continues to be executing on organic growth, and where we don't have the in-house capability, we will consider acquiring teams or platforms if it fits our criteria. Moving on to ESG. We continue to execute on our ESG initiatives to support low-carbon building, delivering impact for our communities and our people, and striving for best-in-class corporate governance. In addition to our product initiatives, we are developing a sustainable finance framework, which will provide a consistent and transparent approach to integrating sustainability across our investment platform.
At the corporate level, our Innovate RAP has been conditionally endorsed by Reconciliation Australia, which is an important step in our ongoing commitment to reconciliation. We continue to invest in our people, who are our biggest asset, and we firmly believe in the benefits of diverse teams and therefore remain committed to a 40-40-20 gender target. Finally, on the governance front, we're very pleased to be included as the only Australian representative on the UN PRI's Private Debt Advisory Committee, joining a select group of 20 global representatives. I'll now hand over to Mark and provide an update on our funds management platform.
Thanks, Kathleen. In the first half of 2025, we closed AUD 2.4 billion in transactions, up 34% from the first half 2024, reflecting strong momentum and the large market opportunity. As of January 2025, our pipeline stood at AUD 1.4 billion, bringing our FY 2025 run rate to AUD 3.8 billion, including closed transactions. Pleasingly, most of the pipeline consists of newly mandated transactions, and the team is off to a strong start, providing good visibility for the second half.
This strong deployment has reduced our dry powder by 33% from AUD 1.5 billion to AUD 1 billion, increasing our fee-earning FUM. Our institutional capital model means fund growth is not linear, but deployment scale drives long-term growth. We continue our focus on larger transactions, with a split starting to emerge between income credit and construction credit. Construction loans are growing larger, while income credit sizes are more varied as we build diversified portfolios for open-ended funds.
Looking ahead, the real estate cycle is stabilizing, and we expect the universe of potential deals to expand, particularly as the next residential development cycle begins. Moving on to slide 18. Our net new deployment grew strongly to AUD 1.1 billion, a 50% increase from first half 2024. More of our deployment now comes from financing assets for their next phase of the life cycle, rather than being repaid. For example, transitioning a pre-development land loan to a construction loan generates new transaction fees, increases our deployment, all at a lower origination cost.
Similarly, retaining investment loans through maturity extensions also supports this strategy. As we scale, repeat investments will become more prevalent and drive higher margins and earnings growth. The strong deployment growth we experienced in FY 2024 supported earnings growth in the first half of 2025, and we expect this trend to continue in the second half as fee-earning FUM grows. I'll now hand over to Philip to discuss our financial results.
Thanks, Mark, and good morning, everyone. I'm very pleased to report another strong period of growth in the Qualitas funds management business. As Andrew and Mark have highlighted, our consistent period-on-period growth in fee-earning FUM has resulted in a normalized NPAT of AUD 16.2 million, up 28% on the prior corresponding period of AUD 12.6 million. This represents a record NPAT since listing and represents consistent period-on-period profit growth since our IPO back in December 2021.
The key components of this strong result are the 20% growth in net funds management revenue to AUD 12.9 million and a 37% increase in income earned on our balance sheet investments at AUD 13.3 million for this half- year. The increase in these metrics is the direct result of continued strong deployment over recent periods and a record AUD 2.4 billion of deployment this half. The increasing operating efficiency of the Qualitas platform is also evidenced in the Group EBITDA margin of 49%, an increase from 47% in the prior corresponding period. An increased interim dividend of AUD 0.25 per share has been declared, up 11% on the FY 2024 interim dividend of AUD 0.25 per share. Moving to slide 21.
