Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Good morning, S hareholders. Welcome to the 18th Marlin Annual Meeting of Shareholders. As you probably know by now, I'm Andy Coupe. I'm Chair of Marlin Global. Once again, we have put in place the virtual meeting option for those who are unable to attend in person. We welcome those who have joined the meeting via Computershare. We are duly convened as a notice of meeting has been circulated to shareholders, and I can confirm that a quorum is present, so I declare the meeting open. For those here in person, there will be a light lunch at the conclusion of the meeting. As always, the directors welcome one-on-one conversations with any one of you who wants to ask us questions that perhaps you do not want to ask us in a more formal environment. Let me first introduce the front table.
Firstly, the Directors to my right is Carol Campbell, who Chairs the Audit and Risk Committee. Next to her is David McClatchy, who's chair of the Investment Committee. Next to him is Fiona Oliver. Next to her is Dan Coman, who is standing for election today. Very importantly for this meeting, next to Dan is Sam Dickie. He's the Marlin Senior Portfolio Manager. Next to Sam is Wayne Burns, our Corporate Manager. We'd be lost without Wayne. Also here in the audience today, we have Senior Investment Analyst Chris Waters and Charles Varty. We're also pleased to have in the audience today representatives from Computershare, those good people at the back of the room, our auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, our Tax Advisors, Deloitte, and our Legal Advisors, Bell Gully. The agenda for today, firstly, as usual, the preliminary matters.
The minutes of the 2024 Annual Shareholders Meeting, which were held on November the 6th last year, are available at the registration desk and are available on the website. The 2025 Annual Report has been distributed to Shareholders. Also, additional copies are available from the Computershare desk and are also on the Marlin website. Today, I'll give a brief summary of the 2025 financial year, which clearly has been disappointing, and an update of the year- to- date. Following that, Sam will review the Marlin Portfolio performance. There are three resolutions for you to consider and vote on today, which are set out in the notice of meeting. If you're attending the meeting online, there's a Q&A icon at the top right-hand of your screen. To send a question, please select the Q&A tab on the right half of your screen at any time.
Type your question into the field and then press send. Your question will be immediately submitted. We've set aside time at the end of Sam's presentation for general questions relating to the operations and management of the company. We'll then move to the formal business of the meeting. Questions relating to the three resolutions will be dealt with in conjunction with each of those resolutions. Should you require any assistance, once again, you can type your query, and one of the Computershare team will assist you with the chat function and/or reply to your query. It's quite a mouthful, that. On behalf of the board, it's now my pleasure to present the Chair's overview of the meeting.
Once again, I'm going to start our annual shareholder meeting with a quick reminder of Marlin's investment objectives, being to achieve a high real rate of return comprising both income and capital growth within risk parameters acceptable to the Directors. To provide access to a diversified portfolio of international quality growth stocks through a single tax-efficient investment vehicle. Sam will speak to the portfolio over the past financial year and the growth characteristics of the stocks that form the portfolio in his Manager's review. For those of you who had a chance to review the annual report, you'll be aware of many of the following performance numbers. As I've already mentioned, it's clearly been a disappointing year, both in absolute terms and in relative terms, as the following slides will show. Marlin's net profit after tax was $300,000.
The Total Shareholder Return, or TSR, being the performance of the share price and the warrant price plus dividends paid to shareholders, was 2.8%. Marlin's regular dividends continued to contribute to the Total Shareholder Return with $0.0801 per share paid in dividends during the year, which is equivalent to a dividend return of 8.5%. These returns are calculated based on the average share price for the year. The net asset value per share, we refer to as the NAV per share, decreased from $1.03 to $0.95 as at the end of the financial year. The Adjusted NAV return, which represents the net return to an investor after capital allocation decisions and expenses, fees, and tax, was 0.2% for the year. Now, I'm just going to linger on this page for a bit. Give you a moment to take it in.
The chart compares the average NAV return and the gross performance return relative to the benchmark index period over the periods one, three, and five years. Disappointingly, the Marlin Portfolio is below the benchmark index returns over all three time periods. The significant impact of the last 12 months' underperformance on medium-term performance is demonstrated by the fact that at last year's annual shareholders meeting, I was able to tell you that the five-year annualised performance was comfortably ahead of the benchmark index on both a gross and Adjusted NAV basis. For what it's worth, the one-year Adjusted NAV last year was 19.5%, which was well ahead of the benchmark of 15.2%. Now, I mention these orally because. We like to be consistent in the data that we present you.
Last year, we only used the one, three, and five-year performance charts, so it would be quite easy for us to start picking and choosing the periods that look most attractive. Hence, the slide shows you just the one, three, and five years. I think it is worthwhile just thinking back on the previous year's performance just to demonstrate the volatilities that equity markets can always throw at us. Your Directors have long experience in equity and investment markets, and we understand how the sectoral exposure of the portfolio has been a significant, albeit not the only, detractor from performance. Sam will talk to that in his review.
