Welcome to the fourth WAM Strategic Value Annual General Meetin g. This is a hybrid meeting, held both online and in person here at the Museum of Sydney. I'd like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation and pay my respects to Elders past and present. Thank you all for joining us here and for your support of WAM Strategic Value. Before we begin, a disclaimer is displayed for you on the screen for you to read. I'm Geoff Wilson, Chairman of the Board of Directors. Joining me today in person are my fellow directors. That's right, yeah. Glenn Burge. I'm just putting my glasses on because I think this is the first one that we've had the full honor. No, we haven't got the full kit. Oh, Kate's not here. Sorry. Anyway, sorry.
My fellow directors, Virginia Waterhouse, just here closest to me, and Glenn Burge on the other side. Kate Thorley is an apology today. Acting in capacity of moderator is Linda, who is Finance Manager at Wilson Asset Management, and she'll be assisting with addressing any questions. Scott Whiddett, a representative from Pitcher Partners, is also with us and will be available to address any questions related to the company's financial statements. Please ask him as many questions as you can as Scott's last AGM as auditor because are you retiring? He's retiring from public practice in 30 days. This is your chance. As it's 11:34 and a quorum is present, I declare the meeting open. The notice of meeting has been circulated to shareholders. In the absence of any objection, I'll be proceeding on the basis that the notice be taken as read.
I encourage you to read the Chairman's address, announcement of the exchange. I'll talk a little bit about a summary of it, but the full details have been announced. Shareholders who have logged into the webcast with their username and password will have the opportunity to submit questions online and ask audio questions as well as to vote on the resolutions. If you're joining us online, questions can be submitted at any time. For those shareholders joining us online who wish to ask verbal questions, an audio question facility is available during the meeting. For those shareholders joining us in person, please raise your hands and wait for the microphone to reach you. Voting today will be conducted by way of a poll on all items of business. When I open the poll, the voting icon will appear on the navigation bar for all those people who are online.
Simply select one of the options to cast your vote. If you change your mind, select another option. I now declare voting open on all items of business. You can vote at any time during the proceedings until I declare the vote closed. I will give you a clear prompt in the latter part of the meeting and warn you that the vote, sorry, warn you that we will be closing the vote. That is in the latter part of the meeting. Okay. WAM Strategic Value, how did the portfolio perform in the year to June 30, which is what the AGM is for? Sorry, the 2024-2025 fiscal year. The portfolio increased 8.6%, which was a little bit below the market performance, but also holding various levels of cash over that period. Actually, on average, we think we nearly held 20% cash on that over the 12-month period.
Currently, we're sitting on about 30% cash, and that's been a conscious decision with some of the frothy nature of the equity market that we've been prepared to continue to hold reasonable levels of cash while just very strategically building our positions. In terms of the dividends and ability to keep paying dividends, the board is pleased that we're able to pay a AUD 0.06 fully franked dividend for the 12-month period, which was a little over—well, just a little under 6% or 5.6% fully franked, which gave a gross up yield of closer to 8%. In terms of the company's ability to keep paying dividends, the company still has a reasonable amount of profit reserve, so the plan will be to gently increase that dividend. So we're giving shareholders a combination of income and capital growth. Yeah.
We might move back to that a little bit in Q&A a little later. Let's now conduct the formal part of the meeting. With that, there is actually one other comment just on the portfolio. As of the end of October, the investment portfolio increased 6.9%. Back to the formal part of the meeting, there are three items of business for the AGM today, two of those items to be voted on. The notice of meeting and explanatory memorandum were circulated to shareholders. In the absence of any objections, I'll be proceeding on the basis that these items have been taken as read. I note Boardroom the returning officer for today's meeting and will conduct our poll. I further note resolution one is subject to voting exclusions as outlined in the notice of meeting.