Looking now in more detail at the funds management segment results, we achieved 30% growth in total funds management EBITDA, reaching AUD 24 million for the half- year, with a 32% increase in base management fees, a particular highlight achieved through consistent growth in fee-earning FUM over recent periods. We also achieved a 37% increase in the contribution from income on our principal investments, largely through increased utilization of our cash and co-investments this half. Our performance fee contribution was also up AUD 800,000 versus prior comparable period, reflecting growth in performance fees earned on our credit fund booked this half- year. Pleasingly, we also cash received AUD 2.5 million of previously accrued performance fees in this half. Corporate costs were up 22% this period versus prior comparable period, reflecting increased activities, including marketing across the business.
Overall, the strong results reflected in a further expansion in the core funds management EBITDA margin to 51%, up from 48% in the prior corresponding period. The business exhibits a pattern of lower operating margin in the first half and higher in the second, with this expected to be evident again in our full-year results due to higher base management fee revenues through growth and fee-earning FUM achieved in the first half. Moving to slide 22.
As previously highlighted, our principal income grew by 37% compared to the prior corresponding period, underpinned in particular by the continued deployment of our co-investment capital and reflective of the strong deployment achieved in the half. The total contribution to our results from Arch Finance, our small ticket direct lending business, was AUD 2.9 million, down from AUD 3.3 million in the prior corresponding period, inclusive of the return on our co-investment in the warehouse.
This decline in total contribution is a function of the continued decline in the total loans outstanding and reflects continued competition in the small ticket size segment of the market. Moving to slide 23. The operating margin of the business has improved further this half as growth in the base management fees and principal investment income outweighed continued investment in additional capacity. Our margin expansion has a pattern of being stronger in the second half, as evidenced by the graphic on the left-hand side of this slide. This is natural given the way our base management fee revenue is expected to be higher in the second half than the first half, while our costs tend to be more evenly split between first and second half reporting periods.
Our base management fees, a percentage of invested FUM, was higher than our long-term expected average of between 0.9%-1% due to the timing and mix of our recent deployment. Conversely, the contribution to arrangement fee revenue this half was towards the lower end of our expected range of 0.3%-0.4% as a share of deployment due to that same deployment mix. Moving to slide 24. The Qualitas balance sheet remains very strong, with AUD 105 million of cash and cash equivalents reported as of December.
Investments of AUD 179 million compared to AUD 133 million at June 2024 highlights the increase in drawn co-investments and fund investments that have been achieved over this period, leading to expected higher and stable income from investments in future periods. As mentioned previously, we cash received AUD 2.5 million of performance fees previously accrued through the successful monetization of a performance fee on a credit fund exposure. We remain very focused on the continued strategic deployment of our balance sheet in an orderly way. I will now hand back to Andrew for his closing remarks.
Thanks, Philip. Since our IPO, we have delivered strong growth despite a challenging deployment environment. Over the past three years, we have organically expanded our funds management platform while maintaining a high-quality portfolio with no credit impairments and no interest arrears. Looking ahead, the quality of our earnings will continue to strengthen as base management fees grow, more credit performance fees are realized, and balance sheet capital transitions into longer-term investments. With rate cuts being brought forward, momentum in the residential sector is building.
Our business is among the first to benefit from the next residential construction cycle. Against this backdrop, we remain confident in our outlook for FY 2025 and are on track to deliver our previously stated net profit before tax guidance of between AUD 49 million to AUD 55 million. To everyone on this call and online, thank you for joining us for our results presentation. That concludes the formal part of the presentation, and we're certainly now happy to take any questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up your handset to ask your question. Our first question comes from Elizabeth Miliatis with Jarden. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions and congrats on the solid result. Just the first one around the deployment environment, you made a few comments that it's quite challenging at the moment, but obviously, you guys are performing well in that environment. If you could just touch on how you're actually able to achieve that and then potentially just the quality of the returns within the broader investment book, have there been any spots of concern that have popped up recently? There have been a number of press articles out there regarding your peers, so hopefully, that doesn't apply to you guys too. Thank you.