Nevertheless, you won't be surprised to be told that Marlin's recent underperformance has been a catalyst for the board to engage with Fisher Funds to better understand what actions, if any, the manager is taking in order to turn around this performance. However, it's important to bear in mind that the respective roles of The Board and The Manager are clearly specified in the management agreement. Therefore, this engagement we've had with The Manager does not involve The Board having a direct input into stock or sector selection. In his review, Sam will discuss the international share market dynamics and provide you with a more detailed description of the portfolio's performance. Sam will also address how he and his team will approach measurement of the portfolio going forward. This chart simply shows earnings per share over the last five years.
Unsurprisingly, the net profit after tax, the result is significantly lower than all but one of the previous four years. Let's now turn into shareholders' funds. The chart shows the NAV of NZD 223 million, decreased by a net NZD 11 million over the year to NZD 212 million. The movements during the year are represented by NZD 16 million of Dividends paid to shareholders and NZD 1 million of Share buybacks, but adding back NZD 7 million for Dividends reinvested by shareholders via the DRP and NZD 1 million of new shares issued for warrants exercised in May. Underscoring my earlier comments about The Board engaging with the manager over recent underperformance. The first quarter of Marlin's financial year has seen ongoing global share market performance, and unfortunately, Marlin's Portfolio has continued to underperform that benchmark index. The unaudited net profit for the three months was NZD 2.5 million.
Net asset value per share was at $0.94. Which is after Marlin's September Dividend of $0.0188 per share. That was paid in September. Marlin's Adjusted NAV return for those first three months was 1.2%. The benchmark index for the three months was up at 10.2%, as I've already shown you. The Total Shareholder Return for the quarter was 5.9%, which includes the September Dividend. Just in closing remarks, it's patently obvious that the last 12 months have been challenging. However, the investment strategy of focusing on quality growth stocks, as originally explained in the prospectus and in fact reiterated in our regularly published materials, our monthlies and our quarterlies. They have not changed, and we remain confident that over the medium term, the strategy will bring its rewards.
I'm confident that after you've listened to Sam, I think you'll come away with a better understanding and feeling for what's driven the last 12 months' result and why you should have some confidence that things are going to be on the up moving forward. That is for Sam to talk to. In my closing address, on behalf of The Board, I'd just like to thank you for your continued support of Marlin. With those words, I'll now hand over to Sam.
Thank you, Andy. Good morning, fellow Shareholders, members of The Board, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, first of all, to Bev at the back there and to Wayne for making Marlin tick in the background and making today come together. To my colleagues, Chris and Chuck in the front row here, I want to thank you for all your help in the critical management of Marlin. Now, before I start, I want to acknowledge the disappointing performance of Marlin over the last year. I'm going to spend a little bit more time than usual today talking about why we've underperformed over the last year, what we're doing about it, and especially why we're confident about the future. Outside of that, I'm going to provide a review of markets. How did our Marlin Portfolio companies perform?
How are we positioned today and for the future, and what changes have we made to your portfolio? Then a few thoughts on the outlook. Let's kick off with a review of markets. It is worth remembering, especially over the last six months, the fact we're in a very strong period for equities. If you wind the clock back to President Trump's Liberation Day on the 2nd of April, when he put up that list of tariffs that he was going to apply to countries around the world, six or seven days later, sentiment was at its lowest ever in equity markets in a quarter of a century. Since then, we've had a staggering 35% rally in equity markets.
Now, when we see an equity market rally like that with that pace and power, it's only happened less than a handful of times in the last 100 years. Naturally, when you see the pace and power of an equity market rally like that, you'll see animal spirits and overexuberance bubble to the surface. Now, Marlin's quality style doesn't keep pace in that sort of market. The strong equity market performance has been at least partially driven by the fundamental strength of the U.S. economy. You can see on the left-hand side there, we've been in a beautiful disinflationary period. Inflation's come down. It's not quite at that turquoise line yet, which is the U.S. Federal Reserve's target inflation level. Nevertheless, it's a lot lower than it was in those periods back in 2021, 2022.
On the middle chart there, you can see that U.S. GP growth after a hiccup in the March quarter has rebounded strongly. On the right-hand side, that strong economic growth rebound has helped drive a strong corporate earnings recovery into 2025. Now, there's a little bit of a wrinkle in terms of the recent rally. It's really been driven by a couple of handfuls of perceived AI winners. They've driven most of the market gains. On the left-hand side there, in the short term, you can see that the AI winners basket is up 43% more than the market in six months, which is quite an extraordinary feat. In fact, if we wind the clock back to November 2022, when OpenAI released ChatGPT, which was really the seminal moment for modern AI enthusiasm.
More than 75% of the market gains have been driven by these couple of handfuls of AI stocks. Now, to be clear, at Marlin, we've been bullish on AI and the productivity improvements that it'll bring to many industries. You are exposed via companies like Google, Microsoft, ASML, and NVIDIA. There are several signs of overexuberance. I'll just name a couple. The laundry list of eye-popping stories is starting to get quite long. Again, OpenAI, which owns ChatGPT. They just recently signed a contract with Oracle for $300 billion to house their AI computer chips. Now, bear in mind, OpenAI itself only has $15 billion of revenue today. Yet that's one cost line item that they've signed away for $300 billion. Many more eye-popping stories, but it is starting to remind us a little bit of the late 1990s and the dot-com bubble.
