Right, well, morning, everybody, and welcome to our March 2024 results presentation. I have the privilege of presenting this all to you. And it sees us moving into the company's 96th year, so we are moving through. Our results will be presented by our CFO, Rob Memmott, and Alan Murran, who co-runs our Public Companies Team, and question and answers session will follow the end of the results. Before we get going with the results, I'd like to tell you about a project we undertook during the year with the aim of explaining why we do what we do, because as we learn through life, understanding why people do things is often more important or just as important as understanding what and how they do them.
We got help for the project from lots of people, and we were really quite touched by the feedback we received. And it was very, very helpful in helping us sort of think about ourselves and how we communicate. And the same underlying theme came through the feedback, which was about how we use time. I'd just like to highlight some of the feedback with you. Firstly, there's a strong family aspect to Caledonia, and that goes beyond our supportive family shareholder. This goes to how we operate. We seek to build long and trusting relationships with our staff, with our colleagues, and with the people who we partner with. And this is actually very much appreciated by the people we work with.
Secondly, our approach to investing, or the business of investing is very different from others. And it's actually very important for attracting investment talent to the company. We got a piece of feedback from someone who said, probably an investment team, I should think, who said: "I like that we don't invest for the sake of investing." And what sits behind that is because we're not raising funds, and we're long-term investors, no one is under any pressure to invest or divest. And so all investment decisions are made at the right time, purely on their own merits. So the project team identified that investing time is at the heart of what we do, whether it's in colleagues or people we partner with, even indeed, the approach to investing.
And so to help people understand that more fully, today, we're putting on our website a short film to explain that, and we're also putting up our manifesto, which is a short statement which articulates our values and culture, and we hope that people find that helpful in understanding why we do what we do. We've also added the words "Time Well Invested" to our logo, which you can see on the screen, and in our materials, to bring this to the fore and remind people about what Caledonia is about. So before we get into the results, a few slides to remind you about Caledonia and how what I've been talking about works in practice. So I'd like to say that we are very self-managed.
All of the direct investing and fund selections is carried out by our 25-strong investment team, who only work for our shareholders. They specialize in our chosen strategies, which are designed to benefit from our long-term approach, and they don't do any marketing, and so they're not distracted from investing your money. We target long-term, real compounding returns, aiming to grow your investment ahead of inflation by 3%-6%, and achieving this should deliver performance ahead of the FTSE All-Share over the longer term. We've been operating like this for a long time and have a successful track record of demonstrating success against these metrics. The Cayzer family established the company in 1928, and their ongoing long-term support provides a benefit to everyone by underpinning our culture of investing time.
Experience has shown us that investing in companies and allowing them to drive value, rather than short-term trading, drives very good returns. We all know about the power of compounding over long periods and how powerful that is. We use time to nurture our people so they can develop lasting partnerships, knowledge, capability, and the patience to position us well to make great investments. Our chosen investment strategies deliberately address large markets, which we expect will offer attractive opportunities for a very long time. This provides our investment team with time to develop a high-quality investment set from which to select from, and we are wholly aligned with shareholders. Because they're not investing for the sake of investing, or in other words, asset gathering, they are selecting the best investments to make at the right time.
You'll hear firsthand from Alan Murran in a minute about how this works in practice. Our approach gives us a well-balanced portfolio, which operates through three main investment strategies, which are all fundamentally doing the same thing, but in different parts of the market, which is to invest in high-quality companies.... We'll explain more about these later, but I'd just like to point out that we're very pleased that over the last 10 years, these strategies have delivered very good returns in relation to their targets. Our approach combines to produce a very well-diversified portfolio by geography and sector. Now, the investment team build the portfolio from the bottom up, and so sector exposure is a result of the investment team activity and what they assess are good individual companies to invest from, or invest in, rather.
This quality-first approach tends to keep us away from sectors where macro factors or leverage are significant, because we invest in companies and not cycles, and do not like the risk that excessive leverage brings. So we tend to avoid sectors influenced by commodity prices or are highly capital-intensive, and so rely on leverage to make returns. And the result of our approach has delivered returns at the top end of our inflation + 3%-6% targets, and kept us well ahead of the FTSE All-Share over the medium to longer term, which is good to see. Now, there's a significant difference between the NAV total return chart and the TSR chart over 5 years, which is those middle set of bands. And what is causing that is the discount opening up over that period.
