Good day, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Ethos Capital results presentation. All participants will be in listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity to ask questions later during the conference. If you should need assistance during the call, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero. Please note that this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Antonie du Toit. Please go ahead.
Good morning, thank you to all the stakeholders for listening in today. We're presenting the results for Ethos Capital for the six months to 31 December 2024. I guess when we planned this results presentation today, we didn't realize that it was gonna be the same day as the budget speech. It is what it is. We're delighted with the results that we are presenting today, we hope that the stakeholders also see what has been achieved in this vehicle over the last six months. Financial market improvements from when, I guess, the elections took place last year to the end of December, really saw some improvements. We were feeling fairly positive about the suspension of load shedding. We were feeling positive about the GNU and what was going on in the GNU. I think ultimately that translated into some inbound interest into the broader portfolio.
It's translated also into some significant realization proceeds that we've achieved in the Ethos Capital vehicle. I think the start of the year has been a little bit more bumpy. I think there's been some geopolitical tensions. There are some protectionist policies out there. I think we need to be cautious around where things are headed, and the growth and stability of it. Despite all of that, I think that we've had an outstanding period for Ethos Capital. We've had a complete performance for the vehicle, which is really the combination of a lot of hard work that's gone in by our portfolio company management teams, by our fellow colleagues, and by the board of Ethos Capital, which really supported a number of different value-unlocking initiatives.
We've unbundled assets, we've disposed of companies, we've reduced leverage materially in the business, we've had the underlying growth of the portfolio continuing and doing exceptionally well. In the presentation today, I'll unpack that in more detail for you, put some different lenses on the performance over the last six months. The carrying value of our invested capital is sitting around ZAR 2.2 billion at 31 December. Post unbundling of the Brait ordinary shares, the share price responded well, increasing by 43% from ZAR 3.76 to ZAR 5.39. More recently, over the last week or two, given volatility in markets, the share price has come down again and the discount has widened. I've had a couple of questions already from people saying, "Are you concerned about the share price and what's going on with the share price?" We can't control the share price.
The share price trades on fairly low volumes. The one thing that we are focused on is to drive NAV growth and to deliver on the strategic focus of driving NAV and crystallizing that NAV through realization into cash and returning that cash to shareholders. When we stared at the share price has responded, we were pleased with it. But of particular importance to us is what happens to NAV per share. NAV per share increased from the ZAR 6.56 level up to ZAR 7.85, a 19% growth in NAV per share over the six-month period. This was driven by three things. EBITDA of the unlisted portfolio increased by 15% for the six months. That is very pleasing results for us. We've had about ZAR 419 million of realization proceeds, and we've also unbundled Brait ordinary shares to our investors.
Ethos Capital investors would have benefited from the Brait ordinary shares that were unbundled to them and the share price increasing, in Brait, fairly dramatically, from a low point to around ZAR 2 a share at the moment. Also the ZAR 492 million was achieved through realizations of assets at premiums to the prevailing NAV at the time. We commenced the share buyback program, or continued it from previous share buyback programs. We had limited capital available for that. We mentioned that we would do up to ZAR 25 million worth of share buyback programs, and we were able to execute that at around ZAR 5.05, which is a discount to the underlying NAV. It's NAV enhancing share buyback program. The group net debts.
When we last spoke at 30 June last year, the debt was sitting over ZAR 600 million, and through the realization of assets, we were able to bring that debt down to ZAR 204 million, at 31 December. Ethos Capital strategy is focused on value creation, realizing assets, and returning capital to shareholders. We've been very clear about that. Most investments are held through limited partner stakes in underlying funds, and the exit timelines are fund determined. It's important to note that the realizations take place in the ordinary course and are given effect to in line with underlying asset realization plans. Simply, what we've agreed with shareholders and what the board has agreed is to execute on a strategy of making no further commitments to underlying funds, to drive NAV growth by supporting the plans of the underlying funds, including, in some instances, making some follow-on investments where needed.
We support the fund's realizations in an orderly way, our strategy remains to maintain leverage levels at prudent levels and return capital to shareholders in the optimal way. I've explained that in some detail at the full year results when we came out with it, again, that strategy has not changed and we stay focused on it. What is pleasing on this slide is to have a look at the returns that we've generated for the vehicle on a gross basis over the last six months. We've had a 16.6% uptick in the NAV performance, which is a really outstanding performance. Also, if you look at realizations, ZAR 492 million being realized out of that portfolio over the last six months, which is a stellar performance. Ethos Capital Movements. I'll unpack that in a couple of slides later, and give more lenses on this.