Furthering that thought, on the right-hand side there, and when we talk about overexuberance and what that means, is investors are chasing higher-risk companies, which is the light blue line there at the top on the right-hand side. They have outperformed blue-chip companies by about 40% in the last six months alone. What do I mean by high-risk companies? I mean companies like quantum computing companies, for example. It is exciting new technology, but they probably will not make a profit until 2030 and beyond. Nuclear energy companies with stretched balance sheets, which are supplying power from stranded nuclear assets into these data centers to supply this AI power. While blue-chip companies like Visa, Mastercard, and Walmart have been left behind. In fact, the recent period has been the most extreme underperformance of quality of blue-chip companies versus the market in 30 years.
Now, for Marlin, as an investor in quality companies, that's exciting because we're seeing better opportunities in a relative sense than we've seen for some time. It does help explain some of the recent underperformance. Let's look at the performance of the portfolio. After strong years in 2023 and 2024, Marlin posted a small positive return, as Andy said, which was disappointing relative to the benchmark. As you can see there, the portfolio was up about 3% versus the benchmark up 15%. I want to be really clear here. We like to do a lot better than that and beat our benchmark. In fact, it's the reason we get out of bed every day. As Andy alluded to, that has been the case over the long term.
If you look back over Marlin's 18-year history, Marlin has had 12 out of 18 good years where it's beaten the market. It is worth remembering, you can see that in the left-hand side chart there, the years when we beat the market, where the blue bars are above the line, and the years where we underperform the market, where the blue bars are below the line, those periods tend to cluster depending on whether Marlin's style is in favor or out of favor. Now, it's out of favor right now. We do expect to underperform, but it's still disappointing when it happens. Despite the volatility in relative performance, you can see on the right-hand side there, Marlin has significantly beaten the market since inception, which is our aim. It's up about 530% versus the benchmark up about 360%.
Now, STEEPP has been a constant for Marlin for 18 years and will remain so. A reminder for you, those of you who don't recall what STEEPP is, I'm sure most of you do. It's an acronym that underscores the qualities we look for in companies. S is for Strength of the business. Breaking down strength, what does that mean? That means wide economic moats around the business. It means strong balance sheets, and it means less business risk. E is for Earnings Power. P is for Exceptional People. Now, STEEP has underpinned the exceptional results that Marlin has produced over the long term, but it doesn't always work. Andy mentioned this as well. A reminder, Marlin aims to give investors exposure to a portfolio of international quality growth stocks. Quality is the key word there.
There are large parts of the market that we won't invest your capital in. We don't think it's prudent. We won't invest your capital in companies that are unprofitable, companies that have poor balance sheets, companies that have narrow moats around their businesses, companies with uncertain growth runways. It does lead us to certain sectors and typically lower-risk parts of the market. When I think about that earlier slide where I said Marlin was behind the benchmark, which was disappointing, on the left-hand side there, we've tried to split out for you the sources of the underperformance. If you look at the orange or yellow slice of pie there, about a third of the underperformance has been driven by our style underperforming. As I said, investors chasing high-risk companies, unprofitable companies, rather than high-quality companies.
Now, typically, again, we will not invest in these high-risk companies. We don't think it's a prudent use of your capital. About a quarter, that's the green slice of pie, has been driven by being in sectors that underperformed and not being in sectors that outperformed. If you move to the right-hand side now, we were not in four of the top five sectors. Again, some of this is to be expected. Some of the sectors on the top right-hand side there don't lend themselves to STEEPP characteristics. Take telcos, for example. We're thinking here Verizon, AT&T in the U.S., Vodafone in Europe, and even Spark here in New Zealand. The telco industry is characterized by brutal competition, no pricing power, narrow moats, short runways, and often stretched balance sheets. Why did telcos rally so much last year? What do we think about that?
They'd been really heavily beaten down the year before because they do have lots of debt, stretched balance sheets, and with higher interest rates a year ago, they were sharply underperforming. Now, as interest rates have come off a bit, they've had a one-off relief rally. That's not the sort of sector we aim to invest in with Marlin's capital over the long term. Now, on the other hand, we were in three of the bottom five performing sectors. I'm going to talk on Healthcare in a minute, which was a big drag on our relative returns last year. Now, the rest of the underperformance, which is blue, is because we got a few more stocks wrong than usual. I'll move on to that now. There are four key points on this slide.
The first one is, while we got more stocks wrong than usual, it's not all bad. More than 50% of the stocks in your portfolio generated positive returns. It's just that the market was also up quite a bit. So less than half of your stocks were up by more than the market. The second key point is three of the bottom four performing companies were in the Healthcare sector, which was significantly out of favor. And again, I'll go into the reasons on the next slide. But it is worth noting that some of those Healthcare companies are up significantly since Marlin year-end. Third key point, and this is a positive, is some of our biggest positions are driving the performance. So Mastercard, Boston Scientific, Amazon, Meta, and Tencent. And the fourth point is. We've put more new ideas into your portfolio.
