Good afternoon, this is the Chorus Call Conference operator. Welcome, thank you for joining the Azimut Holding First Half 2023 Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Gabriele Blei, CEO of Azimut Holding. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much. Good afternoon to everyone. We'll quickly go through the slides as usual, then leave as much time as possible for Q&A. Jumping to slide number four, a quick snapshot of the main driver of the first half 2023. Net inflows of EUR 3.7 billion, which compare with the minus EUR 17 billion of the industry. It's an Assogestioni data from which we came out. EUR 643 million of total revenues, which I would like to stress, we'll see this later on. In this data, you have a very limited contribution from performance fee, which means that most of these revenues are recurrent in nature.
EBIT of EUR 286 million or a very solid EBIT margin of 44% with a consistent quarter-over-quarter development. Lastly, EUR 231 million of adjusted net profit. It's adjusted due to two main effects. The first one, we are excluding the tax charge linked to the settlement with the Italian Revenue Agency, which was announced in the first quarter. I remind you, we announced EUR 26 million in Q1. This number has been restated with the first half 2023, to take into account a restatement of the Luxembourg tax declarations we have done in the previous years. Today, there is an effect from the tax one-off charge of EUR 19 million.
At the same time, we're also excluding the impact from the implementation of the IFRS 17, which is almost EUR 11 million. Therefore, excluding these two effects, you get to the EUR 231 million, but we will see this in more detail. Moving to the next slide, we are providing you with the usual, by now, breakdown of the main driver by segment. I will spend a couple of extra minutes here just to explain you what is behind those figures, segment by segment. If we turn to Italy, we have EUR 42.2 billion of average AuM, which is stable versus the end of 2022.
Revenue growth are mainly recurrent, thanks to the new distribution fee, which has been introduced in April 2022, and a significantly lower performance fee. If we compare the level of performance fee we have in this 458, which is EUR 3 million, with EUR 33 million in the full year, you understand that this is mainly recurrent in nature. Moving to the adjusted management net profit of Italy is EUR 170 million. It F excludes, as I mentioned just now, IFRS 17 and the tax charge. It means 80 basis points.
If we were to be even more conservative, and we would take out the unrealized gains we had in the first half, as well as the release of the provision, which we will discuss later on, you can basically have an annualized adjusted base for the net profit of EUR 155 million or 73 basis points. This is just to be extremely cautious in stripping out all the known recurrent items. Moving to international, EUR 33.6 billion of average AuM, growing versus the end of 2022. The revenues are impacted by the Sanctuary Wealth deconsolidation and obviously lower performance fees contribution. If we look at the full year 2022, we had EUR 16 million.
In the first half of this year, we had slightly less than EUR 5 million of performance fees. With a margin in terms of revenues, which is almost 80 basis points. We had a good development out of Australia and the EMEA region, and we hope to be at an inflection point as Brazil is concerned, but we can discuss this later on. The EBIT growth is supported by the evolution in these regions I mentioned, and we have a net profit that is stable vis-à-vis last year, and this is due to lower performance fees, the fair value of the options, and the effect of the deconsolidation of Sanctuary, which occurred last year.
Moving to the private market segment as well, here, we had a good development in the AuM at EUR 6.7 billion, of which EUR 3.7 in Italy and EUR 3 in the U.S.. The revenue growth has been supported and has been very strong by the product launch and the many commercial activities that are still ongoing in Italy. Margin wise, we are in excess of 250 basis points in Italy, which is consistent with what we have mentioned to you in the last years. As far as the EBIT is concerned, it is not fully reflecting the growth in terms of revenues for two main factors.
The first one is that we have in the cost line of this segment, both U.S. and Italy. However, as far as the U.S. is concerned, we're not receiving the revenue from the U.S. because, as you can remember, the contribution comes through dividend from our GP staking business, and therefore, you see the impact only at the net profit level. Net profit, which has progressed to EUR 21 million, or 62 basis points in terms of margin. Lastly, Fintech. Revenues are stable vis-à-vis 2022. They are impacted by a slowdown in the investment banking business activities, as which has suffered these general slowdown in the market.