Rob will talk more about what we're doing to address that later on in the presentation. Moving on to the highlights for the year. NAV per share increased to GBP 53.69, and our assets reached GBP 3 billion for the first time. The total NAV return for the year was 7.4%, with all the pools making a positive contribution. Private capital had a good year, up 12.3%, primarily driven by the sale of 7IM, and we acquired AIR-serv at the start of the year, which has performed ahead of expectations. Both public company strategies performed well, and were at the top end or beyond the top end of their targeted range. Growth from our funds pool was lower than recent years, at 2%, with continued good performance from our North American mid-market buyout funds.
Sorry, lower mid-market buyout funds, partially offset by a weaker performance in our Asian PE growth and venture capital funds, reflecting more challenging market conditions in that region. As a reminder, the funds pool has delivered excellent long-term returns with a ten-year performance of 17.3%. We've declared a final dividend of 51.47p per share, taking the total for the year to 17.4 pence, which is a 4.5% increase over last year. Now, around the year end, we brought in just over 290,000 shares for around GBP 10 million, at an average discount of 36%. We believe the current share price significantly undervalues the assets in the business, and Rob will talk more about what we're doing about this to address this later on.
Caledonia has a long track record of returning money to shareholders, and doing buybacks. In fact, if you look back to the 1980s and compare the share count to today, we've almost reduced the share count by a half. We've been doing share buybacks for a long period of time, and over the last 10 years, we've returned just under GBP 500 million to shareholders through ordinary and special dividends. I'd just like to say a few words about private capital. Private capital provides us with the opportunity to make direct investments in a small number of well-established U.K.-based businesses, and also includes our holding in Cobepa.
We tend to invest between GBP 50 million and GBP 150 million, and because we're not raising and returning funds, like private equity, we can take a truly long-term approach to managing and realizing value. This is also important for our partners, who understand the value that this time gives them. Total return for the year of 12.3% was driven by the sale of 7IM, generating a GBP 59 million or 32% uplift to the 31 March 2023 carrying value. A very good operating performance across most of the investment, investee companies in the portfolio also helped performance. To provide you with an idea of the risk we're taking with your equity, we tend to use low levels of gearing in this portfolio, with net debt typically in the range of 2-2.5 times EBITDA.
As you can see, the long-term returns have been pretty good, with over 10 years, the pool delivering 13.9%. Just like to talk about AIR-serv, which we purchased at the beginning of the year for GBP 200 million, with GBP 143 million of that coming from Caledonia. AIR-serv designs, manufactures, and provides services in support of a very large installed base of air, vacuum, and jet wash machines across Europe. There are a number of things that we liked about the business, including over the last 40 years, from an established U.K. position, it's developed a number one or two position in its six other core markets. It's got strong earnings growth, a well-invested estate of over 21,000 machines, supporting around 100 million transactions every year.
Providing in the main, a non-discretionary product, backed up by an industry-leading service and support team, which keeps the uptime on the machines at a very high level. So we think it's a really good business to invest in. We met with and immediately warmed to Clive Steel and his team, and they explained to us that they could continue to grow the business by adding new machines in both the U.K. and especially the newer European geographies. Now, we really like providing additional investment behind the teams that we're already backing. This is some of the best returning and lowest risk investing that we can do across the business, so we were delighted to hear that Clive had more investment for us to do behind him.
Fortunately for us, Clive liked our genuinely long-term approach to investing and partnering, and so he was very happy to work with us. We've made good progress to date, completing the corporate carve-out of the business and making key hires to the team, and we've invested GBP 12 million CapEx to help grow the business, so we're all very pleased about that. The business has traded well, and this is reflected in the valuation increase of around 19% over the year. As well as AIR-serv, the portfolio is primarily represented by the other three U.K.-based operational businesses, and Cobepa, the Belgium-based private capital investment company. I'll just say a few words about each of the companies. Stonehage Fleming traded well over the year, and this is reflected in their growth and valuation.