It is really good to see new ideas like NVIDIA and Hermès already contributing positively. Now, a number of stocks on the right-hand side of the previous chart, which is not where we want to be, were in Healthcare. This is a sector that over the last 30 or 40 years lends itself to companies with wide moats and long growth runways. It has been a long-term consistent outperformer. It sharply underperformed last year. The sector was out of favor, sold down by investors to fund the chase for higher-risk companies. When you think about some of the companies on the right-hand side there, say Edwards and DexCom, for example, it was not due to a structural change in the moat width, the people, or the length of the growth runway. In fact, in Edwards' case, it was because they could not supply into that demand.
Hospitals were crowded post-COVID as people had deferred operations. People were crowding the heart units. Remember, Edwards is the dominant provider of transcatheter new heart valves in the world. They simply could not slate that demand. Now, they have got to the bottom of that, and Edwards is one of the better performers recently. We roll forward to today, and the sector is the most underwhelming, the cheapest relative to the market in 25 years. Danaher has on the screen there for you, as a reminder, it is really the picks and shovels for the treatment and diagnosis of disease. It helps pharma companies design and manufacture innovative drugs. These drugs, critically, because we always want to be part of the solution with our Healthcare companies, reduce overall Healthcare costs.
Danaher, for example, is deeply involved in the early detection and treatment of Alzheimer's, which is expected to save the U.S. government hundreds of billions of dollars over the next 20 years. Incidentally, Danaher, again, given how low the ebb of sentiment is in that sector, has been one of the biggest winners in the last couple of months. They did nothing really other than just report results, just show that they're doing the business. The stock was up 25% in a couple of weeks. It shows how out of favor and cheap the sector is. You've heard us talk about Floor & Decor. This is another stock on the right-hand side of the chart to previous. As a reminder, they're a specialty seller of flooring. So hardwood flooring, laminate flooring, tile and stone flooring.
Now, on the left-hand side there, the company is doing the right things. The things we want to see from a single-stock perspective at Marlin, they're taking market share. You can see that they've gone from low hundreds of millions of dollars of quarterly revenue to above $1 billion. Their key competitors have gone from about $1.5 billion to $1 billion. That is because of their superior range. They use their scale to sell their flooring at 30%-50% cheaper than competitors. In fact, some of their key competitors have started to fall over and go bankrupt. Unfortunately, though, on the right-hand side, the U.S. housing market is in a really tough spot because people are trapped in their homes. What I mean by that is a lot of people sign 30-year mortgages.
90% of mortgages in the U.S. are on 30-year mortgages at around 3% or 4% during that really low interest rate period. As you know, mortgages around the world moved up. In the U.S., the prevailing rate went up to 7.5%-8%. If you move or sell your home, you have to refinance your mortgage. People have been quasi-trapped in their homes. Because of that, the sale of existing homes, which is a key flooring demand driver, is near 50-year lows. I've taken that chart back 25 years, but if you take it back 50 years, it's at 50-year lows. That's what's been hurting us on the macro side. However, we have sold some stock because the sector's been getting hit by abnormal sector-specific headwinds. Mortgage rates are heading towards 6% from 8%.
Floor & Decor is really well-positioned, given a lot of its or some of its competitors have fallen over when the recovery arrives. I've intentionally talked more about stocks that dragged on our performance last year, as we always will do when we underperform. As always, there's been some big winners. On the screen there, you've got Meta and Netflix. They've not only performed well last year but for the last three years. On the left-hand side there, Meta has been taking market share not just from linear advertising, so from TV, billboards, radio, newspaper, et cetera, but also from smaller digital advertising players. It's taking market share from Twitter, from Snapchat, from Pinterest, from TikTok even.
That is because they are using their scale, their scale moat, to invest more in compute power, to deliver more relevant adverts to you and I, and to instantaneously curate advertising content for advertisers. Smaller players just simply cannot compete with that massive compute cost. When we think about Netflix on the right-hand side, they also have a scale moat. They are the largest streaming provider with about 320 million customers globally. That underpins their superior content. They have by far the most Oscar Awards, by far the most Emmy Awards. What that does is that keeps the customer on the site longer, more viewing hours for Netflix.
Despite the fact that most of those players on that right-hand side chart there have similar monthly headline prices that they charge you and I, the price per hour viewed is by far the lowest, means better value for money. That is the reason why they keep taking market share. Now, just a quick reminder here, those two stocks were the biggest drags on Marlin's performance in 2021 and 2022. The point there is if the moat, the people, and the runway is not structurally impaired, we will use it as a buying opportunity. We are seeing the same recently. Google was being priced as an AI loser earlier in the year. The stock was a big drag on Marlin's performance. We disagreed for many different reasons. We bought stock. Now it is Marlin's biggest winner at the moment.
Similar, ASML, Danaher, Intuitive Surgical, all big drags on performance in the last year or so. We disagreed, bought stock because nothing had structurally changed. Recently, they're our biggest winners. Now let's take a look at activity in the portfolio. How the portfolio is positioned for the future. As I said, we got more than usual a few names wrong this year. We've been active. We've been putting more names than usual through the investment committee process, which is a pretty rigorous process we run before a company can be put into the portfolio. We're putting more names into your portfolio and, importantly, in different sectors than we're used to. We're trimming and exiting stocks more aggressively if the thesis structurally shifts. We put seven new companies into the portfolio last year and one after year-end. We exited three companies.