This has indeed an impact in the EBIT, which also discounts for investment that we're making to further develop this business line. Net profit is positively affected instead by some unrealized gains on investment and closes at EUR 9 million. All in all, EUR 231 million of net profit on an adjusted basis, or 56 basis point as far as the margin is concerned. Moving to the following slide, not much to add here. EUR 85.3 billion, the AuM at the end of June. This is explained with the vis-à-vis full year 2022 figure that stood at EUR 79 billion, with EUR 3.7 billion of inflows and a market effect that we can estimate on average around 3%.
Next slide, net inflows by regions and product. You see how in Italy, we have disclosed to you in the past, the divestment of EUR 150 million of own investment, as well as the outflows from some monetary funds, linked to some institutional investors. If you kind of exclude these items, we would have been collecting a significant money from Italy, during the first half. EMEA, EUR 725 million, driven by strong demand from our products and services out of Turkey, with more than EUR 500 million of net new money, as well as our Monaco, thanks to some private bankers recruitment activity, which is still ongoing. Flows of EUR 200+ million.
In the Asia Pacific region, we have good organic flows from Australia for EUR 240 million and Singapore for almost EUR 60 million. Australia, we have to remind you that we had a couple of M&A transaction, which you see in the M&A column for almost EUR 200 million. Lastly, the Americas. We are benefiting from a strong, still strong U.S. organic flows for $1.6 billion overall. Mexico, we're very pleased, and we have to congratulate with our colleagues down there for a solid result of almost EUR 400 million in terms of net new money.
This is offsetting the Brazilian first half, which, as I mentioned in several occasions in the past, has suffered outflows for EUR 700 million in the first half. Needless to say that we have been able to more than offset this and therefore close with EUR 3.7 billion. Turning to the asset, EUR 85 billion, in Italy, EUR 47.1 billion, a delta of EUR 1 billion vis-à-vis the end of 2022, which is driven by a market effect in excess of 2%. Our international assets stands at EUR 38.2 billion, which compares to EUR 32.9 billion in 2022.
An increase of more than EUR 5 billion, which is explained by the inflows of EUR 3.7 billion and the market effect, as well as a Net FX impact across the board, which explains almost the 5% increase. In terms of geographical split, nothing major to add, if not just one mention, as far as Mexico is concerned, they deserve this. Our colleagues, they overcome the EUR 1 billion mark, so they are standing at EUR 1.2 billion in terms of AuM.
Clearly, this is benefiting from the ongoing recruitment of Financial Advisors, as well as the positive contribution from the sovereign wealth fund flows that we have been able to achieve in the first half. Moving on to the snapshot of the results. I wouldn't comment anymore the average total assets. As far as total revenues are concerned, EUR 643 million, a progression of 5%, net of Sanctuary. If we break down the EUR 643 million for Q1 and Q2, we note a positive evolution of the recurring fee component for something like EUR 4 million Q-on-Q. As far as the breakdown of the revenues, we have our recurring fees that increase net of Sanctuary by EUR 18.5 million.
Sanctuary Wealth deconsolidation is impacting for negative EUR 44 million. You have a new distribution fee, which was introduced, as I mentioned, from April 2022, impacting for EUR 36 million, and then a recurring fee component, which is benefiting us for EUR 2 million in the first half. This is sustained by the expansion of the private market platform in Italy, whereas a good note is also from our foreign operations. There is a positive contribution, which explain the delta vis-à-vis the first half, 2022 of EUR 24 million, thanks to clearly the growth and changing perimeter out of Australia, Brazil and Turkey, which are worth to mention.
As far as performance fees are concerned, we had a negative fulcrum, which you have probably seen in the press release, which has been more than offset by the international contribution from Turkey and Brazil for almost EUR 5 million. Insurance revenue, we have a delta of EUR 7 million vis-à-vis year-on-year. Or better if we include, or sorry, if we exclude the IFRS 17, the delta is by EUR 9 million, which is explained by the performance fee for EUR 8 million and the continuing evolution of the recurring fee for EUR 1 million. Turning to the next slide. Costs are down 8% due to the Sanctuary deconsolidation. Excluding this effect, the delta is an increase for EUR 26 million.