Just to get your eye in on a couple of data points. The NAV was ZAR 2.2 billion, or the assets at 30 June were around ZAR 2.2 billion. Liabilities were around ZAR 544 million. The asset to debt ratio was over four times at the time. Since June, the portfolio increased in value by ZAR 363 million or 16.6%. This was driven by increases in the values of Optasia by 41%. Optasia makes up 48% of the portfolio value, a very significant contributor to the Ethos Capital vehicle, and there's been an outstanding delivery of value in that business over the past six months. I'll also talk to that in more detail later. That value increase from Optasia was also supported by the Brait exchangeable bonds.
Those bonds were trading at a discount to NAV. After the various actions that were taken in Brait, that discount to NAV was unlocked. The share price traded up, reflecting a 29.2% increase in the value of the Brait exchangeable bonds, and that's now trading at a marginal premium to the NAV. Vertice, Primedia, and TymeBank also delivered solid growth and it was offset by some reductions in Ecotel, Crossfin, and Gammatek, where there's a lot of action going into those companies to extract and grow value. The ZAR 492 million proceeds over the past six months were used to reduce their debt level to ZAR 234 million, or the liabilities to ZAR 234 million, as discussed earlier. At the bottom, NAV per share increasing by 19.2% from ZAR 6.58 to ZAR 7.85. The market cap at 31 December was based on ZAR 5.39 was ZAR 1.3 billion.
As I mentioned earlier, that's come back a bit over the last while, and the share price is now trading at ZAR 4.86, which takes that market cap to about ZAR 1.2 billion. Optasia's NAV is ZAR 1.06 billion of this, which together with six other exposures, make up the bulk of Ethos Capital's NAV. The share price still trading at a discount to NAV. As I mentioned, what we can do is to crystallize value, sell assets, and convert that into cash and hand that cash back to shareholders through mechanisms. To the right of the graph, we reflect the sources and uses of the cash. We received ZAR 492 million from the disposal of Synerlytic to Bidvest. We received ZAR 293 million through that realization, an outstanding realization executed by the mid-market fund, did extremely well. We repaid and disposed of Brait exchangeable bonds worth ZAR 134 million.
We received ZAR 55.9 million from Crossfin's disposal of Adumo to Lesaka, and a further ZAR 9 million from other dividends. We used the ZAR 492 million to settle some fund debt, to do some follow-on investments, a small follow-on investment. We reduced the group debt by ZAR 312 million. We executed on about ZAR 20 million of share buybacks and paid interest, covered expenses, paid some taxes of around ZAR 31 million, leaving us with ZAR 30 million of cash. Roughly ZAR 230 million of liabilities, just over ZAR 200 million of debt, and about ZAR 20 million of surplus cash in the vehicle at the moment. Total investment portfolio achieved a 16.6% growth or ZAR 364 million of growth. This was driven by a couple of things. First of all, I think the U.S. dollar strengthened a bit against the ZAR, and by December it appreciated the U.S. dollar against the ZAR at 3.7%.
That impacts on the Optasia, the Tsibuku valuations, and those valuations increased by ZAR 43 million as a result of some currency strength. The bulk of the uplift, however, was the result of earnings growth of the portfolio. Again, that's the piece that we're really pleased with, is when you stare at NAV growth, you've got to look at what the driver of that is, and the bulk of it came from the earnings growth. The multiple and the net debt were marginally negative, largely flat, and we'll just give you some data points around that a bit later. Then net distributions from Synerlytic, Adumo, the Brait exchangeable bonds, and the partial realizations driving the value of the portfolio at the end, sitting at ZAR 2.163 billion. The analysis on this slide are for unlisted portfolio companies.
We just give you a sense of the performance of the unlisted portfolio companies over the last while, and provides ranges for revenue and EBITDA growth, as well as to provide a sense of the maintainable EV/EBITDA multiple and net debt of the portfolio. In addition, we just outlined there the number of companies that are included in this analysis, which really is the bulk of the portfolio. As far as earnings growth is concerned, Optasia makes a big part of it. The high bars are largely where the Optasia performance comes out. 48% of the NAV is linked to Optasia, with revenue and EBITDA growth over the past 12 months really pleasing for that business. The valuation multiple averaged 7.7x, and if you exclude the Optasia business, it's at around 5.7x EV/EBITDA multiple.