Sure. Look, I think I'll kick that one off, but certainly invite Mark to also respond to the question, and certainly, I did make reference several times in the presentation to a challenging deployment environment for the last three years. And as I've discussed in other previous earnings calls, it has been challenging through the advent of COVID some three or four years ago, and then the rise in construction costs that in many parts of Australia hasn't really been met by increases in revenues.
I think the sheer volume of feasibilities that could achieve successful economic outcomes have been significantly reduced volumes. I think that's one of the reasons why groups like Charter Keck Cramer and CBRE, to name a couple, have in their analytical report said that Australia needs 3x the volume of apartments than is currently being produced in order to meet with the demand. So supply has been very difficult, and somebody who is a financier in that market obviously is directly affected by the number of projects that's going on.
I mean, I would hope that what our results show is, notwithstanding the backdrop of what I just said, Qualitas financed, yeah, our estimate is 10% of every development that happened in Australia in residential apartments. I think that what it shows is this sort of tailwind of the need to have debt capital supplied into the market. I think in terms of more of an outlook statement that if the market does rebound, and maybe that's something, Mark, you want to touch on is some of your observations as to where the market is currently at, then I think Qualitas is going to be a fantastic beneficiary of that outlook market. So I might turn it over to you, Mark, about the status of the market.
Yeah, thanks, Andrew, and thanks for an excellent question, Elizabeth. Your question really goes to how are we positioning ourselves for the next cycle? Are we achieving such strong deployment when it is competitive out there? And I think the quality of the team and the embedded relationships that we have is a testament to that. We typically don't compete on price or risk. Typically, what we have is flexible and scalable capital that means borrowers want to transact with Qualitas.
So we're not engaged in a race to the bottom on terms, which I think is important. But most importantly, and to pick up on Andrew's last point that he touched on, is we are seeing the start of the next residential development cycle. Those better quality upper mid-market developers are getting confidence now to commence projects. And typically, they like to work with a financier such as ourselves when doing that. If I look to our pipeline and where it's coming from, a lot of it seems to be the commencement of the next cycle. If that occurs, I expect that we can keep our market share and therefore drive further deployment growth as well.
I think, Elizabeth, the second part of your question was really around the quality of the loan book, and I think you used a reference to our peers as well. I think what's important to understand is that Qualitas is not a group that's doing thousands of loans. That's just not our model. We've now been in existence for some 16 years. In that entire time, our total investments in credit is approximately 300 over the entire life of the firm. We're somebody that's not really striving to push volume for volume's sake.
And as I've said on other calls, if we wanted to, we could have had substantially even greater volumes than what we're showing. But we are someone that's selectively looking for investments for our portfolios. We deal with very high-quality counterparties, and I think that's really that granular approach that's stood Qualitas very well in respect of its current portfolio. Might leave it at that.
Yeah, thank you. That's really, really helpful. And just one second question. You talked to the improving outlook in terms of the Resi space, and things will hopefully get easier on the deployment side as well. Are your clients excited about the prospects as well? And hopefully, as things improve, they'll be able to give you even more capital, and then you can hopefully see committed funds expand quite significantly as we see a rebound in activity on the deployment side?
The short answer is yes. That is exactly our view. I think that some years ago, I used to say that our firm would be constrained by capital and the availability of us to raise capital. That has not been my view for quite some time. I think we've got very deep institutional relationships that have got to know Qualitas exceptionally well, and they're really tracking our deployment and pipeline very carefully. This wasn't quite your question, but we did end June 30, 2024, with AUD 1.5 billion of dry powder. We've had a very successful year, half- year in deployment, as Mark outlined, of AUD 2.4 billion and really, what our investors are doing is tracking that deployment and available capital very closely.
I feel very comfortable that as and when the demand appears for further capital, that will be forthcoming to the firm given just the sheer depth of relationships that Qualitas deals in. I think we're in a very fortunate position for that. As Mark said, I also think the market is really showing a lot of green shoots, particularly in calendar Q4. We saw a lot of projects that had been on the shelf for quite some time hit economic feasibility that one way or another Qualitas was involved in.