If we look at the distribution costs, they are up 2%, broadly in line with the revenue evolution. We have a positive impact from the Social Security charges linked to the FA network here in Italy. As we have mentioned in the past, given the stabilization of the interest rate curve, we now have a positive effect on our cost line. The rest is the SG&A line. The delta is positive by EUR 29 million. We here, we need to stress that Italy is flat year-over-year, whereas the bulk of the growth is linked to the change in perimeter from our foreign operation, Australia mainly.
We still are highlighting Ireland as we are seeing some increase linked to our Irish asset management company, as well as Nova Asset Management, this is still, we can confirm in the low single digit number, which is something we have discussed in the past. Organic growth from the foreign operation is up EUR 5 million year-over-year. Turning to the depreciation and amortization. We have had a release of provision for legal cases, as well as some guaranteed returns on a pension fund, which did not materialize and are positively impacting our DNA line. EBIT, up 2% year-over-year, with a margin that stands at 44%, which we are very pleased with.
Net profit, adjusted, as we mentioned, EUR 231 million, up 15% vis-à-vis one year before, or 56 basis points. Again, these do not include the tax impact and the IFRS 17 impact that we have discussed. Moving to the asset management and distribution. This is the usual chart with the breakdown all in terms of funds. No major change or better. We are continuing to decrease the cash component as we have had the opportunity to discuss in the past. However, we're not changing our positioning in terms of equity exposure. We're quite, and asset allocation, and we're quite cautious in terms of regions and asset classes. Next slide, weighted average performance, 9% over three and a half years. Nothing much to add here.
If we look at the private market segment, we have a couple of slides where we want to highlight where we stand and what we are doing. Here, this is a snapshot of the evolution over the last three and a half years. You can see how we have diversified and increased the assets by product and regions. We started many years ago with one product, which was a simple test on our client base. We have leveraged on our expertise and trained our network, as well as educated our clients in changing the asset class, sorry, the asset allocation of the client's portfolio.
We stand at 12% or more of the assets under management, with more than 50 products and solutions, with the geographical split that you can appreciate. You see how we are diversified in terms of private debt, equity, real assets, and venture capital, as well as region. Most importantly, most of the network is activated, with 92% of RFAs and clients in Italy stands at 45,000, which is an increase of 4,000 vis-à-vis March 2023. Moving on to the next slide, this is a quick snapshot of the products closed, and we continue to have a very strong pipeline of products and raising activity with several closing in the first half.
As far as our infrastructure fund, we are pleased on where we stand together with the ELTIF sold to our retail investors. The fund, the strategy overall, stands at EUR 700 million. Private debt, we had a first, we had a closing for EUR 55 million. This is clearly underpinning our neo-lending strategy, which basically lends to SMEs in Italy through our private debt product. Venture capital, despite a very tough environment in this segment, we have been able to launch, raise, and close in a very short period of time, a fund for EUR 33 million. And we are also very pleased to announce a couple of initiatives out of Brazil, where we have seen a strong demand for both our infrastructure funds, as well as real estate product in the agro business.
Thanks to the collaboration with the SP, and especially for the infrastructure fund, we had an initial target of BRL 400 million, which was increased to BRL 570 million, or EUR 110 million, because of the very strong appetite. In the pipeline, we have oversubscribed the private equity product, which is engineered by our colleagues and friends from Electa Ventures, which they are active in the pre-booking and PIPE investment. We expect this product to close in the EUR 130 million-EUR 140 million region.
We are in the marketing of the diversified credit fund, which is dedicated to institutional investors, and we're pleased that the European Investment Fund is backing it, being a corner investor with money that has already been approved by them, which clearly supports a further institutional asset gathering activity across Italy. Next slide. I'm not going to spend time on the next couple of slides, but here we just wanted to take the storytelling that all of us are seeing in terms of the industry, where clearly the retail segment as far as private market is concerned, is expected to boost the asset increase over the next years. We are clearly in the right spot since 2019.