The net debt to EBITDA provides a sense of the financial risk that sits in the portfolio. Anything below two times is pretty comfortable for a portfolio. This portfolio now sits at 1.3x, which shows you that the portfolio is maturing and it's starting to deliver cash which can be applied and allocated or returned back to investors. Very comfortable leverage levels for the overall portfolio and the risk on the low side. Overall, the unlisted portfolio delivered strong earnings growth. When we stare at this slide, it really gives you the Ethos Capital exit track record. We've listed here all the material assets that we've disposed of in the unlisted portfolio, and almost half of the unlisted portfolio cost has already been returned, and disposed of. We generated a 16% IRR and a 1.7x money back on it.
1.7x effectively means we got 70% more from these realizations than the cost we put into it. Key takeaways. Since listing, we've had 11 material realizations. 4 of them were realized in the last 6 months. Outstanding exit period for us. We've achieved the 16% and the 1.7x money back, in those realizations. The funds consistently deliver realizations above cost, but in particular and important that they deliver realizations at values that are higher than the NAV that we market at. We've provided some sense previously of what the NAV looks like for the vehicle. Given that we are busy with a realization and discount unwind strategy, we thought that it's important to give investors a sense of what the base case for the portfolio would look like. Again, we would ask you not to hold us specifically to any specific exit dates.
It's to provide a sense of how we see the portfolio realizations taking place over the next while. In the short term, I mentioned that at the full year results as well, we don't see any material exits in the very short term. We've got in the medium term exit bucket a couple of companies. We think about a third of the portfolio could be realized, or a third of the NAV could be realized over a six to 18-month period. Then we've got longer-dated investments. Investments that were made more recently, where they're still very much in the value creation phase and where the ultimate exits would be around, I would say the longer term, up to, let's call it 2029 for the sake of this presentation. It really just demonstrates that about a third sits in this medium-term bucket.
About two-thirds sits in the longer-dated bucket. I think a couple of data points on it. There could always be earlier exits. From time to time, we get inbounds. These inbounds are serious. They are from investors that are motivated to buy companies or buy into companies, and we would entertain those to the extent that they are at values that make sense to us. Optasia is one of those assets where you always get some interest coming into the business. We may execute on that in the shorter term, but it's also an asset where there could be longer-dated realization prospects for it. iKhokha is another one where we received some inbounds for it, and it is something that could be considered, and could bring some of the realization proceeds forward.
There are a bunch of assets in that medium-term bucket, with the prospect of potentially returning some cash earlier. Moving over to the portfolio. What we've tried to do in the next couple of slides is really just discuss the drivers of NAV growth, starting with Optasia. It makes up 48% of Ethos Capital's NAV. Clearly, a lot of concentration in this one asset. We invested at the time around ZAR 390 million into Optasia. Through dividend returns and minority sell downs, we've been able to return over ZAR 400 million from that investment. To date, we've almost returned all the cost back. More than all the cost back. Our investment, while still retaining a 7.3% economic interest. At 31 December, that economic interest was valued by the funds at over ZAR 1 billion.
The company continues to grow impressively across a number of different emerging markets and has successfully diversified the product offering and the country risk concentration. Again, we keep highlighting this point to investors, on the next slide, I will give a couple of data points which will unpack that further. What drives the growth of Optasia? It's got many MNOs and financial institutions across emerging markets, and it provides services to over 121 million customers per month. It operates across 40 countries, through 63 different deployments, and it focuses on emerging markets. Its model is highly scalable. The business has an established AI platform and relationships with MNOs and financial institutions, and it leverages those relationships to expand further. For the 12 months to December 2024, the company really had a very robust performance. The H1 was impacted, I reported on that with the full year results.
H1 was very impacted by the currency losses in some of its key markets. In particular, the naira where it operates in Nigeria, was hammered by a depreciating currency against the USD. In 2023, the naira was sitting at 881 naira to a USD, and you can see that on the slide. That depreciated largely all the way to June to about 1,500 naira to the USD. A big part of the currency depreciation was taken in the first six months of the year. In addition, we also mentioned that the business was investing in technology capabilities, and that was somewhat delayed, which impacted on our deployments at the time. Those were sorted out and resolved. Over the last six months, we really saw very strong performance from Optasia.