I think there's a lot to look forward to in that regard as well. I mean, Australia is due a super cycle in residential, right? Just the sheer demand and the lack of availability in the market, you'd have to say something has to give in that equation. And so I do think that we certainly saw those green shoots coming through, and certainly our investor base through our international partners is very keen to be involved in those future financings.
Awesome. Thank you so much for the call.
Your next question comes from David Pobucky with Macquarie Group. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Andrew, Mark, Kathleen, and Philip. Thanks for your time. I just wanted to follow up on a couple of the previous questions just around a rate-cutting environment. What have you seen in prior cycles in terms of deal activity in a rate-cutting environment and just the velocity of that? Do you need to see multiple rate cuts? Just curious around that. Thank you.
Yeah. David, in my experience, I think that I would say every cycle's been different precisely on the question that you're asking. I think that when a rate cut starts to emerge, it's the psychology of the retail investor market and owner-occupier market who fears literally missing out on where residential prices are at and looks to get set into the market. My expectation is that that will have a positive effect.
I feel that residential prices in Australia are very elastic to interest rates. I think that with those rate cuts coming through, you will see greater confidence. If I'm wrong, then I think you'll continue to see rate cuts that will emerge in order to spark some life into the residential market. Leaving aside the affordability issue, which I think is a very significant issue in Australia, we do need some price gains in residential property to make projects more feasible going forward so buildings can actually be built.
And so I do think that is one of the intended outcomes. I also feel a couple of other aspects such as the Victorian government with stamp duty savings will have a really positive impact in Victoria in respect of off-the-plan purchases, particularly as you get closer to the expiry date of that particular plan. And that makes an assumption about whether the actual stamp duty plan is extended or not. So I think that's going to be quite favorable. The federal government debating in respect of overseas purchases and being able to buy established housing would also be very favorable to restarting and hopefully igniting the off-the-plan residential development market. And I think they're all very much needed if we are going to meet the demand of the underlying market.
So I think rates will play into those policies as well, and it'll be a combination of all of those that our view is will get the market moving again in quite a substantial way. But I think as far as our results go, we've obviously achieved phenomenal gains in respect of deployment and earnings. And one of the key messages that we'd like the market to understand is that we did that in a relatively subdued environment. And imagine in a more positive environment, assuming we maintain our market share of 10%, what that means for a firm like Qualitas.
Thanks, Andrew. And just my second question is more around regulation across the sector. Curious to know if you had any views you want to share on ASIC's review into private credit and regulation.
Look, I don't have any specific insight in respect of the review. I do think that this is an open market, and there are a lot of competitors, some domestic, some offshore-based, and different firms have different practices. So I think anything that brings a more focus into the sector and provides a better regime for how investors are treated, particularly perhaps less sophisticated investors, bearing in mind that someone like Qualitas is predominantly at least 80% institutionally funded.
And we only, in respect of the balance, are really dealing with ultra-high- net- worth family office for most of the majority of that balance. I think that the focus more on those that don't understand the sector, perhaps those that don't really understand the risks that they're getting involved in, and having a regulator who's really overlooking and ensuring that investors fully understand both the risks and the opportunities. I think we should welcome that. And so that's really about all I can offer. I haven't really got more insight than that, David.
Thank you. And if I could just sneak one more in, please, just on construction credit, that drawdown really accelerated in the period. How should we be thinking about that drawdown profile over time, please?
I think, David, construction profile typically takes a slow first six months after we make a loan and then really starts to accelerate its drawdown, and therefore the fee flow that comes to us as manager of that. And I think what you've seen is particularly in 2024, a large amount of our deployment in those construction loans was back-ended in that financial year. And so we're starting to see that really accelerate out through the business. A lot of our deployment in this half, again, was in construction residential credit. So we expect to see that continue to flow into the second half of 2025 as well.