The board recommends approval of each resolution, and as Chair, I'll be voting all open votes provided to me for each resolution. We'll advise the ASX as soon as the results are determined, which should be a little later today. If you're online, please submit any questions or comments you have on the financial statement and reports now. The first item of business to receive and consider the financial statement, the Director's report, and the Auditor's report for the company for the year end of 30th of June 2025. I pointed out Scott earlier, so please, I hope everyone's done a little bit of work since I signaled to the fact that he will be—what is it? What is it? What is it? No, it's called handing in—what phrase is it? Stopping—you're not retiring. That's right. Sorry, that's what I liked. Retiring from public practice, like a judge nearly.
I'm retiring from public practice. No. So that's right. Are there any questions specifically to the auditor on the financial statements and reports or to myself? Any questions in the room? No? Any questions online? No? Scott. Oh, wait. You got off. That's right. Thank you. That's how this board works. There are no further questions. We come to the item of business, which are voters required. Resolution. Yes. Oh, perfect. Thank you. Yes, please. Yes. Oh, actually, one second. Yeah, we'll come. Is this specifically—I think your question is more a broader question rather than specifically on the financial accounts. Let me take it—yeah. No, no. I'll take yours at the end. I think I know what your question's going to be. We'll do the matters of business, and then we'll come back to your question. Thank you very much. Yeah. Thanks. Okay.
Resolution one relates to the adoption of the remuneration report. Okay. If anyone's online, please submit any questions now. The proxies are on the screen. Okay. For the open proxies, which have been granted to the chair, I will be voting in favor of the resolution. Now, with that, are there any questions in the room on this one? No. Linda, any questions online? No. Thank you. As there's no further questions or comments, I'll now put the motion, the resolution be approved, as set out in the notice of meeting. If you're a shareholder or a proxy holder and eligible to vote online, could you now please complete your vote for resolution one? Okay. resolution two relates to the re-election of myself as a director. As such, I will call on Glenn Burge to handle this resolution.
Thank you, Geoff.
Geoff, just in terms of your nomination re-election, would you just like to give a short speech to the shareholders?
Okay. I'll do it up here. We'll move the chair down to there. No, no. Yeah, the chair's down there now.
Geoff, at the moment, you're not in control, but I'll let you stay there.
That's great. No. Thank you very much. Look, thanks. Thanks, everyone. I've looked at what's been put down here in terms of my experience. I've been in the equity markets for 45-odd years. This part of the equity market is I do it a lot. And that's where you're buying asset plays at below what they're worth. I think since we floated WAM Strategic, which I'm pretty sure is going to be the lady's question, that we've been able to deliver—and Marty's going to answer it—we've been able to deliver dividends to shareholders. What we haven't been able to successfully do is get WAM Strategic to reflect the value of the assets, as in trading at NTA, or actually the value of its—or the see-through value of its investments and get the share price trading actually where it should be at a premium to the NTA.
I would very much enjoy staying on as a director because I actually think there is a lot we can do with the company in terms of growing it, getting it to trade at a premium to NTA, and delivering for shareholders, which, myself being a shareholder, I am a little bit disappointed having put money at the IPO and where the share price is today. That is my—so I throw myself—did you know the expression? Do I throw myself to the?
Mercy of the court.
Exactly. Sorry, the mercy of shareholders. The mercy of the shareholders to decide. That's right. Thank you, Glenn.
Thank you, Geoff, for that update and outline. You may now submit any questions or comments on resolution two, which is the re-election of Geoff Wilson as a director of WAM Strategic Value. The proxies received are up on the screen there. As acting chair, I intend on voting all open proxies in favor of the resolution. Are there any questions in the room for the re-election of Geoff as a director? Thank you. Front row here. Just we'll bring your microphone.
Teacher.
I think because it's online and they record it.
Oh, okay. I used to be a TFT tuner , and I never had any trouble getting my voice through. I'm not trying to be nasty in any way, but you said.
You can be nasty.
You said that you wanted to be re-elected because there are things you wanted to do. The question is, why haven't you done them already?
Part of them we've actually done in terms of the performance, the underlying performance, the setting up the portfolio. I mean, what we haven't done is successfully got the share price to reflect the value of the assets. Now, unfortunately, that's not an exact science where if you look at all the Wilson Asset Management entities, of the nine of them, I think seven of them are trading at premiums to NTA, and two of them are trading at discounts. Unfortunately, when you've got limited resources, it's where you mobilize those resources. We've got, is it, 14 people in shareholder engagement and communication, and they have been mobilized. Unfortunately, the newer ones, it takes time to mobilize, but also it takes time to tighten up those share registers. Yeah. WAR and WMA are the two trading at discounts to NTA.