I'll take two examples on the left-hand side there, the first one being Old Dominion. They dominate the less-than-truckload market in the U.S. I'm sure some of you who are Kenfast shareholders would have heard that term, less-than-truckload. That's because Bruce Plested and Don Braid, who run Mainfreight, have modeled themselves on Old Dominion for decades now. Old Dominion has a very strong culture, high-quality service. It prides itself on on-time delivery, minimal breakages. Because of that, it's able to charge a premium price to the whole industry. Despite charging a premium price for trucking, they still have taken market share for decades. This is an example where we're broadening the portfolio outside normal Healthcare and tech-type sectors into other quality STEEPP stocks. We have been disciplined here, though. We've been looking at Old Dominion for a long time.
The U.S. is in a two- to three-year-long freight recession, which is the longest in history. This stock's underperformed the S&P 500 by 60%. We've slowly started building a position. Costco is obsessed about the customer. They go to work every day, not to try and take more profit from the customer, but to use their scale to drive down the price that they charge for their goods to the customer. This is called scale economy share. They're sharing their scale with the customer. It's really powerful. It's a self-reinforcing moat. Because of that, they take market share in every one of the 1,000 catchments they operate in around the world. We talked about the dollar stores that we exited last year. Since then, we've exited UnitedHealthc are. They were hit by reimbursement pressure in some government programs and rising Healthcare costs.
That squeezed profit margins. We had been concerned about this too. We had halved the position coming into the result where this really came to a head. We further cut risk because we thought that when I talk about structural changes, we thought the uncertainty around the length of the growth runway caused us to exit after the stock popped 40%. We thought there was better risk-reward elsewhere. This is an example of, unlike Google, unlike ASML, unlike Intuitive, where we push back and buy stock when a company has controversies around it. We did not have high conviction that nothing had changed structurally with those key elements of STEEPP. We exited. Quality is out of favor this year. High-risk companies are in favor.
We think Marlin's Portfolio with higher returns, stronger balance sheets, wider moats, and long growth runways versus the market will be rewarded in time. What do we mean by quality and growth? On the left-hand side there, a key indicator is not just returns but sustainability of returns. That's a real key element of any quality company. The average Marlin Portfolio return on invested capital is about 23%, which, as you can see, is a lot higher than the Marlin benchmark. When we think about growth, Marlin's sales growth is 11%, which is more than double the benchmark. Now, moving on to some thoughts about the outlook. The market has been focused on the positives of GDP growth, corporate earnings, the AI supercycle, and the easing by the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world. Risks remain.
Risks like the weakening jobs market, particularly in the U.S., stretch valuations at a headline level and the overexuberance that I've been talking about, which has shades of the dot-com boom back in the 1990s. Now, I've spent some time today talking about why we underperformed and what we're doing about it. STEEPP remains the bedrock of our process. And we're always refining how we implement it. We are in an unusual period like the late 1990s where higher-risk, unprofitable stocks are outperforming. Marlin is intentionally not investing your capital there. We don't think it's prudent. And when we think about the future and consider how well STEEPP has worked for 18 years for Marlin. Combined with how attractive blue-chip quality stocks are relative to the broader market, given their most extreme underperformance in 30 years, we're excited about what lies ahead. So thank you all for your time today.
Thank you for your support. I look forward to your questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Sam. It's always more enjoyable, particularly if you're in my shoes and you're up here and we've had a boom year and same positive things. I think it's particularly important when it hasn't been such a good year. I think we've clearly been quite open and frank about that. I mean, we couldn't say anything else. You've had an opportunity to listen to Sam, and he's talked about reasons, not excuses. Hopefully, he's given you enough to go away and think, "Well, I can see what's happened. I also can take away some confidence as to why things might turn around." I thought that was a good presentation, Sam.
I guess I'll find out from questions from the floor whether or not that's been the case. In the first instance, I'm going to ask questions from any online Shareholders. There are none. All right. I remember we're only taking questions in relation to the management of the business for now. There are two microphones circling around the room. If you'd like to put your hand up, say whether or not you're a Shareholder or a proxy holder, and please state your name. I'll answer the questions in the first instance. If I'm not able to or I feel someone else is better able to, then I'll redirect the question to them.
Yes. Good morning, Martin Klieth, Shareholder. I have two specific questions, one with regard to our investment in a specific company. The second one, I wish to raise the question of our ethics in our investments. My first question really is directed at Mr. Dickie. It relates to a company where the name hasn't been mentioned despite the fact it was an absolute disaster in last year's investments. According to the annual report on page 24, ICON in Ireland had a 54% fall in Total Shareholder Return. I do note that the next one in line, UnitedHealth Group, were sold off. I can't see an explanation. There's no explanation to be given. I was hoping I'd hear an explanation for that at this meeting as to why there was this massive 54% fall in share return.