These are the. In the next slide are, you can see the key trends observed in the private markets. You probably know all of that, so we'll be skipping that. If you look at where we are and what we do in terms of activity, directly and through our affiliates, in the next slide, you see how, with different solutions in terms of product and regions, we are leveraging on the extensive investing class track record we have within the group, with a number of GP staking, as well as internal team that we have developed over time. Next slide, which basically concludes the private market segment.
We have, as we've done in the past, we are providing you some suggestion on how we invest and the value that we look to build over time, because we still are seeing a lack of reflection of all that in our share price. We are confident that over time, this will materialize. As you can see, these are real market transactions that we have completed with Azimut taking a stake between 12 and a half and 20% in each of these asset management company. Assets have developed quite nicely over time for all of them, I would say.
Clearly, the return on our investment, based on our proprietary model, which basically are forecasting discounted cash flows and based on current market flows, are hinting towards interesting returns as far as the investment we have made are concerned. Moving on, on the next slide, UniCredit, we just wanted to give you a highlight of where we stand. We're very pleased with the work of our colleagues that have been able to sign at the end of July, the binding contracts between us and UniCredit. This was a key milestone of the transaction we have entered into in December last year.
As far as the licensing of the entity is concerned, we wanted to share that the package is in the review process by the senior management of the Central Bank of Ireland, which means that we are not expecting further Q&A among us and the Central Bank. We expect this to be approved anytime soon, and hopefully before Q4, as previously indicated. At the same time, which is a significant positive aspect, that we have been given the green light to submit the first filing of the fund prospectus, which will hopefully take place in early August.
From then on, we will have the usual interaction with the regulator, to be able to provide all the explanation on the product, and then start the next steps of the process with the marketing and the net flow generation. I will hand on to Alessandro for the usual walk-through to the financials.
Okay. Thank you, Gabriele. Before going through the numbers, we can move to slide 23. What we decide to do here is just to summarize the key elements related to the application of the new accounting principle of the IFRS 17. First of all, we would like to underline the fact that only 20% of the insurance AuM have been affected by the new accounting principle, therefore, we are talking about something around EUR 1.4 billion. This is just an accounting change, therefore, we don't see any element that could impact our insurance business and no change on our strategy. Therefore, this is also the reason why, for the moment, we just keep the effect of the new accounting principle below the EBIT, therefore, we are not gonna impact above.
In addition to that, we would like just to share again also the fact that the CSM, so the contractual service margin that we count, at the end of June 2023, it's around EUR 55 million. That means, substantially, that is the sum of the margin generated by each of the single contract, referred to this type of insurance product. Charting also the effect of the actualization and the actuarial effect. This is why there will be a move, and positive or negative, in the future following the fact that the assumption can move each year on year. There is no impact on cash generation. As well, we confirm that there will be no change in dividend policy. Therefore, we confirm the 50%-70% of the recurring net profit.
Final point that we just mentioned was it is the fact that total insurance earnings over the lifetime of a product stay the same. This is, this effect, as I was mentioned before, and in the first half 2023, there is no impact at the level of the EBIT, as the accounting effect has been captured below on the financing income line, and also the level of the net profit considered the adjusted, as explained by Gabriele, which has been took out. Move to the slide 24. Here you have the first part of the P&L. Starting from total revenue decreased by EUR 25 million, as we already said, due to the less variable fees, almost EUR 40 million compared to the first half 2022.
As well, also, we missed the contribution line by line of Sanctuary, due to the deconsolidation. I mean, these two bigger impact that should impact the total revenue, we were able to offset this. You can see also, you can follow the note number one, that we have introduced the new distribution fees, as well, thanks to the international business that go increased the revenue, we were able to offset those effects. Looking to the other income as well, we were impacted by the deconsolidation, so at the end of the day, the business is running positively. Looking to the quarter by quarter on 2023.