Now, for a shareholder, you think, well, there is actually something perverse or something actually quite good having some trading at a discount to NTA? Because if I was having a discussion with you now and someone asked me earlier today, they said, "Look, what should I buy?" and I said, "Do not buy anything at a premium." There are two of ours that smart people that do their homework can buy. Say if we had them trading at all premiums, then if someone asked me that question, I would say, "Look, do not buy any of ours." Should we be putting an enormous amount of resources in getting them to trade at NTA? It makes everyone feel a lot more—it makes us feel more wealthy when they are trading at NTA, but the underlying assets are there.
As Warren Buffett said, I think he is an example, which is an interesting example, but just talking about the market, when something's cheap, say if you're a hamburger manufacturer, do you want the price of hamburger meat to go down, or do you want it to go up? You actually want it to go down. If you're an investor, then do you want—do you want discounts to NTA to get bigger? You actually want them to get bigger. If you're going to keep investing, to me, there's a whole lot of things that go through your mind. It's not that simple. Also, achieving equilibrium. Now, equilibrium is pretty much NTA. Achieving equilibrium, again, it's not exact. You don't know how much buying and selling has to occur. With WAM Strategic Value, we were heading on a path.
I think we were down to about a 9% discount. Yeah, yeah. We're heading on a path, and then a major shareholder decided to sell. They've been selling recently, and they've pushed it down significantly. I was going to start buying some more, and I thought, "I'll wait till he's finished." I don't know how far he's going to push it down. Yeah. To me, there's a whole lot of dynamics. To me, I'd only just be buying a few. I'm not going to change it. Yeah, that one, you just don't know when it's a tough one. That's the part that hasn't been done. Because once we get it to trade at NTA, if not a premium—and just on that, and I'm sure this will be part of your question, which Martyn's going to answer.
With WAM Research, that took us—it took us the longest of any of our LICs to get it traded at NTA. It took us seven years, and it was at a 40% discount through that period. Because—and broadly, what you're doing is you're making sure everyone who's a shareholder understands how we invest and is happy to go along for the journey. Once you've sort of—and that's quite like it's hand-to-hand combat, effectively, or hand-to-hand communication to get—once you do that, and if they're expecting something else, they've got to understand they're not going to get that, so you're probably better off going somewhere else for that. Once that happens, then everyone's aligned. That's what we eventually succeeded with WAM Research. When everyone's aligned, then everyone knows, "Oh, look, say with this, it's medium-long term. We're buying undervalued assets, less volatility in the market.
It'll give the dividend. Will it give you a 50% year? No. Will it give you something a bit more consistent? Yes. It takes sort of these plays might take four, five, 10 years. They're long-term plays to get the full value. You have to have that little bit of patience. Once we've got everyone that sort of works out—and that's what with WAM Research, we've got everyone to understand how we're investing the money. Then no one wanted to sell, and it went to a 58% premium. That's right. How ridiculous. Sorry. The 58% premium is as ridiculous as the discount. Yeah, that's the part of the puzzle. Once we can get it trading pretty much between—Martyn, what was the current NTA's about?
127.
What's the see-through?
142.
In theory, it probably should be AUD 1.30 or something like that. It's probably a little bit of a premium to the NTA, but you can see it not that far from the see-through. Because you know the see-through will come to you over time. Yeah, that's the answer. A long answer to a short question. Thank you.
Thanks. Any other questions amongst shareholders present? Come back to your question then. Yep. Is there any online questions? Okay. All right. If there's no further questions or comments, I will now put the motion that Mr. Geoff Wilson be re-elected as set out in the notice of meeting. If you're a shareholder or proxy holder, eligible to vote online, could you please now complete your vote for resolution number two?
You're going to pass over to me, Glenn? Thank you.
30 seconds.