H2 saw currency stability with the naira still hovering around the 1,530s to the USD. In particular, we saw a takeoff from the micro-lending business or the microfinance business, which drove growth. This product has a significant total addressable market and it achieved really good margins. In addition to the product diversification in the microfinance business, we continue to get more customers in more countries and expanding quickly. The valuation increased by 41% over the past six months, an outstanding performance. It was driven by maintainable earnings growth of 33% in this period and some USD strengthening against the ZAR from ZAR 18.20 to ZAR 18.87. The current earnings growth run rate remains strong. The second slide on Optasia provides the overview, as I mentioned earlier, geographic product and customer diversification data points. Again, since 2019, you will note how the country risk and the product risk were diversified.
The Airtime Credit Services company made up 98% when we invested in Optasia and has now been reduced and diversified to about 55% of revenue. The microfinance business now makes up 45% of revenue, with Nigeria reducing from 50% of the regional revenue down to now less than 15%. Very solid diversification into different products, but also into different countries. The top five customers made up 82% of revenue in 2019, and that's reduced down to 53%. Given the importance of Optasia on the NAV of Ethos Capital, we are very pleased that the company has agreed to put further data and information out to provide investors with a better overview or more comprehensive overview of what the company does, how it does it and where it's headed.
We will be putting that information out on the Ethos Capital website in a week from today, and we hope that the investors find it interesting, and we would encourage you to access the information to share in this deeper understanding and excitement of this investment. Vertice is the next asset, making up 9% of the NAV of Ethos Capital. We've got ZAR 188 million worth of exposure, and our ownership in consortium with a number of different underlying TRG funds is at 88.2%. The economic interest that Ethos Capital owns is 17.6%. We're sitting in a consortium alongside others, and we own a direct or indirect stake of around 17.6%. Since we invested in it, the company has closed and integrated many bolt-on acquisitions. I think it's around nine bolt-on acquisitions were done, and they continue to scale up and diversify this medical technology business.
The sales mix expanded materially since establishment, and the revenue streams have been diversified. It now has good diversification across products and suppliers. Business has restructured its reporting divisions into specialized products, general products, and software solutions. EBITDA growth accelerated. The LTM revenue was only up marginally over the last while, but the EBITDA increased by 22%. We lost a material contract that impacted on the revenue, but that was replaced with strong performances from the orthopedic surgical and the mobile clinics business, which offset that loss of the contract in the cardiovascular side of the business. We are very excited about the software solutions opportunity in Vertice, and over the last while, they pivoted to developing private sector solutions and secured a contract in Europe. We hope there would be further upside coming out of that. Several growth and optimization initiatives continue.
When you do so many bolt-on acquisitions, the one thing management focuses on is to integrate those into the platform. It includes looking at premises and reducing premises where it makes sense, reduction in working capital investments to appropriate levels, and driving free cash flow generation. I don't think that any one of our underlying companies would not agree that one of the things we do focus on is converting growth EBITDA into cash and ultimately return of capital to investors. This business has done particularly well in that regard as well. For the six months, the value increased by 9% for the six months, mostly driven by EBITDA growth over this period. Next asset, Gammatek. Some of the brand names that you'll recognize. It's a business that's a distributor of mobile accessories and low technology products with 50% of its market share in targeted categories.
Body Glove, Burton, Snug, Speck, Samsung, Skullcandy, Urban Armor Gear, and UGREEN. All of these are products that Gammatek imports and distributes through a wide range of distribution channels. The growth drivers of this company benefits from continued growth in smart mobile devices, expanding customer channels, diversifying in mid-tier smart mobiles, expanding selectively into other geographies. That's still a very small part of this business, but there are opportunities in this regard, and we look for complementary acquisitions and expansion opportunities to expand the existing product offerings. Gammatek would look at small acquisitions at appropriate prices and integrate that into their distribution channel and benefit from that. The performance has been fairly good at a revenue level over the last while, growing revenue by 10%, but the LTM EBITDA has been only up by 3%.
I think management or the company was impacted by high interest rates and some inflation pressures and input cost inflation pressures, and working very hard on recovering margins in the company. All in all, over the last six months, the multiple remained constant. A slight increase in the EBITDA, but it was offset by an increase in debt, where we funded two smaller acquisitions. Hopefully we'll benefit from those investments over the next while. The next asset is TymeBank. It's a company or a group launched in 2019. Ethos Capital has a very small economic interest in TymeBank. We've got an ownership through our AI fund, together with our fund of around 2.8%, and it's valued at ZAR 128 million at 31 December. In February 2019, the business was launched, and in 2022, it expanded into the Philippines.