Liberation, our pubs business, felt the impact of inflation during the year, but revenue and profitability is improving. Cooke, the leading manufacturer of cinematography lenses, felt the impact of the Hollywood strikes, which are now resolved, and this reduced its trading and consequently, valuation during the year. The business is recovering and continuing to make operational progress with the launch of a new prosumer range of lenses, which are proving very popular. Last, but by no means least, Cobepa's portfolio, in the main, traded well over a quiet year for them in terms of investment activity. Now, this year, Cobepa reaches its twentieth year. We backed Jean-Marie and his team when it was created, and we've enjoyed a really good relationship and partnership with them and the other shareholders of Cobepa over the period, and it has delivered brilliant returns for all of us.
It's multiplied our original investment by 5.5 times, and we had a co-investment with Cobepa in BioAgilytix, which delivered 4.5 times, just under 4.5 times cash on cash returns to us, and we continue to look at investment opportunities together. And I think that's what we're talking about, building relationships over time, where 20 years in with Cobepa, we're still just as enthusiastic about working with them going forward. So now I'm gonna hand over to Alan, who will talk about our public companies.
Thanks, Mat. So good morning. It's great to be presenting to you all today. My name is Alan Murran. I am co-head of Caledonia's Public Companies business, with responsibility for the capital portfolio. So Mat's done a great job covering Caledonia's culture and the private capital business. I'm gonna talk about public companies and talk about our performance over the year. I'm also going to talk, give a case study on Watsco, one of our amazing portfolio companies. It's North America's largest distributor of air conditioning equipment. Unfortunately, something that we don't really require in the U.K., but thankfully for our investment, it's something that's a necessity in the Sun Belt of America. I'm also gonna give you a flavor of the team and talk to you through about what we like and what we think look for in our investments. Starting off, I'm gonna describe the two portfolios.
So firstly, the capital portfolio is about GBP 700 million, and the income portfolio is about GBP 250 million. So that's GBP 950 million in total, and that's about one-third of Caledonia's NAV. So we look for quality compounders across both portfolios. As Mat mentioned, we look for, on the capital side, we have a higher return target with no yield requirement, and this really gives us the ability to focus and look for the really special companies that we want in our portfolio. Similarly, on the income side, there's a lower return target, but including a healthy dividend, and this means also, like capital, there's a focus on quality. Now, I have a fantastic team that works across both portfolios. We're a team of six, becoming seven next month, and over the long run, we have the returns that are very good.
So to look at these in more depth, so for example, on the capital side, over 3 and 10 years, we've achieved about 10%, and even more so on the 5-year, we've achieved just under 13% return. So that's a cumulative return of over 80% over that short period of time. On the income side, there was a change in strategy about 5 years ago, and we've delivered a healthy 6% over 3 and 5 years, including paying a dividend. Also, spending a little bit more time on the team. It's an experienced team, where all members have at least 6 years experience, something that's very important due to our extensive investment process that I'll spend a little bit more time on later. In addition, it's a team that's passionate about investing.
Indeed, in our recent recruitment process, this is one of the key characteristics that we looked for in our candidate. We also have a very collaborative and meritocratic culture, where open debate is encouraged, and I believe that's a key driver why most of us have now worked together for many years. This year's performance is a 12% return for the combined portfolios, with a 14% return for the capital portfolio and a 7% return for the income portfolio, just under 7%. In addition, this performance has primarily been driven by the operating performance of the underlying companies, which has been good. In addition, it's been supplemented by some opportunistic trading. For example, in October of last year, we topped up a number of holdings across both portfolios.
In addition, there was a well-timed purchase in RELX last summer, which was actually a position that the team started work on in 2020, but were very patient on when to buy it. Net, over the course of the year, we have spent about GBP 33 million, net of all sales. So turning to Watsco, I'm gonna give you an overview of the business. I'm gonna talk about the quality characteristics. Give you an insight into our investment thesis, and talk about the returns that this company has generated. But before doing all that, I'd like to tell a story. So Watsco was a company I first heard about in 2016. I attended a sell-side conference. This is typically somewhere where you hear a little bit about companies. They give a brief overview of themselves, and it's quite rare to find an idea.