Oh, 30. Sorry. Good work.
I'll now pass over back to Geoff as Chairman of the meeting. Thank you.
Thank you. I think that's good. I think I missed a few 30 seconds today. Thank you, Glenn. Good chair, isn't he? No, no. He'd be a lot better job. Okay. Now, before—yep. Why don't we go to the question? We had a question there. And why don't we go to any general questions we have? Yes, please.
I'm pretty basic. I can't delve right into the numbers and that. I just know that when I purchased, when it floated, it's only gone one way, and it's never gone back. Yeah, not sure where to go from here.
Martyn.
Hi, everybody.
I'm sorry. Martyn McCathie, who's Investment Specialist, also helps us on the construction of the portfolio with Jesse Hamilton. Yes.
It's Jesse here as well.
Yeah, Jesse.
You should have sat in the front row, Jesse. You could have done this. I guess at the IPO, the IPO.
Can you stand up, Martyn?
Oh, yeah. Okay.
Here we are. Please.
Join you up here.
Thank you.
Thank you. The IPO for WAM Strategic Value, the IPO price was AUD 1.25. Obviously, as you said, the current share price is below the IPO price. A couple of points there, we've talked about a few of them. It's obviously dividends we've paid, AUD 0.1875 of dividends. If you gross that out for franking credit, almost AUD 0.26 of that AUD 1.25 has been paid back to you through dividends. The current NTA is AUD 1.27, and we're trading about a 15% discount to that NTA. Obviously, if we were sitting here today and we were trading at NTA parity at AUD 1.27, investors would have had nominal capital growth and that AUD 0.26-AUD 0.27 of income along the way. I think we'd all feel a little bit happier about that return.
Obviously, the fact we're at a discount is exceptionally disappointing and something we want to seek to address. As Geoff said, internally, we have kind of mobilized the team, and strategic value is a big focus for us to close the discount. If we kind of look back over the last 18-24 months, we had a large discount in WAM Global. It was traded at an 18% discount kind of February 2024. Over the last 18-20 months, we've taken that from an 18% discount to a 3-4% premium. By telling the story a little bit better, obviously, performance is one element of that. They're kind of mobilizing the resources internally and engaging with their shareholders. Kind of the team have mobilized onto strategic value.
We hope that we can move the discount there and kind of return that intrinsic value through to shareholders. As Geoff said, we have had a large seller who has decided to exit the register. I think they maybe stopped selling on Friday because we obviously saw the share price jump 3.5% on Monday. It has kind of happened in the midst of market volatility. We should see that discount settle and start trading back towards NTA parity. The other thing I kind of wanted to touch on was the performance of the underlying portfolio. I think investors need to understand where WAM Strategic Value sits on the risk-return spectrum. We are looking to take a lot less risk, and as a result, we are going to generate modest returns compared to higher risk strategies.
I think that was well evidenced through last financial year when there was a drawdown in the market. If you look at FY2025, there were four market downturns, and collectively, the market fell about 13.5%. In the same four months, we fell about 1%. We are really able to protect shareholder capital. We are seeing the exact same dynamic play out this month. Obviously, we are sitting with 30% cash, as Geoff said, which provides us with a bit of a buffer. The investments that we are taking and the discounts that we are investing and that kind of advantaged investment point and entry price is helping protect shareholder capital. What you should expect for us is kind of that 7%-10% return per annum. If we do go through a period of market volatility, you are hopefully not going to lose your shot on it.
That's kind of where we sit. Over the last two or three years, we've been able to deliver it.
The 7%-10%, and that's by dividends.
By dividends and a little bit of capital growth. What we've given people is dividends and a little bit of capital loss.
We have got to get back to NTA, which is AUD 1.27.
Yeah. If we had done the AUD 1.27, investors would have income and a little bit of capital growth, which is what we're looking to achieve.
But then not only a little.
Little little.
So we're going to do better than a little.
We're trying to do better than a little. Does that help? Thank you.
Thanks. We had a question. Yeah. Thanks, Martyn.