It's got fully licensed hybrid digital bank offerings in both countries, servicing the emerging middle class. The business really demonstrated robust growth over the period and net operating income, and also has a balance sheet that's reflective of strong growth and increasing focus towards lending. You can see there the lending book increasing quite a bit over the quarters over the last year. The strategy is to have multiple successful digital banks in multiple countries, mostly in emerging markets with a focus on Southeast Asia. The multi-country proven hybrid digital bank should be a very valuable asset, and I think that could be seen when we closed in December, the Series D capital raise, which secured $250 million for TymeBank at a value of $1.5 billion. Outstanding performance by the company, as well as the stakeholders and partners that were able to secure that inbound Series D investment.
It was a significant uplift from previous funding rounds. The funding round was led by Nubank, a global leader in digital banking, and had other participants in it as well. The funding round marked the largest fintech raise in 2024 in Southeast Asia and Africa. In Ethos Capital, we're pleased to be a part of it. Crossfin is an investment that we hold through the mid-market fund as well as the artificial intelligence fund and makes up around ZAR 99 million of the Ethos Capital value or around 5% of our NAV. It represents an investment in high growth, established, cash generative fintech solutions businesses. The company's gone through a process of driving asset realizations out of the underlying portfolio. It's got exposures. Those exposures are being driven hard to drive the underlying growth and performance of it.
Ultimately, there's interest from various stakeholders and various interested parties into these assets, and we're disposing of it over time. You'll recall, one of the assets that we had in this portfolio was a company called Adumo, and Adumo was sold last year to Lesaka. The next asset, or the largest asset in here is iKhokha, and iKhokha is a point-of-sale device business, and it makes up almost 50% of the remaining value of Crossfin. It continues to show strong year-on-year revenue growth, and year to date, the business recorded 27% growth, as a result of new customer wins, but also the positive shift in the sales mix. The iKhokha business launched their iK Flyer. It was introduced about 17 months ago, and it's gained a lot of traction in the market and there's strong uptake, which underscores the value and the market appeal for this product.
Akelo was impacted by unforeseen issues, including delays in volumes from new customers in the bank card business, and setbacks in the card business have really taken longer to drive the profitability of it. There's a lot of action going into the Akelo business. The Cybrint team has restructured the cost base materially, and the cost savings have come through in reductions in payroll and general overheads, which supported the performance in the second half of the year. On Primedia, again, there's been some press out on Primedia. Ethos Capital is around a 4.7% holder of the company. It makes up 4% of our assets, and it's really the owner of the Primedia broadcasting assets. So 947, 702, and CapeTalk are all assets in the Primedia stable, and it's also the leader in digital out-of-home market and Primedia Studios.
It's got high introduction and distribution network in the Primedia Studios. What they do in Primedia Studios, and it's something which was led by Jonathan Procter, the CEO of Primedia, is to really create a larger news and podcast offering and to distribute that into the media and advertising space. It has been a very successful start to that business. The strong growth reported on previously continued over the past 6 months, and it's really a function of this business capturing market share and doing exceptionally well in the way that they position their product offering. It's been accepted extremely well by the marketing and advertising space. Great market share gains, a function of hard work by management and excellent execution. Earnings growth and some deleveraging supported a 12.6% increase in the valuation of Primedia to December. Very pleasing result from Primedia.
Ecotel is the last asset that I'll be speaking to you today. It's a smaller company, makes up around 3% of the NAV. We've got a ZAR 67 million exposure in it. It's a business that offers customers a single point access to a wide variety of products into the network services, connectivity, cloud hosting, and cybersecurity space. It's very much an asset that we acquired knowing that it's going to be benefiting from tailwind spaces. It is a smaller business, and we're working very hard on cleaning up some of the African operations. I did mention that at the full year results as well. We're doing some cost reductions there and some rationalization, then we'll focus this company back into the South African business and drive the South African business really hard.
We believe strongly that the revenue growth that we can see out of the South African business, where it's got a differentiated position, will benefit in the next year or two. We've had to delay the exit of Ecotel into the longer term market as we wait for the value creation to come through in that asset. The Ecotel valuation was reduced. If you go back to earlier slides, you'll see it was reduced, and that's a function of us taking a more conservative view of the value of the African operations. In conclusion, I started out with some of these points. We think that the vehicle had an excellent 6 months. The NAV growth was driven by really a very wide range of activities. We've unbundled assets, the Brait ordinary shares, disposed of many assets. We reduced leverage.