However, on that day, we struck gold. It was very clear from the outset that Watsco had all the quality characteristics that we look for in investment. And so after doing more work on the business and meeting management, we initiated a position in 2017. So turning to an overview. Sorry, let's talk a little bit about returns. We also topped up the. We also initiated a position during the COVID sell-off in the income portfolio as yields hit targeted levels. And if we turn to returns, so the returns on Watsco have been amazing. So it's an annualized return of 22% since inception, so a really good investment that we continue to hold. Spending a little bit of time on an overview of the business. So Watsco has a great history.
The current CEO, Albert Nahmad, turned the business from a manufacturing business into a distributor in 1989, and from that standing start, has grown the business to a $19 billion market cap, an incredible achievement for an exceptional entrepreneur. At a high level, the way to think about the business is that if you are a homeowner, imagine if your air conditioning equipment breaks on a hot day. So what you do is you have to call your local contractor, who will either sell you another equipment or repair the existing, and to do that, they go to their distributor. Now, Watsco, with over 690 locations in 42 states, serves over 125,000 of these contractors. So Watsco has the quality characteristics that we look for in our investments. I'll touch on three of these.
Firstly, it has a resilient business model. There are 120 million HVAC units in the U.S., and every year, these break. So this means that Watsco has an installed base of demand that it can continuously tap, and a product, when it's roasting outside, that's necessary. Number two, they, like Caledonia, like us, have significant family ownership. This means that they have a long-term thinking, and they have a unique culture, and it means that they are great owners for other smaller distributors to sell to. And then thirdly, this long-term thinking that Watsco has enables them to invest heavily and digitalize their business, giving them a significant long-term advantage over the competition. So turning to our original investment thesis.
So the original investment thesis took advantage of one of the really attractive things that we have at Caledonia, and that Mat touched on in the culture, and that is this ability to be long-term. Now, what happened to Watsco was that, as I described, when they started to invest in the digitalization of their business, this effectively meant hiring a lot of people into the tech areas and spending money on improving their systems. In the short run, this hurt profitability, but we were able to look through this and take a view that margins would expand and that they would take market share. And so that's why we initially bought the position in 2017. Now, looking at the returns since then and what we've been doing since then.
So we topped up the holding in 2019, and then again, during the COVID sell-off, we did a significant purchase and initiated a holding as well into the income portfolio. Then over a number of years, we did nothing but wait, and then as the portfolio, as the company continued to perform, we more recently top-sliced our holding after a significant rally in the share price. Over this period, you can see that the share price has more than trebled while paying a healthy dividend. The nice thing is that this performance is not speculative. It's been driven by the performance of the company. Over that period, revenue is up nearly 70% from GBP 4.3 billion-GBP 7.3 billion.
EBIT margins have also expanded significantly by 270 basis points to 10.9%, so really, really good performance. Now I'm gonna pause here to also talk about our investment and monitoring process in general, as it is extensive, and definitely does not end when an investment is made. So for example, with Watsco, over the years, we've met management many times in Florida, here in our offices, and at conferences. We visited stores of them, of their competitors. We've met their suppliers. We've read many HVAC trade magazines. It's an interesting thing. In addition, this is something that we do on all our investments, or indeed, things that we are looking to make investments in, so it keeps the team very busy. So to wrap up, we've been through returns of the portfolio, so that's 12% for the team over the year.
We've covered Watsco and what we look for in investments, so I hope it's been informative. I would also say that it's a privilege to work at Caledonia, as its construct of permanent capital, no fund flows, and a supportive shareholder base gives us the optimum conditions as investors in public markets. Indeed, it is a very rare setup. So I think it's a great place to work, and I know my team feels the same. Thank you. With that, I'll turn to Rob.
Thank you, Alan. Good morning, everybody. First of all, go through the funds pool. Our funds pool has been running for more than 10 years, and the opportunity is significant. These funds tend not to market in Europe, meaning that we are often the only European investor in that fund, which is a real differentiator for Caledonia. The pool is diverse in some 74 funds, managed by 42 different managers, and invested in more than 600 underlying companies. 59% of the pool is focused in North America, in the lower mid-market buyout space, and 41% focused in Asian buyout, growth, and venture. The pool has delivered strong returns. You can see in the, on the graph on the top right-hand side, 17% over three years, 17% over 10 years, 16% over the five.