At the level of the insurance revenue, we have EUR 9 million of performance fees that impacted the full first half 2023, but also, we have a positive variation in terms of recurring fees. Before to move to the cost as well, looking to the numbers at the level of the first quarter 2023 compared to the second quarter 2023, again, the main point that we would like to raise is the fact that at the negative variation of EUR 10 million, it's almost explained by the full impact of the performance fee. If we count the effect of the variable fees and as well the less insurance performance fee, we count almost EUR 40 million. We were able to net this negative effect, again, thanks to the increase of the recurring fees.
At the level of the cost, operating cost decreased by EUR 32 million. We already explained the effect of the deconsolidation of Sanctuary, that explain the full variation of the distribution cost. From the other way, personal and the G&A increase, it's not only the EUR 16 million, but we should consider the first EUR 40 million of Sanctuary that is not impacting anymore the first half. Again, the variation is explained linked to the increase of the recurring revenues, the international business that is following the growth of our business. In general, the operating profit increased by EUR 7 million, with an operating margin at 44%, compared to the first half 2022 at 42% almost.
Moving to the following slide, I would say that probably the two line that we should remark is the finance income. At the first half 2023, we count EUR 42 million of impact. This is as per the note, driven by the IFRS 17 that impacting EUR 11 million, adding also a positive effect of EUR 6 million on fair value option, dividends from our GP stake, that was around EUR 7.3 million, and then also a combination of realized gain and unrealized gain, they count turning all EUR 27 million. On the other way, the net of non-operating income cost is negative of around EUR 12.5 million, and it's mainly explained by the write-off related to the discontinuation of the new front-end program for DFA in Italy.
At the level of the tax, we already represent the variation and the reason why we move from 26 to 20. I don't, I mean, I'm not gonna spend too much time on that. I only raise probably the point of looking to the second quarter 2023 compared to the first quarter 2023, where we see a net profit margin decreasing of 7 basis points, but again, we should underline the fact that we have lower performance fees, and as well, we have this negative effect of the cost that we had for the level of the non-operating income and cost for the new front end. Last slide, the net financial position, slide 26. The net financial position decreased compared to December 2023, 2022 by EUR 38 million.
The variation can be explained mainly considering, first of all, the net profit before tax, that count EUR 321 million. We take out the dividend pay to EUR 34, the M&A end investment, as per the slide, EUR 126. A tax to advance payment for EUR 39 million, and then we have received back, let's say, so we have positive reimbursement of cash from our ET liquid investment that counts around EUR 54 million, and also as we have, I mean, we are considering the net profit before tax, we should also take into account the EUR 23 dividend paid to third parties, let's say, so in a simple way, the main reference is the Australia partners. That's it. I'm gonna leave back to Gabriele for the outlook.
Thank you, Alex. Last two slides. I'm not going to spend too much time, conscious of time. We are in the summary and outlook. We are where we need to be, and we put our words into action, and numbers are speaking by themselves. Turning to the very last slide, business development and focus areas in Italy, clearly, private market insurance and Fintech will remain our focus of attention as far as the network is concerned. As far as the international business, we are working to continue and improve the profitability and scale in our key markets. As mentioned, the UniCredit partnership, we are entering phase II of the operational setup. We hope to be able to shorten this time and expecting an earlier kickoff than the Q1 2024, which is the base case assumption.
M&A, we actively manage our existing portfolio and obviously are looking for selective, accretive targets to further develop our positioning and diversification. Last but not least, an important point to stress as far as capital management is concerned, as you have heard from Alessandro, we continue to generate a significant cash out of our operations, and we are continuing to be committed to the deleveraging process, which will take place in 2024, the end of 2024. That's it from us. We're ready and happy to take any questions you may have.
Thank you. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Elena Perini with Intesa Sanpaolo. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. The first question is on the outlook that you have, that you can have on performance fees for the second half. Just from the first signs that you have in this month of July. The second question is a more technical one, and it is about IFRS 17 impact. Because, well, if I understood correctly, the first half, 2022, there was a positive impact of EUR 23 million in the finance income. This year, another positive impact of EUR 11 million. I was wondering whether you can provide us with some guidance for the following quarters.