We initiate NAV-enhancing share buybacks, and we remain focused on driving growth. The NAV is still around ZAR 2 billion, and Optasia will continue to be an important value driver for the vehicle. As mentioned, we'll be putting out information on Optasia, and we hope that investors will have a look at it, and continue to expand the knowledge and interest of this asset. We have a further 50 investments, and the base plan demonstrates that approximately a third of this could be realized and returned over the medium term, with potential upsides to the extent some deals close earlier. A key contributor to the strong performance over the past 6 months was earnings growth. This growth is a result of extremely hard work and dedication of portfolio and private equity managers over many years. It's not really only in the last 6 months.
It's got to do with the hard work that was done over many, many years. We thank all those management members for their hard work and their commitment to drive the growth. We value the strategic decisions made by the board and their ongoing guidance. The narrowing of the market capitalization discount to NAV reflected some of this. It's a pity that it's gone back. What we'll focus on is to keep driving NAV growth, turn that NAV into cash, and return the cash to shareholders. We'll do it through a combination of share buybacks or pro rata share repurchases, and to the extent possible, some cash dividends. Very focused on driving strategy, very focused on executing on that strategy, and we extend our gratitude to all stakeholders for their support and look forward to building the momentum that we've experienced in the last six months.
With that, I am done with the presentation and happy to take some questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if anyone would like to ask a question on the conference call, you may press star and then one on your touch-tone phone or on the keypad on your screen. You will hear a confirmation tone that you have joined the queue. If, however, you wish to withdraw the question, you may press star and then two to remove yourself from the question queue. For the benefit of those on the webcast, you may submit your written question using the text box at the bottom of your screen. Once again, for those on the conference call, if you would like to ask a question, you may press star and then one. We will pause a moment to see if we have any questions on the conference call.
At this time, we have no questions on the conference call, and I would like to hand over to webcast questions.
Thank you. So far there are two questions. The one is from Alistair Lea from Coronation. "Why did you not take up the Titan offer to acquire the Brait Exchangeable Bonds at a premium to par value?" Alistair, thanks for the question. We did take up the offer. We did sell some of the Brait Exchangeable Bonds at ZAR 760, which was a slight premium to market. At the time, we needed to do two things. One was there was some underlying leverage that the Brait Exchangeable Bonds were exposed to, so we needed to reduce that leverage or wipe out that leverage. We sold ZAR 51 million worth of Exchangeable Bonds into the Titan offer. There were mixed messages from investors around retaining the rest of the Brait Exchangeable Bonds. Some investors wanted to hold onto it, and some investors wanted us to cash in on it.
I think for now, we've sold ZAR 51 million. We've banked the debt. Now we're in a position where we can explore options with respect to the Brait Exchangeable Bonds further. The reason why I think investors want to own it or hold onto it is a couple of things. One is that the Brait Exchangeable Bonds is a front-ranking instrument in the Brait capital structure. It sits ahead of convertible bonds and some debt. That instrument yields around 6% coupon. It also has a conversion right to equity, and that conversion right to equity provides some optionality on it. An attractive front-ranking instrument with a decent coupon, with upside participation, and I think we just felt that we sold some to reduce leverage, and we'll consider the options on the rest of the Exchangeable Bonds in due course.
We did take up that offer to some extent. The next question is from Craig Butters. "Optasia has been a great performer and makes up the bulk of the reevaluation for the six months and the NAV of Ethos Capital at 31 December. This is likely to increase given the expected growth relative to other investments and the longer-term nature of the exit of Optasia. Given the vulnerability to currency volatility, how do you view the concentration risk, and how comfortable are you with this increasing exposure?" Craig, thank you for the question. I think that as we demonstrated on that one slide where we unpack the geographic and product diversification as well as customer diversification, you're right. The concentration risk is not going to go away, especially if we sell other assets and Optasia continues to become a larger and larger portion of the NAV of the portfolio.
The concentration risk is very much there. We're sharing information with investors on Optasia so that they can also apply their own minds to the Optasia opportunity, but also the risk associated with it. I think we have, from time to time, taken money off the table. As I mentioned at the beginning, we invested ZAR 392 million in Optasia. We've taken out, through dividends and realizations, more than our original cost. We continue to look at NAV-enhancing realization strategies or sell-down strategies to make sure that we also balance out the exposure and the risk associated with it. We are comfortable with exposure. We are extremely comfortable with exposure. The exposure's done exceptionally well for us. I think when we engage with investors, they like the exposure. Clearly, the board, from time to time, will take money off the table if it's at the right value.