Thanks, Geoff. Look, I had a question relating to the performance or the management of the fund. What I've noted is, over an extended period, the last couple of years, certainly, the market, the financial risk of having investment largely in WAM Global and associated parties is not showing the diversity or the.
Yeah. What I'll address, I'll address that. I know what your question is.
It may be part of your unfinished business too. Even though they've been successful, this fund was engaged to diversify and explore opportunities. I'm just seeing that there's a concentration there that's a worry.
100%. We're halfway resolving that. Just to take your step back, we own shares in Templeton Global, which WAM Global took over.
Yes. It's a consequence of previous couple of years, I appreciate it.
Yeah. And when it was taken over, and this was, yeah, when was it? Yeah. Yeah, 2021. When it was taken over, you had a choice of taking shares or cash, and there was a 6% differential. So we thought, "Oh, look, we'll take shares and we'll sell them." Now, unfortunately, 80% of the people decided to do what we did. And so therefore, and that's why one of the reasons WAM Global went to the big discount it did. Now, because we were managing WAM Global shares well, we never charged a management fee on, what percentage? 20% of the portfolio. So it was actually in our interests to take cash at a lesser amount. But we didn't do that because we didn't think it was the right thing. What we ended up with was a big shareholding in WAM Global.
We knew that we could get it to trade at NTA. That is what has happened. WAM Global's position is being reduced. What percentage of the portfolio is it down to now?
It's a little over 10. We've sold 40% of the positions.
Yeah. 40% of the positions have already been sold since then. The plan would be an.
Yeah. I appreciate it. The market hasn't really been.
I know.
Assisting that either.
This is a director's, like, "I'm not involved in the selling.
Yes.
Yeah. Sorry.
It's a comment on the management, I suppose, isn't it?
Yeah. We totally agree. The law gets sorted out, but we're just halfway through it, aren't we?
Because of those issues, and again, as my source as director since the formation and Virginia coming on, having that related party nature of it, we understand that that's not ideal. The reasons that Geoff outlined in that initial period made sense to me as the independent director at the time. You may have seen an ASX announcement recently. Responsibility for decisions on that holding are now being looked after by Virginia and myself as independent directors. We are on advice making decisions to do with the timing of any further reduction in that holding. To take your point that ideally having what would be viewed as a related entity is not ideal, we're cognizant of that and taking steps.
Hopefully by this time next year, that may not be a situation that you'd be able, when you've asked a question, because we may not have any shares left.
Yeah. Since then, we've actually, since that happened, because that was very early on after we floated, we've got a policy that we take the cash. There's been how many takeovers? Three takeovers that WAM entities have taken over other companies that we own shares in. Each time, or four, we've actually taken the cash or we've taken the shares and sold them immediately. We won't be in that situation again. There's no benefit for anyone. No benefit for us because we don't get a fee on it.
I appreciate that. What it does, it ties the fund down in terms of.
100%.
Activity. Yeah.
100%. That's right. There's X amount of capital that we can't use. Yeah. Yeah. Last year, actually, at the AGM, someone suggested, and again, any shareholders, any feedback you got. I remember one shareholder suggested, "Look, why don't you do an in-specie distribution?" To solve it. We actually seriously thought about that. The only tough thing is, as the lady said, if we gave an in-specie distribution, it would be about AUD 0.20 a share. You'd have your WAM Capital share, and then you'd have your WAM Strategic Value shares, which you paid AUD 1.25 for, and you got the in-specie distribution, and then they'd be trading. If they're trading, they'd be trading AUD 0.20 lower. You'd forget you got the in-specie distribution, and you'd be always beating us over the head because we'll get it past AUD 1.25 at some point in time.
If we had to make up the other 20 cents, it's a bigger handicap. No, I mean, that's a very fair question. Yes. Hi.
Hi. I've got a question. Today, we've heard a lot about, and the whole reason for WAM Strategic Value being is it buys assets at a discount and tries to improve it and get it back to basically NTA. I noticed in your annual report, you've got a very large shareholding. About 8% of the fund is in Perpetual Equity Investment Company. Now, I'm aware of that. I actually hold that particular fund as well. And it used to trade at quite a big discount. It now basically trades at NTA, but you've got 8% of your capital tied up in it. I presume that you've bought it over the long term at a discount, and it's now got to NTA. So my question is, why are you still in the business of holding that particular asset when it's basically at NTA?