Finally, a question about your tax rate, because, well, it is true that in the first quarter it was affected by a negative one-off, and in the second quarter it was quite low. I was wondering about the outlook on the second half and a potential guidance for the full year. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Elena. Thank you very much for the questions. Outlook for performance fees. I think we live in a very uncertain times, and clearly, we are, as many others, benefiting from the current market evolution and trend. As you probably recall, we try to avoid speculating on what could be a performance fee contribution of any given month, or at the end of the year, depending on the product, because there are too many moving parts, which we do not control.
However, what we can underline, and we have stressed throughout the presentation, the contribution from this revenue line has been quite limited in the first half, and potentially, it can be even more given the current trend. However, if things will change and can change quite rapidly, we will have to obviously revisit this statement. As far as IFRS 17, I will leave Alessandro to give you a proper answer.
What I can tell you from what we are seeing today is an implementation of this principle, which has an impact, which can be more or less relevant and more or less positive, and most likely, which is, this is probably true for us, but for many other companies that are implementing this new accounting principle, will have some sort of stabilization effect over the next quarters, which we do not expect to be material. I'll leave Alessandro to elaborate more.
Well, the point here is the fact that you are gonna fix today the value and the margin related to the single contract, link to this new accounting principle, therefore, you fix an amount that will represent the value of the contract, and then you define different kind of assumption in a simple way, as I said before, linked to the actualization, linked to the actuarial. Therefore, you are gonna fix few elements that could in a normal and perfect, let's say, business, you were able to fix, you are gonna have the same impact, let's say, year-on-year. As we are not living in a perfect, in a perfect environment, as soon you change the assumption, you could have a different impact on the P&L.
This is the reason why, at the end of the day, I mean, to avoid any impact at the level of the EBIT, because, which on the other way, it's just an accounting impact. Therefore, the real business, the real effect on our P&L, it's stabilized by the real flows, so positive and negative through the evolution of the business.
We can probably argue whether it is quite questionable on, with this principle, we have a, a better or worse representation quarter-over-quarter of this insurance line, but I guess this is another story. As far as the tax rate is concerned, if you were to obviously neutralize and exclude the, the, the tax, the one-off tax charge, what we can and are assuming is to raise the rate, the 22%-23% tax rate guidance that we have provided a year, a year and a half ago.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Our pleasure.
The next question is from Hubert Lam with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got two of them. Firstly, on the managed flows, at the start of the quarter, in May, in April, May, they were pretty weak. I know they were due to Brazil and some money market outflows. I think some of the money market outflows also continued in, in June, but I think Brazil has stabilized. I'm just wondering if we should think of June as a kind of a good run rate going forward to, for managed flows, and if the worst is over for Brazil. The second question is on your target of EUR 450. If I look at your half year......
I guess, adjusted profit today as EUR 230, I guess you have to pretty much almost repeat that in the second half of the year to kind of get to your target. At the same time, the first half benefited from some investment gains. Do you expect the investment gains to repeat in the second half, or should we expect some better cost in the second half for you to get to your target? Just wondering how you think you can achieve it? Thank you.
Thank you, Hubert. As far as the flows are concerned, I think we will still have the last bit of outflow from the monetary fund, i.e., the institutional investors in July, then they're done. This will take away a volatility element as far as monthly flows. At the same time, in Brazil, we are starting to see some signs for an inflection point, both at the macro level, with the potential decrease of interest rate, which will fuel more constructive activity from the clients and from the distributors, which, fingers crossed, if there is not any worsening in the macroeconomic scenario, will benefit over the course of the second half of the year.
Potentially, as you were mentioning, the worst for Brazil could be over. At the same time, as far as managed flows are concerned, we will be over the next month closing a number of products additionally. You will see that effect over the probably Q3 and more also in Q4. This is taking into account both Italy as well as our US GP staking business. Target. I think our assumption is to get to the EUR 450. If I look at the statement of our chairman, is even to overcome this EUR 450. As we have always said, we always try to work and achieve those targets, if not overcome them.