I hadn't heard, but I did some research of my own. I found, for example, I thought, "Why has the market reacted so badly?" In the Irish Times of February the 27th, we discover that there is a class action against ICON in the United States Courts alleging insider trading by that company's executives to the point that it is alleged in the 15 months prior to February, they had sold on the market an exorbitantly updated—these are the words in the Irish Times report—GBP 74.3 million worth of overpriced shares being sold by the executive. This class executive action will obviously be disputed. I think perhaps that's one reason there is a massive loss of confidence. Another reason may be I found the CEO gave notice that he was resigning on the 1st of October this year. That's not good for shareholder confidence.
Another reason given was we found there is a massive staff layoff starting in ICON. Over 3% of the staff have already been laid off. The company has reported they expect what they call headwinds until the end of 2027. These seem to be flying in contrary to the STEEPP principles that I remember relating to. What bothered me even further is that when I looked at Mr. Dickie's report for the 12 weeks after the annual report, I note that instead of restricting, we have actually spent millions of dollars more buying into that company. To the point that in the September report, our shareholder funds in that company have leapt from 1.9% to 3.1% of the portfolio. That could only be—could somebody please explain to me how the STEEPP was applied in our buying into a company with all those facts I have just detailed, please?
Sam.
Thank you, Martin. As always, an excellent question. ICON is down for two reasons. The first one is about 50% of their client base is.
Crazy.
How's that, Martin? About 50% of their client base are biotechnology companies. And. What we saw post-COVID is there was a lot of science that perhaps shouldn't have been funded with interest rates very low. And since then, we've seen a real indigestion and a lack of spending by biotechnology customers. So that accounts for 50% of their customer base. Now, I will make the point that we've seen that bottom. And in fact, October. Biotechnology funding and activity is the highest we've seen on record. So we think we've gone through the bottom there. The other thing is their big pharmaceutical customers like Pfizer, for example, have been cutting costs. Amidst a fairly tough macro backdrop for the sector. However, this is a really good example of where this company used to grow revenue at about 7%, 8%.
And it downshifted for a period to 2% to 3%, which would normally result in maybe a 10%, 20% correction in the share price, but the stock's down 50%. So this is an example of where if you don't have AI in your name and you miss earnings, you will be punished. And I can give you a few other examples in quality land where stocks might miss earnings by 4% and the stock's down 20%. So we do think there were three things going on there. Now, in terms of Steve Kutler on the way out and Barry on the way in, we did cut risk. Amidst all of these things. So we did have a 6% position at one stage. And we took it down to 2%, as you said, because facts changed and we got it wrong.
However, as you said, we started buying again because we saw that the growth runway was not structurally impaired. It was a temporary thing. And the biotechnology thing is a case in point. And to give you another number, the company was trading on 20x headline earnings. And it got down to 10x . So to justify a 10x P/E ratio, you basically are signifying no growth forever. So we got it wrong. We cut risk when facts change. However, those three things I talked about before, the strength of the business. The growth runway, we're not structurally impaired. So we took the opportunity to buy some more stock. And again, that's another one like Danaher and Intuitive that are among the best performers since balance date year-end.
That's despite the company themselves saying they have headwinds till the end of 2027.
That's right. The company is really under-promising and over-delivering now. And they are seeing headwinds, but it's priced as though it's going to have no growth. And on the. Insider trading. Class section, we see class sections against most companies in the U.S. on any given day. I mean, Meta has just closed oe from years ago. So there is a lot of ambulance chases. I don't think there's any evidence that there was insider trading. But any time a stock falls 30%, 40%, 50%, you should expect some of those lawyers to gather people together to try and have a crack.
Thank you for your explanation. That doesn't quite rationalize with me. Now, may I ask the other question, please, about ethics? When I first joined Marlin Global, it was a global company in investment. Now, there are only four companies outside the United States headquarters. And one of those is that ICON. Of those four. There are 22 companies with American bases. The top four being. Amazon. Alphabet. Microsoft, and Mastercard. And they are massive investors. They are massive companies. But I just wish to raise an ethical issue and ask the board whether it has discussed this matter. On the 1st of July, the United Nations issued a report. Listing companies complicit. In Israel's criminal. War crimes and genocide. That is the heading of the report. And they specifically mention. Three of those four companies being complicit. In the. Israeli genocide in Gaza.
I just want to ask, has The Board discussed the implications of our ongoing investment in such companies? Thank you.
I'll answer that in the first instance. Short answer to that is no. I'll explain why. I'll probably also say that you'll find no end of commentary from untold commentators who will, of a certain political persuasion, who will look to cast negative aspersions on anything to do with Israel. I'm not sitting on one fence or the other on that one. Nevertheless, I can't even remember the source you gave for that article. I wouldn't pay too much attention, frankly. As regards ethical questions, as part of our management agreement with Fisher Funds, there is an ethical body within Fisher Funds that makes decisions around those stocks which they will and will not invest in. Perhaps Sam can elaborate on that further.