I would have thought there would have been other opportunities in the market to buy discounted assets.
We did get up to four. We owned 4.9% of it at one stage. Martyn, you just want to—I know you've got the numbers at the top of your head.
Thanks, Geoff. Pengana has a hold, and we've had an out-of-the-core portfolio four times since we listed.
Does it mean we were a shareholder? We weren't a shareholder? Only because it got to NTA?
Because the premium or the discount does oscillate quite a lot. We have had opportunities where we are a buyer at a 10% discount, and we are a seller where it is kind of below a 2% discount. You are able to get index returns or market returns, which is what they have generated, a reasonable yield, and you can enhance the yield and the returns by buying it at a discount. As I said, it has been in and completely out of the portfolio four times.
That's almost—
Is it a 100% of trading position for us? It got to 4.95% of the company was our peak, which is when it would have been around about that 8% in the WAM portfolio. And as you correctly pointed out, that discount has narrowed. It is trading just at a very small discount, and we have been a very regular seller over the last six to eight weeks as that discount has come in. Again, we are—
We don't miss for you.
Not an annual report at 30 June. We were an 8% holder, and the discount there was between 5-6%. We are probably neutral on it at 5%-6%. We are a buyer at closer to 10%, and we are a seller at closer to 2%. The annual report, you are right. If you look at the numbers today, it is materially reduced from that 8% because we are selling into strength of the share price versus NTA and taking capital off the table. That is kind of why, if you look at the WAM Strategic Value cash level, we are sitting live about 30% cash.
You wouldn't be a wildholder of such a big position when it's at—
NTA parity, 100%. As our whole investment thesis is buy discounts, and when it's trading at an NTA parity or a premium, we're a seller, and as discounts widen in, we'll lean into them. Yeah, hopefully answers that one.
Yeah. It is nearly half the portfolio. It is around 5% now. Yeah. I just look at the portfolio. Yeah. The thing is for us, because we are selling quite a few shares, and there is no—yeah, there is sort of no one that necessarily wants to buy our AUD 10 million worth of stock. It does not trade in 10.
It's a slow process both ways. Yeah. Yes. Oh, we had an online one, did we? Yeah.
This one's from Jon Koenig, Superfund. Why is there no benchmark for the performance fee?
The answer to that is that's when we set it up, the focus was absolute. Thanks. Question there?
That's Burney Romer. That question was asked in the first meeting you had today, which was out of order, I think. But the Stephen Mayne nominee asked it about Pengana. Would you care to comment upon that at this stage?
Yeah, Pengana, which is, yeah, a big position in the fund. Yeah. I mean, Pengana, which is—is that our third biggest?
Second, though.
Yeah. Our second biggest position is—and we've been in Pengana for quite a period of time. What happened with Pengana is, and things have been going along, and then they came out and announced they're going to change the investment strategy. In terms of the—yeah, for us, we've been there, and I think three different times they've changed the investment strategy. Each time when they changed the investment strategy, they hadn't given shareholders an opportunity to leave, which we don't think is very fair or very equitable. Maybe that's a better word. We didn't like where they were going with the investment strategy. We thought it's an opportunity to change the board. Jesse and myself put our hand up to go on the board. Plus, we got a couple of independent people.
Shareholders had their vote, and they actually voted us—their AGM voted us onto the board and voted the other people off. We immediately went in to reduce costs. The easiest thing is cut director's fees. We reduced them by, was it 40-odd %? Even collectively, we reduced all the director's fees. We have gone through other costs. Actually, the costs, we have been surprised how much they spent on trying to get shareholders to vote and their previous—the previous proposal, which is frustrating for us. We also said we will do a strategic review. With the strategic review, the date was the 14th of November for any proposals to come in to the 14th of November. I probably cannot say anything, Jesse, because, yeah, whether anything happened, whether there were any proposals put in.