As far as the assumptions that we're taking on the potential gains, we're not actually making any assumption as far as these line items are concerned, but we're very much focused on the recurring component of the business and the things that we can truly control and incentivize. To get to the EUR 450, we probably need clearly normal market conditions, which was the base case assumption behind that target, which one can question whether we had them or not. For the second half, we're not betting on any extraordinary of a material size gain. So potentially there can be some more, but we are very much focused on the recurring components.
Great, thank you.
The next question is from Alberto Villa with Intermonte SIM. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, Alessandro and Gabriele. I have a couple of questions. The first one is on the, again, on the outlook for net inflows. Looking at your slide number seven, was trying to figure out the performance of the, let's say, retail Italian component, and to what extent you expect in the future to have again, maybe seizable inflows into, let's say, traditional managed assets, apart from the private markets component that seems to remain the main area of focus at this point in time.
I was also wondering if you have a target for private markets, let's say, sales in the second half of 2023, on the Italian client base and eventually on 2024, just to understand how big is still the, let's say, the opportunity there for prompting growth in this kind of segment, which it's the main area of effort I understand, of the network right now? The second one is on the... Also if you can comment, you already did, but for instance, on APAC flows, et cetera, if there are any expectations in the second part of this year in terms of inflows that we might take into account when considering your targets for the full year?
The second point is on the Nova Asset Management, the partnership with UniCredit. If you can, maybe you mentioned, I missed it, the cost you incurred so far on the initiative and what we should pencil in for the second half of 2023 and eventually on 2024 for to launch the initiative? I understand you and also your partner are quite committed to successfully launch these products on the network. I don't know if there are any, let's say, new expectations or anything that has changed since last time we touched base on this regarding the partnership? Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. Let's start from the private market. Private market, year to date, have raised EUR 780 million, and this is in the first half. We are out with a number of different products in the raising activity. We have yet to close some of the funds which have committed assets, but you have not seen them in the flow environment. Assuming a similar trend in the second half could be a reasonable number when it comes to Italy as well as our US GP staking business.
In terms of the flow environment, on our Italian network, clearly, as we have tried to highlight, the number has been disturbed in a way by the institutional investor outflow, which has been consistently, month after month, divesting a portion of their assets, which has been concluded in July, as far as this institutional investor is concerned. On top of that, we had the divestment of the proper money for EUR 150 million. If you adjust for this, the Italian network would have raised more than EUR 100 million in the first half.
Effectively, in a market conditions that will not worsen, replicating this figure, if not slightly more than that, could be a reasonable target to achieve, given also some recruitment activity that, if positively completed, will be benefiting the numbers. On the other regions, we do see from Australia a very good environment as far as flows are concerned. Typically, the first half is lower in terms of activity because of seasonality reasons, especially January and December are quite weak. We expect an ongoing positive environment.
On the Middle Eastern regions, there is still good demand for our solutions, both out of Turkey, Egypt, as well as UAE. In Egypt, we are the operator with the largest number of retail investor in our products, just to mention you a data point, with 100,000 investors. Clearly, the minimum investment amount from these clients is quite limited, but it provides you with an indication on how potentially we can be successful in terms of brand recognition over time, if we are successful in delivering positive returns to a larger number of individual investors.
Out of Mexico, we will have the usual seasonality from the institutional investor during the month of August, that redeems the fund, then over the rest of the year, puts in the contribution from the pension fund. This is just the same story that we have had since 2015. We do see ongoing contribution coming from the Sovereign Wealth Fund, which will complete the flows from into our Mexican equity allocation. Brazil, as I mentioned, can be at an inflection point, we have a very large product suite, a very good track record in terms of performance, which is set to benefit from that.