We continue to look at that. The third question, again, from Craig Butters. "Assuming you realized all your assets today at the state valuations, how much of the ZAR 785 million would be returned to shareholders after tax costs, winding up costs, and bonuses?" Good question, Craig. I don't have the exact answer for you, but to give you a sense, the vehicle is set up as an investment holding company through Mauritius, and invests through the underlying funds as a limited partner. There won't be any material tax leakage from the vehicle when the underlying disposals take place. It really is when we return the capital to investors through share buybacks or through dividends that there will be some tax leakage on that ultimate realization.
If it's share buybacks or share repurchases, there will be an element of capital gains tax in the hand of the investor, but there won't be any taxes in the vehicle itself. As far as winding up costs are concerned, that is catered for in the vehicle. You can see, I think the vehicle runs, JP will have the exact answer, but the cost of the vehicle is around ZAR 20 million per annum, and that will wind down. We continue to look at ways of winding down the cost associated with the vehicle. Out of the ZAR 785 million, and bonuses, just to give you a sense, we don't pay any bonuses out of the vehicle. There's a performance participation that's a 3-year rolling performance participation. To the extent that we deliver on NAV growth hurdles, in excess of that hurdle, we will participate.
That is dependent on the NAV performance. By 30 June 2025, there will be another check on what the NAV performance is. As we mentioned earlier, the NAV performance has been strong. I would say to your question of ZAR 785 million, there will be some leakage, but not as material as you would expect, given that there are no taxes trapped in the vehicle. From Waleed Barnes from Steyn Capital. "Congratulations on excellent results." Thanks, Waleed. I appreciate it. "With relation to Optasia, is the likely medium-term, long-term exit plan still a listing? Why could this not happen sooner?" Waleed, yes. I guess, the way that it's set out on the slide shows you flows coming in within the next 6 to 18 months, into the medium-term bucket, and then flows into the longer-dated bucket.
When you have flows like that, the assumption should be, well, it's probably a listing and they will be locked up and be able to sell the rest of the exposures at a later stage. We continue to look at other options, Waleed. I think that giving investors exposure to Optasia expands the knowledge and interest in the asset. As I mentioned, we will be putting out information on it. You've also got to be ready and positioned well for listing, and the markets have got to be open. We can't, as they always say, rush the goalie. We've got to be able to dispose of a business in an orderly way, taking into account the performance of the company, but also where the markets are and the appetite for the assets. We continue to operate and look for that opportunity.
It doesn't mean that you won't find other trade or financial interest in the asset. We continue to get some inbounds. Those inbounds, to the extent they make sense, will be considered. Just to mention again, Waleed, Ethos Capital is but one investor in Optasia. We are part of a larger consortium of investors that includes some financial sponsors, and the decision is made as a collective. We can't go out there and make the decision on our own. We do it in conjunction with our partners. Craig Butters, another question. "How are you approaching the remaining debt reduction versus the value-adding share buybacks?" Craig, we've got around ZAR 200 million worth of debt. I think when proceeds come through, we need to reflect on the debt covenant, what we see in terms of further proceeds coming through, what the liquidity looks like in the market.
The board needs to take a view on what is a prudent level of leverage in Ethos Capital. The board applies their mind every time there's a large realization to these different data points, and would make a decision. You're absolutely right. The financial risk of the Ethos Capital vehicle is sitting at a very comfortable level. To the extent that there are enough shares trading or enough shares available at where the share price is trading, we will execute on share buybacks, and we'll continue to do so. Right now, we're only sitting with about ZAR 20 million worth of cash. We're not going to gear up to do share buybacks. We will do it out of proceeds from the next realizations. Those are all the questions that I have.
I'm happy to wait another minute or two, or otherwise, we can bring the meeting to a close. Maybe with no further questions. Again, I would encourage all of our investors to make contact with us, reach out to us. We're happy to provide data and information or answer questions if anybody's got any further questions. We want to thank you for your support. We want to thank you for listening in and taking an interest in the asset. We recognize that it's a vehicle that's been around for some time. Very pleased with the performance over the last six months. We look forward to continue to engage with you. Thanks to the board and the management for their support. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.