Yeah, as board members, obviously, we want to do what the best thing is for shareholders. Yeah, we're in the process of reducing costs, strategic review, ask for proposals. The date was a week and a bit ago. When there's any news, the shareholders will be communicated with.
Has there been any change on the discount in the shareholding at Pengana or price?
It was trading around the dollar. It was trading around the low dollar. There's been a bit of buying. I think it was trading around AUD 1.22, AUD 1.23, wasn't it, before the AGM, and then it went to about $1.27, $1.28. Obviously, the underlying assets would have fallen since then. Yeah. To me, there was a slight narrowing of the discount, not much, because there's uncertainty. What's going to happen? What's the review going to—what will the proposal—sorry, were there any proposals? What were the proposals? Who are they from? Yeah. That sort of—that's got to come from the board. The tough thing is I'm sort of on the inside. The old day—yeah, normally when I'm on the outside, I can give you all the information. Yeah. Any other questions? Yeah. Oh, there's one there and there.
I think you said you were holding 30% cash. Is that right?
Yeah.
Does that mean that you can't find discounts that you're interested in, or?
No, just being nervous.
Are you holding it, waiting for the discounts to get bigger?
Yeah, waiting for the discounts to get bigger. Yeah. No, no, just being nervous of the market. I mean, if you look at the—yeah, the interesting thing is a reasonable amount of equity is being raised recently. When you're confident of raising equity, then everyone's feeling good. That means the market's positive, which is you actually ideally want to be investing when you can't raise any equity. Also, we think there's been quite a bit of froth in the market. I mean, there's the company Pengana, which is an interesting business. Some of our guys have invested in that. I think put money in in June last year. It raised some more money. Nvidia put some money in. It raised some more money.
It got a—at the end of last month, I think it raised some more money three times higher than what it was trading at. That is a three-times uplift. I think I read talk somewhere in the paper that they are talking about maybe it floats early next year at 10 times that. That is a 30x change in valuation. Now, does that sound excessive for you? To me, in those environments, you think, "Well, maybe I just should hold a bit more cash now." For us, it is so important. It is the price we pay for the asset. We can buy a discount. We can buy something at a 15% discount. Say we are buying there, but the market falls 20%, then we have actually paid a 5% premium. Yes.
I guess the way the NTA has been used is there's a lot of conundrums to that. I mean, if you improve your performance, your NTA will go up. If the market does not react to that, it becomes a bigger discount. Maybe the incentive is to perform poorly and come down to your discount.
No, no, no, no. I mean, we'll invest that 30%, 100%. Yeah. You'll see there'll be, yeah, there's various plays we're doing that we may need some of that money as well. There'll be, yeah, there's opportunities where we'll use it when we think we can maximize the return on it. Otherwise, we're better off.
Yeah. A lot of the LICs that are trading at discount have sort of almost gone into panic mode and done some pretty stupid things, I think, to try and close the discount. In some cases, they've made it worse. In particular, they're attracting arbitrages because they're waiting for the discounts to undo the whole thing and make a quick profit. I often wonder why they're not running the LIC to benefit the people that are going to stay. They're sort of because the people who are interested in closing the discount are the people who want to sell out and go.
Want to go.
Why are so many LICs running their business to please the people that have no interest in the business?
Because they don't have faith. I think because they don't believe they can get it to NTA. We've done it. We've done it over 27 years. We've done it before. It will trade at a premium NTA. It will happen. We've done it as we've got, as we've said, was it five out of?
Seven out of nine.
Seven out of nine are trading at premiums. Yeah. You could have, when WAM Global was a year and a half ago, was trading at nearly a 20% discount, you would have said, "You're never going to get it to NTA in the next two years.
Yeah. ETFs were not trying to discredit you in those days. It was a different environment.
Anyway, to me, yeah, we're very confident in what we're doing. We've done it before. We'll do it again. Yeah. We'll utilize the money when we think we can maximize the return by taking the risk at the appropriate time. To me, there's nothing better than having a bit of cash when things get, yeah. Thanks. I'm not saying Nina Sutter Woods, I mean, but we're positioned. And yeah.