You know, there is the sweet spot of the contribution coming from the distributor of our product, which is Share Space, that is very much committed to grow our asset management activities down there. Probably the still weak point, which I mentioned several times in the past quarters, is still out of China, where things are moving slowly. This is partly offset from the positive flows that we are seeing out of Singapore. I will leave it that, to that. As far as Nova Asset Management, first half, low single digit, very low single digit.
Second half, slightly higher in terms of comparison between the first half, because we will be closer to the launch of the activities, and therefore, we have to complete the recruitment of the key figures that the central bank requires. As we mentioned in the past, the impact in 2023 of the set up of Nova will be in the very low single digit number, which is consistent with what we have had ourselves in 2022. You had something else on Nova or that's it?
No, just if there are any additional comments on the expectations in terms of,
We wouldn't like to put any pressure on UniCredit. They're doing an extraordinary work to turn the bank upside down. Results are there. It depends on them, and we are certainly very much aligned as far as the benefit of ramping up this JV as quickly as possible. Then it depends on their commercial activities and initiative.
Okay, thank you very much.
Our pleasure.
The next question is from Filippo Prini with Kepler. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, thank you. Just a couple of points again on Nova Asset Management. The first one is that, is it feasible an increase of the distribution payout to the network in 2024, following the start of the commercial activities with through Nova Asset Management with UniCredit? The second is contribution net profit. You stick to the indication that the net margin mentioned by Nova will be 0.5%, but this 0.5% will be achieved when the AuM of Nova will reach a given threshold, or even with a few hundred million EUR of AuM, you should be able to get this net profit margin. Thank you.
Thank you. We just missed the first question. Can you repeat that, please?
Yeah, sorry. If, you expect any increase of the payout to the network, given to the start of activity of Nova Asset Management?
Okay. Starting from the net profit contribution, basically, the agreement states that for any given EUR of AuM, Azimut retains approximately 50 basis points of net profit margin. This is what we have agreed. It lasts for the first five years and therefore, we shouldn't be expecting anything different from that. Okay? This is obviously assuming that the average margin or revenue margin on the product is 150 basis points management fee. Okay?
Okay.
As far as the payout is concerned, let's say that with them, we have agreed the net profit margin that we want to retain for the first five years. Everything else is something that will be rebated to UniCredit. They will decide as far as their commercial initiatives are concerned, how to manage that part of the margin that will be left with them. V is-à-vis our network, just to clarify, I don't know if this was.
Yeah
... back, thinking of the question. We will not change the rebate to our network. The Azimut network will still have 40% of the management fee charged to the funds. Okay?
Okay.
The next question.
Thank you.
- is from, Carlo Tommaselli with Societe Generale. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thanks for the presentation and taking my questions. Three for me. One on private markets, could you give a breakdown of the management fee margin by asset class, please? Two on the same segment, can you give a sense if in your portfolio's companies, there are pockets of underperformance, and how realizations exits are doing? Finally, when can we expect to see carried interest materialize?
Okay, thank you very much. As far as the breakdown of the fees are concerned, I will try to answer in a general way, and then offline, we're pleased to try to dig into the details, and just for the sake of being conscious of time. We do, we did state in the past that the average margin recurrent of the private market product is consistent with what we have on our UCITS fund. So, you can imagine anything ranging between 1.5%-2.5%, depending on the type of products, of recurrent average margin. On top, there is the carried interest that if any, will be cashed in.
I would leave it at that. As far as the portfolio companies are concerned, as you have had the possibility to appreciate over the last couple of quarters, we did have some realized gains on which are linked to earlier investment that we have done. This is clearly linked to some divestment that some of the early funds have completed, which are starting to contributing to our bottom line. Clearly, this was prior to 2019, when we were testing ourselves, our capability to ramp up a private market platform. Therefore, most of the money invested was for prop money. Over time, we do expect to be able to generate carried interest.
This carried interest, potentially, you can expect it from 2025 onwards, given that the funds have been started to be launched in 2019 and onwards. That's it.
Thank you.
My pleasure.
Mr. Blei, there are no more questions registered at this time.
Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. We remain available for any further follow-ups, myself and my colleagues. Enjoy the summer. Bye-bye!