Current year performance of 2%, 4% in local currency. At the half year, we updated you on the significant reduction in divestment activity, and we'll look at the cash numbers in more detail on the next slide. But this was a common theme across both markets as investors adjusted to higher interest rates in North America and in Asia, where the general reduction in capital market flows had a drag on in year performance. The overall positive result in the year was driven by our North American funds, with a 9.8% return in local currency. This was underpinned by the company's trading performance, the underlying company trading performance, which compensated for some of the compression that we saw in multiples due to the higher interest rates.
There was also an increase in NAV as a result of Q4 exits, and we'll look at the profile of exits on the next slide. A reminder that the North American companies use relatively modest levels of leverage in the range of 2-4 times. Our Asian portfolio experienced a reduction of 3.1% in local currency, reflecting those challenging market conditions, with limited exits or fundraising taking place during the year. On this slide, we'll look at the cash flow in a little bit more detail. On the bottom left-hand side, you'll see the realizations from North America and Asia over recent years. At the bottom, over the last 5 years, you'll see the cash generation, the net cash flow each year. On a cumulative basis, you'll see that that's positive.
At the half year, in the current year, we reported a GBP 50 million outflow, but for the full year, we're now showing a GBP 37 million outflow, obviously showing that the second half was cash positive. In particular, we're pleased with the improving trend in North American distributions, and there's a little pullout on the slide here, which shows quarter by quarter, the realizations in North America, and you see the particularly strong Q4 for us. In Q4, we benefited from 8 divestments, generating around GBP 30 million of cash and at a 10% premium to net asset value. We've included a pie chart on the top left-hand side, which details the weighted average life of our primary portfolio. For North America, the weighted average is 4 years, and this compares to the typical fund hold period of 4-6 years.
For Asia, the weighted average life is 5.1 years. We expect a longer hold period, given the assets are weighted towards venture and growth within that market. In U.S. dollars, our capital commitments reduced from $524 million to $476 million. That's GBP 377 million at current exchange rates. We invested or called $116 million, with $60 million of new commitments into both primary and the acquisition of a secondary position in our existing hold, in an existing holding. Case study about New Heritage Capital. New Heritage is based in Boston, is typical of one of our North American funds, focused on a North American lower mid-market.
The thesis is to buy small, in U.S. terms, often owner-managed businesses, where this could be often the first institutional money invested into the company. The plan is to transform these companies through operational efficiency, and where appropriate, bolt-on acquisitions. These improved companies with greater scale provide feedstock for the next level of mid-market private equity. In 2015, and prior to investing in the fund, the funds team built a very close relationship with the fund's principals, diligencing their performance track record and understanding their investment culture. Caledonia are members of the Fund Advisory Board, as we are for 80% of the North American funds where we invest, providing a level of oversight and influence over the GP.
The first commitment was in 2019, GBP 20 million of a fund size of GBP 260 million, and then we recently followed on with a GBP 30 million commitment into Fund Four. You'll see from the table that we are expecting a return of 2x from Fund Three, and with Fund Four being at the beginning of its investment period. Caledonia is the only European investor, which, as I mentioned earlier, is a real differentiator for us. On the next slide, we'll see four of the underlying portfolio companies within New Heritage, and these are really reassuringly traditional businesses, a food manufacturer, a provider of mental health services, enrollment solutions for higher education, a SaaS BPO for independent grocers, all with good margins, cash generative, and are scalable.
Two of the businesses were sold in Q4, or both at an uplift to NAV and at a good money multiple. Moving to the numbers, the bit that you're all waiting for. Just as a few to the headlines, during the last 12 months, our NAV has grown to GBP 3 billion, generating a total return of 7.4%. Following the sale of 7IM, we have GBP 2.7 billion invested in a diversified portfolio of listed and privately held companies and funds that have global reach. The portfolio has delivered an 8.7% return, with positive returns coming from each of the pools. This is consistent with the FTSE All-Share return of 8.4% over the last 12 months.