Great. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
Your next question comes from Olivier Coulon with E&P Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Just on the performance fee poo l obviously really healthy growth, half and half, sequential half and half, 20%, and the credit funds more like over 50%. When can we expect, I suppose, that to start flowing through to the actual P&L?
Thanks, Olivier. That's a good question. The performance fee recognition is not linear. It will actually take some time to ramp up. So I think the recognition of performance fees within our guidance is consistent with our slow but steady growth in the recognition of performance fees in FY 2025 and accelerating in FY 2026 and 2027.
Okay. No, that's handy. Appreciate it. And then in the base management fees, obviously a healthy uptick on the fee-earning FUM growth, which is clearly being driven by that drawdown. I think you've got a chart in there that shows 41%-42% growth over the last 12 months. I mean, is that a bit of a proxy for what you're kind of hoping for in the near term on base management fee growth?
Yes, the short answer. That's correct. We had 32% growth on prior comparable periods this period and would expect that to be maintained and accelerate.
Yeah. And maybe if I can sneak a final one in just on transaction fees, you mentioned that it's obviously come down on the mix of investor, I guess, mandate and structure. The conversations that you're having with new investors and re-upping investors potentially, are they considering those types of structures or how do you feel around the likelihood of that transaction fee number in the context that if you obviously win another very large mandate that doesn't pay upfront deployment fees, that could be a bit of a drag?
Yeah. I think, Olie, it's actually a mixed issue because Qualitas has many deep institutional relationships with very significant capital, and what you find is that differing investors want to structure it differently. There are those that want, prepared is probably a better word than what, they're prepared to pay transaction fees upfront in return for lower performance fees, and then there are other investors that we have very deep relationships with, which are totally the reverse. They're wanting to pay more on the performance fee side.
I think from the Qualitas point of view, we're relatively agnostic to either one. It's really from our point of view about the work, the time, effort, asset management that we're putting into a specific relationship and what's our share of the total revenue that we're creating for the investor. Then we'll put a time risk weighting on various components of it to make sure that we basically get back to the same margin, which is really reflected in the EBIT margin for the group. That's more how we're thinking about it. As you can see, we did report an increase in our unrecognized performance fees. They're up to AUD 90 million. We talked about the fact that pretty much all of that was attributed to our credit funds really accumulating quite large unrecognized performance fees.
I think that from the Qualitas point of view, that's a great story. It's significant amounts of future profit that we, I don't want to make it sound like it's absolute certainty of generating the revenue. If it was, we would have taken it into our accruals. But it does give us a pool of very significant amounts of money for future revenue for the group. I think we need to be open-minded. Certainly, I think from our point of view, we're quite agnostic as to how we get paid. We just want to make sure we're getting paid and it's an appropriate margin for the amount of time and effort we're putting into. The other thing I'd say is you would have noticed that in the market that we did do a one-for-five entitlement offer on Qualitas Real Estate Income Fund, QRI.
That was a very successful capital raise. And in that particular fund, that is both a share of the transaction fees and also has a potential for a performance fee as well. So clearly, that component of the transaction fees and the upsizing of that fund will contribute to further transaction fees in future periods as well. I hope that answers your question.
Yeah. Perfect. Thanks.
Your next question comes from Liam Schofield with Morgans. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Andrew, Kathleen, and Philip. Two quick questions. What is the best guide, I suppose, for earnings going forward when we're looking at invested fund, fee-earning FUM, committed fund? What should we be looking at there to sort of forecast earnings going forward? And then on co-investment income, does that level of co-investment income come at the expense of dry powder deployment? And how do we think about the interplay of those two?
Thanks, Liam. So just taking your first question, fee-earning FUM ultimately is the best indicator of future growth and base management fees. And obviously, deployment is the best indicator of future transaction fees. Just in terms of your second question, the co-investment income, co-investment versus dry powder, no, I wouldn't really put any weight on that. Our co-investment is, beside our investors, the deployment is of the total fund. So there's no issue with our co-investment taking away from our deployment pipeline.