Yeah. I mean, the way they've been run is like Westpac conducting their business to satisfy the people that are going to close their accounts and not look after the people that are going to stay. If there was more concentration on looking after the people that are going to stay. The other example I like to use is like Woolworths running their business to make the shoplifters happy.
That's great. They're great expressions. Thanks. There's a question. Yeah.
Sorry if you've addressed this previously, but could you explain to me what you mean by see-through NTA and how that differs to NTA generally?
Yeah. The see-through NTA is just taking, because we're buying, it's quite—yeah, say our position in the Perpetual LIC. We know what its NTA is, but its share price might be here. One of our shareholders suggested, it could have been at one of the first AGMs, they said, "Okay, you're invested in all these things trading at a discount. What if they all traded at what they're worth, NTA? And that's about the price we're going to sell at. Then what would that be worth?" That is sort of what the see-through NTA is. Obviously, the 30% we have in cash, the cash is the cash. Obviously, if we invested that 30% in other LICs trading at a, say, 15% discount, then in theory, the see-through NTA would go higher. You'd assume, what was it at the moment, Marty? Did you say about a dollar?
About AUD 1.42. That is right. If everything we have invested in—thanks very much. No, that is no problem. If everything we invested in was trading at what it is worth, then the assets would be worth AUD 1.42. We might not necessarily hold on. That is assuming we hold on to them until they get to there, where PIC, if it gets within a 2%, oh well, we will sell PIC because we have done it four times. It will probably go to a discount, a bigger discount at some point. It takes us time to buy and sell. Yeah. It is sort of like our position in Salter Brothers. We have got 89% of that, and it is around AUD 0.74. What is their NTA? Is it AUD 1.03? It is actually saying Salter was valued at AUD 1.03 in our portfolio. Yeah.
You put a time limit on waiting to get your NTA?
You can't. You can't put, yeah. With all these things, like Templeton, I think we owned Templeton, not in this vehicle, but previously. I think we might have owned it for, could have been 15 years. Yeah. First of all, we actually nearly called a—and along the way, it's a journey because along the way, we call an AGM to roll the board, but we'd call it jointly with a financial planner. The administrator of the financial planner wouldn't sign the document because we didn't have 5% in our own right. We never called the AGM. Something else happened, and something else happened, and then he sold out. We built a bigger position. We ended up having a big position. They said, "Hey, we're going to do a strategic review." It's like the Pengana one.
Pengana was Hunter Hall Global. We had a position at Hunter Hall Global. When Peter Hall left, we said, "Hey, look, you've got to let all shareholders get out of NTA." Yeah. We had a big fight with them then. We lost that board tussle in that time. They put a different manager in. Pengana started managing it. Then those managers left. They outsourced it to someone. We just sit there. We accumulate, whether it's a discount, accumulate, accumulate, accumulate. All of a sudden, other activists get involved, various other players get involved. The share register changes. Pengana comes out and says, "Look, we want to change how we invest the money." All the shareholders just got—we had financial planners talking to us, big positions in the company.
They said, "This is a disaster." Then everyone came on our side. Bang, the board's changed. Strategic review now, literally the night before they announced it, we were just saying, "Bloody hell, Pengana." God, do we have to go and rattle the cage again? Will they ever do something? Next day, something happens. We're on the board. You just don't know. It's tough. To me, you just got to—you've got to be patient. That is one of the best things, is patience. Because eventually, as you quite rightly pointed out, for some reason, they think, "Oh, let's do something to help the shoplifter." Yeah. Then it provides an opportunity. Yeah, we're pretty confident that all shareholders are getting a good result out of the Pengana situation. It's our second biggest position. Yeah.
Yeah, we will deploy. The cash will be deployed. The question is just when. I know we've gone a little bit over. And there's probably food out there, is there? God, I'm starving. Okay. Oh, actually, I better close it. Sorry. The results of today's AGM will be released to the market as soon as they are determined, which will be later today. As there is no formal business for the meeting, I declare the AGM closed. I'd like to close by thanking all WAM Strategic Value shareholders. We greatly appreciate your support. Thank you very much.