We received GBP 256 million from the sale proceeds from 7 IM, resulting in year-end cash balances of GBP 227 million, and the balance sheet has zero structural leverage, but we do have an undrawn revolving credit facility, meaning that we've got liquidity of GBP 477 million, that which will enable us to act and invest in assets that we find it attractive. The dividend, our proposed dividend, will increase the full year by 4.5% to 70.4p. This equates to GBP 38.3 million, which is fully covered by net revenue of GBP 40.5 million. The final dividend of 51.47p will be paid to shareholders on the 1st of August. Now, as I mentioned at the half year, I do love a waterfall chart, and this presentation will not disappoint.
The first of which is on slide 25, which shows our portfolio of investments and movement through the year. These have increased from GBP 2.5 billion on the left-hand side of the chart at the start of the year to GBP 2.7 billion on the right, including GBP 346 million of investments made, GBP 142.5 million relating to AIR-serv within our private capital pool, GBP 109 million into the funds pool, and GBP 77 million into the quoted pool. And as Alan mentioned, you know, part of that is a new position in RELX. Part of that is seeing opportunity around our core position to trade. Our realization is GBP 371 million, included GBP 256 million from 7 IM, GBP 72 million from funds, and GBP 44 million from the quoted pool.
We received investment income or cash yield of GBP 46 million, and recorded gains, total gains on investment of GBP 232 million, being a return of 8.7%. This was driven by strong performance in both the quoted and private capital pools, offset by foreign exchange of GBP 39 million. With respect to valuation, our quoted assets are marked to market daily. Within private capital, we follow the IPEV guidelines and account at fair value. These assets are cash generative, conservatively levered 2-2.5 times. The valuation multiples range between 9-14 times, which is actually consistent with the prior period, meaning that it is the underlying business trading performance that is driving returns. For the funds, we rely upon the management NAV statements.
These are audited by reputable firms on an IFRS or U.S. GAAP basis, which is fair value. The team reviews the valuations to ensure that trends or company-specific issues are appropriately reflected and understood. 75% of NAV was valued on the 31st of December NAV statements, the most recently reported information. In the table on the right, you can see the returns and yield by pool. Overall portfolio, 8.7%, cash yield of 2.5%, with all the pools positively contributing. Our NAV has grown from GBP 2.8 billion- GBP 3.232 billion coming from the investment gains.
Investment gains, net of management costs, gives the 7.4% return in the year, and from this, we've paid last year's final and this year's interim dividend of GBP 37 billion, closing at GBP 3 billion—37 million, closing at GBP 3 billion. The pie chart shows the split of our assets domiciled by currency. 52% U.S. dollars, 39% sterling. Movement in the dollar and sterling exchange rate will therefore impact upon in-period results. In the 12 months, we suffered a loss of GBP 39 million from foreign exchange, reducing our NAV total return by just over 1%. Net debt bridge, the key movements from the left to right, started at GBP 222 million. We have net investment flows of 27 million, cash yield of GBP 44 million, cash cost of GBP 29 million of management expenses.
There's a little bit of working capital in the period, and then we paid the dividend of GBP 37 million, closing the year at GBP 227 million. As I said, GBP 227 million, we've got an undrawn RCF of GBP 250 million, combined liquidity GBP 477 million, and this provides us that capacity. That means we can act if we see attractive opportunities that meet our criteria. Now, as long-term investors, it is important that shareholders benefit from the increase in NAV. TSR over 10 years, 8.6% per annum, but we're conscious that over 5 years there is a gap between NAV and TSR, driven by the discount widening. Over the last year, it's widened from just under 33% to just under 39%.
And when I think about the quality of the balance sheet, listed investments, which are marked to cash daily, GBP 950 million. We've got cash on balance sheet of GBP 277 million. The combined NAV of those two is GBP 1.2 billion, and therefore, at a market cap today of GBP 1.9 billion, this means that private company assets are effectively trading at a 60% discount, which feels excessive and undervalues the quality of the investments that we have and our long-term performance record. This is a live issue that the board are discussing, and we're progressing all of the things that we can control. Firstly, and probably most importantly, and that is to continue to build on our track record in delivering long-term real returns.