Perfect. Maybe just a final one, if I could, just on that growth agenda slide, splitting it between M&A and organic. What's sort of the driving force behind this? Is it sort of more adjacencies? Is it just looking for growth? I think this is the first time I've seen the slide looking at organic and, well, probably more so inorganic growth options.
Hi, Liam. Yeah. Great question. I think if we bring it back to what we're looking to achieve at a strategic level, which is increasing duration of our fund and diversity of our asset strategy, so we're going to execute on those two objectives, both organic and inorganic, so on the duration side, for us, we're looking at our equity income in commercial real estate debt. And then on an inorganic duration, what we are looking at at the moment, and we've said this at various forums, are a couple of private credit strategies. The first one is corporate credit, and we're also having a look at infrastructure debt.
And then we're also looking at going offshore, and we do that via CRE credit and sort of what we do best. And in terms of diversity, that's really thinking about what strategic acquisition would we make to help accelerate and give us a foundation to build on asset diversity. Do we do that organically and build a team person by person? Or actually, are there teams and/or platforms out there that is additive to us that will be better use of our time to reach our objectives and do that organically? So there are a number of data points, but the aim is to scale through funding duration and actually diversity. And if we bring it back to those two, we're doing that through those two organic and inorganic strategies.
I think as well, just to add to what Kathleen said, for us, it's also about looking at where the future trends of the industry are heading, and one of our observations is that large LP investors based offshore are looking to deal with less managers rather than more managers, and in doing so, really for time efficiency, to talk about multiple strategies.
One of the slides that we've got in the pack shows that circa 60% of our investors have committed to more than five different strategies with Qualitas, and I think that for us, we need to be taking advantage of these great relationships and talking about other markets that are available in Australia. It also represents a diversification play as well, which I think all good risk managers need to be fully diversified, and it's really just capitalizing on these key relationships that Qualitas has. So that's really sort of our strategic thinking around it, Liam.
Liam, Mark here as well. I might just add one point to that because Andrew touched on the risk management side of it. I think what Qualitas has done is built a really leading risk and investment management structure and culture in the firm. And in addition to that, these amazing investor relationships that Andrew talked about. So what that allows us to then do is consider where we can find best-in-class investment talent and plug them into that system so they can do what they're really good at. And I think that's the exciting opportunity for the firm.
So is the path of least resistance to just start doing more equity funds? Obviously, it's been some time since you've done those. Will you sort of start to look to return to that?
Short answer is yes. Definitely, it's a very, very good question you're asking. Definitely, what we're seeing is a weight of money that wants to reset into physical real estate, into the equity itself. This capital that says rates have peaked, asset values have probably got about as bad as they could get.
That includes office, by the way. We're certainly seeing an uptick in our largest LPs calling it the bottom of the market, wanting to reset into equity strategies going forward. I think for Qualitas, we do have just shy of AUD 2 billion already in our various equity portfolios. That's certainly an area that we want to further capitalize on. It would certainly tick the duration box, which Kathleen was talking about as well. We most definitely view that as a key opportunity for Qualitas going forward. I'm not sure, Mark, if you want to add to that as well.
I agree with everything you've said there. Certainly, when you talk to our contemporaries in the market about what they're seeing on transaction flow, it does feel like there's been a reawakening of interest in that sector, and to Andrew's point, we are starting to see both on the credit side and the equity side potential transaction flow in the office sector, interestingly, as well, so we're getting ready for that and working out how to best play it.
Perfect. I'll leave it there. Thank you for your time.
Thanks, Liam. Great question.
There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Schwartz for closing remarks.
Thank you to everyone on the call. Before I wrap up, I want to extend my sincere thanks to the entire Qualitas team. They've really shown hard work and dedication, and they're instrumental in building the business that we have today. Also, I want to express my deep appreciation to all of our investors, shareholders, for all of your ongoing support. That concludes the formal part of this presentation. Thank you for all attending.