Look, if the circumstances arose that The Board had a particularly strong view on something, whilst under the management agreement, we can't instruct. The Manager not to invest in a stock or to decrease its weighting, I think it's fair to say that The Manager would listen quite attentively if The Board expressed its views very, very strongly on a matter of ethics. But ethical decisions as to investment or otherwise in those companies—and there are a list of companies we are not allowed to invest in—that is in the domain of Fisher Funds. Sam, do you want to add to that?
Do you want to say something else, there, Martin, or?
Just to clarify the aspersion you made, the report was issued by the United Nations Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, an internationally recognized and respected reporter on behalf and on the appointments of the United Nations. It wasn't an aspersion by some toady or some backstreet reporter. Thank you.
It doesn't terribly persuade me either still. But nevertheless, Sam.
Yes. So on the policy, as Andy said, we have a Responsible Investment Committee or an ESG Committee. They meet regularly. They're very focused on this issue. And we have an exclusion list, which is companies like if you manufacture cluster munitions, for example, we will never invest in you no matter what. But outside of that, and a key part of our ESG thrust is engagement. Because if you think about how we invest, Martin, we are long-term investors in these companies unless the facts change. So. Lots of companies are not perfect around the world. And we would rather engage with these companies over the long term and make sure they are doing better and try and influence these companies to do better. I don't have any specific comments on the Israel situation because I do think it's a very thorny issue.
The ESG and Responsible Investment Committee at Fisher Funds are super focused on all of these issues.
A while back, there was a lot of. Moaning and crying over Raytheon. You recall the company makes quartz crystals of a very high quality. It was found that some of their quartz crystals were being used in missile guidance systems. On the strength of that, there was a strong motivation by a small group of people that Raytheon should be blacklisted. Personally, I think that was ridiculous. It was a very successful company making a globally accepted product. And it just happened to be that some of its products ended up deep in these systems. I think we can take these things too far. But that's a personal view. Sorry. Any further questions?
Hi. My name is Yu Chen, a Shareholder. Actually, I've been thinking. Personally, I think it's okay for me to have a tiny percentage of Marlin for a bit of diversification. And. There's a saying that everything is toxic. The quantity matters. So my questions. To the manager today is. After the tariff, and I can remember, there are several countries that are heavily affected by the tariff, for example, China and then India and Switzerland. So I've been thinking that. For the last one year, did you find that. You could have. Had an opportunity to get into. Profitable and undervalued Swiss companies or. Companies of India? And then also, I remember there's a saying that you cannot do well in what's popular. And I've been thinking whether. It's easier to find undervalued and profitable companies in less popular. Area, less popular companies.
And then my final question is regarding the STEEPP. Your six-point philosophy. So I can probably share most of them about five, maybe. And then. In terms of the weight percentage ratio, whether they're equal or unequal, or. Which one. Are allowed to be heavier in terms of weight percentage and which one less, and so on. Thank you so much.
What do you see?
Thank you, Sandy. Excellent questions. You think similar to our investment committee, actually. On the second one on the tariffs. You're absolutely right. So we talked about that Liberation Day and the six days post that, April 8th, that sentiment in the markets, particularly around big tech stocks, actually, who were potentially hit by these tariffs, was at the lowest ever in 25 years. So yes, we deployed as much capital as we could. And we were buying. And then 36 hours later, President Trump put a pause on the tariffs, as you know. And a lot of these companies we were buying at the time, like NVIDIA, KKR, etc., shot up 20% overnight. And. We couldn't chase them as hard as we'd like. So yes, there were some fabulous opportunities there.
That is a classic example of when nothing structurally has changed with those key elements of STEEPP: the width of the moat, the structural length of the growth runway, or the quality of the people. We were taking advantage. In terms of are we generally seeing better opportunities in quality stocks versus the market? Yes, absolutely. That is why we are excited about the future. When you have the most extreme underperformance of Marlin style of quality and blue-chip companies versus the market in 30 years, that makes us excited. That is what I am talking about. We got hurt by Healthcare last year. There are some really good opportunities in Healthcare, for example, which is a classic quality sector. I am really sorry, your first question was. I missed the first question, Sandy.
So. The first question, actually, you answered my first question. The other two questions are regarding. Popularity. And then other ones are related to the steep ratio, weighted ratio.
Yes. Yes, popularity. Yes. That is encapsulated in what I was saying is. We know what's hot right now. It is high-risk companies. It's companies with AI in the name. It's companies associated with OpenAI. Those are extremely popular. We have not seen that extreme popularity since the late 1990s for a certain sector. That makes us nervous. I shared with you some of those eye-popping stories about some of the deals we are seeing there, some of the vendor financing we are seeing as well, Sandy. Some of the sellers of these chips are lending the buyers of these chips money, for example, which reminds us of the late 1990s. There is popularity there. We do not think it is a prudent use of your capital to chase that. We have been reducing our weightings, even in our higher quality, lower-risk AI weightings.