Secondly is share buybacks, and we benefit from the ongoing support, stability, and the cultural underpin in our investment philosophy from the Cayzer family. Their holding is currently just under 49%, which restricts the amount of share buybacks that we can do. We can't take them through 50%. During March and April, we purchased 290,000 shares at an average discount of 36%, which is accretion to NAV per share of 10.1p. And we will continue to repurchase, but within the restrictions which we have. Third is continuing to evolve our IR and communication to ensure that the Caledonia investment proposition is understood and rated, the objective being to widen the shareholder base and to generate more marginal buyers. In the presentation, we've added more case studies.
There was three at the half year and three now, and we've increased the disclosure, which I hope you find useful, in particular, bringing to life how we think and operate, and invest. This will continue at future interim and full year results, and in March, we launched a new fact sheet. Going forward, we'll publish the monthly fact sheet and the full commentary when we announce our interim and full year results. So in summary, Caledonia has built a diverse portfolio that is well placed to deliver long-term returns. We invest in quality businesses focused on free cash flow, meaning the portfolio is capable of responding to the challenges posed by the macro environment.
We have a robust balance sheet with assets marked at the conservative end of a valuation range, with liquidity of GBP 477 million, giving us the firepower to act, when we see an attractive investment. The experienced team are 100% focused on continuing to invest and manage the portfolio of high quality companies and funds. So we're now going to take questions, initially from the room, but then, we'll take from those remotely. For those who are remote, if you'd like to submit a question in writing, then we will collate those and read them out and deal with them. In addition, while we're having the Q&A, we'll display. We've displayed the manifesto. Please take a moment to read it, if not now, later.
And also, we've included a link to the short video. It's two minutes long. Please watch it after the meeting.
...Over to the room. Any questions? Alan.
Question for Alan, actually. Thank you. A question for Alan. The quality message comes through clearly, but, I'm just wondering how that sort of interacts with valuations and taking Watsco as a, an example, and if you can sort of top slice in there. Just wondering how that fits in with the long-term approach?
Sure. So valuations feed into the way that we think about risk management. I mean, generally, when we buy companies, we wait for a moment in the market that gives us an opportunity to buy at a margin of safety. Then we allow those companies to grow their free cash flow over time. And generally, when you stay on a company, it does, and it's doing what it requires to do in terms of compounding its free cash flow, that's the main driver of returns. However, if valuations also take into account interest rates, when valuations move out of whack or we have too much concentration risk, we do risk manage it. But over the long run, as we've seen with Watsco, it continues to compound even as the valuations move around.
Thank you.
Thank you. On the private equity holdings, you've been quite conservative in terms of valuations. AIR-serv is a recent position, but marked up on this set of results. Can you talk through some of the contributing factors there to that, to that marking up of the position?
Yeah. Maybe Alan.
First of all, when we acquired AIR-serv, we accounted it cost. So, at the half year, it was the cost that we paid for the business. Since then, trading performance has been very strong, and, you know, ahead of our expectation and growing sort of year on year at a double-digit rate. So, as we've owned the business for 12 months, then we would look to value using a multiple of EBITDA, as we do for the rest of the portfolio, and looking at market comps. The multiple we've used is very consistent with the acquisition, so we're not raising that, but it's the business performance really that's driving the returns.
Just taking a step back, just wondering, looking at the fund exposure, there's obviously a significant tilt to Asia. Why is that? And, am I right in thinking that you just look to play U.K. and Europe through the directs?
We've been investing in Asian funds for quite some time, Neil, so it's a well-established part of the program. Our funds program, you know, very deliberately focuses on the American mid-market because we get the best of American capitalism, if you will, without excessive leverage levels, and the returns are really fundamentally driven. So we think that's a great area. And then in Asia, we're getting exposure to, you know, growing markets. And when you go and visit, you know, the companies over there, they're fantastically managed, and they're doing really good things. So we continue to be excited about the companies, and we've been investing over there for a long period of time. So it's an ongoing part of the strategy.
I think what's happened in the last few years is that the sort of geopolitical aspects, and also some aspects of the capital markets in parts of Asia have just got a bit tricky, and we're obviously tuned to that and watching what goes on.