So we've been taking profits in Google, taking profits in ASML. Those stocks are up 60%, 70% in a few months. And we're redeploying that capital into the less popular parts of the market that you talked about, like Healthcare. In terms of how STEEPP is weighted. Strength is the most important aspect of STEEPP. It's the width of the moat and the enduring nature of it or not. Ideally, is it widening? So that's critical. That's the most important. Pillar. The second most important pillar is people. These things are often deeply interrelated, as you can imagine. But people is critical, not just the chairman and the senior management. But we try and meet as many layers of management as possible. Do they think long-term? Will they forego short-term profits. In the interest of building a really long-term, wide-moat business? You could think of a classic long-term thinker.
Someone like Jeff Bezos, for example, would score very highly on our STEEPP scoring. And the third most important pillar, and these are all in some ways very important, is just slightly more important than the other, is the length of the growth runway and the durability of the growth runway. And ideally, one of the most durable growth runways would be something that can grow for years, almost irrespective of the economic backdrop. And those sort of growth runways are quite rare, as you can imagine.
Thank you, Sam. Further questions down the front here.
Thank you. Good morning. Really, it was to say a bit more of what you've been saying. You see, the shutdown doesn't seem to be affecting the share market over there. And yet, like you said, because of AI. There's a lot of layoffs. You get. A lot happening, a hell of a lot happening, and nothing getting, how would I say, sorted. And Trump seems to wander around like nothing's wrong. He's got a motor mayor in New York. But. Yeah, I just wonder if you could elaborate a bit more there. And it came over the radio the other day. That some finance company in America had to be bailed out for 50 billion. Have you heard about that?
Yes.
Thank you.
We agree with you. And this was the point on the outlook slide, is the market's being very focused on the positives, those green techs, and less focused on the red crosses, the first red cross being the critical labor market, which is weakening in the U.S. To give you a number there, the U.S. was adding about 170,000 jobs a month for about two and a half years. And if you average the last four or five months, it's been averaging about 25,000 jobs a month, which is. Conventional wisdom says that anything below 50,000 is you're in recessionary territory. We do think the U.S. economy is a bit fragile outside of the AI CapEx supercycle. And this is the point we're making, is not only is the underlying economy and demand for a lot of.
Products and services a little bit weak, but all the money's crowded into the hot part of the market as well. So I agree with that. In terms of the government shutdowns, which I guess if you helicopter out, is related to the state of the U.S. balance sheet, that's something else that we are concerned about. So the U.S. government debt to GDP has gone from sort of 60%. A decade and a half ago to 125% today. Now, they do have the privilege of being the world's reserve currency. So they can continue. But it's something we find a big risk. And so how do we think about that? And how do we deal with it? And this relates to Martin's question, actually. A lot of the U.S. companies we own, in fact, most of them are not leveraged to the underlying health of the U.S. economy.
In fact, they're multinational companies. Actually, Martin, I didn't add this to your question before. More than 60% of the revenue of these companies is actually outside the U.S. and not reliant on the health of the U.S. economy. The other thing we do, and this is critical, and this is a part of strength. Is we focus always on the strength of the balance sheet of our companies. But if you are a little bit concerned about the strength of the balance sheet of the biggest economy in the world, then we are uber-focused on that. So we like our companies to have big net cash piles or ideally very, very low debt levels. So that's how we think about balancing those risks out.
The one with the gold bust?
Yes. I mean, we spend a lot of time talking to our fixed income team on that, who are focused on that. It feels like a bit of an isolated pocket of risk at the moment. There are a few isolated pockets of risk. We don't think it's systemic. But these things, we could imagine we apply the microscope to them very, very quickly when they flare up because it has been major in the past as well, as you know.
Question from this gentleman.
I'm Noel Thompson, Shareholder. I noticed that 28% of the portfolio's tied up in Healthcare. We know that there's some sort of eruptions going on in Healthcare in the U.S. What's your long-term view of the Healthcare sector? Because there seems to be a lot of AI influence coming into the Healthcare market. I wonder if you can comment on those two items.
That's right. That's what hurt the performance of the portfolio last year, was having a big weighting to this. Historically very stable outperformer. Generally speaking, if I go helicopter right out, we're bullish Healthcare. We're bullish Healthcare because there's an aging population. This is really important. Any Healthcare company that Marlin invests in must be part of the solution. They must be saving costs for Healthcare systems around the world because when you think about the U.S. government balance sheet or the European balance sheets, a part of that is the amount we spend on Healthcare. They must be saving governments money. If you take Intuitive Surgical, for example, who have a near monopoly on soft tissue robotic surgery or surgeon-assisted surgery, they're saving hospital systems money. They're getting through bigger backlogs. The surgeons are able to do more hours, more surgeries.
In time, we think there'll be robot-only surgery. So that's saving Healthcare systems money. If you think about Danaher, they're working on innovative drugs that are looking to save Healthcare systems billions, like the Alzheimer drug. We're bullish Healthcare. We think there's an opportunity now. But we want to make sure your companies or our companies are part of the solution, not part of the problem.
I can't see any hands up. I can start to see a hand. So I'm.
I've just got two questions online.
They're coming through now, haven't they?
Yeah. The first question is, when is the next warrant issue planned for? Per the cycle that this shareholder is looking at, it was due about now.
Look, I can't answer that specifically. We look at the warrant program. It is part of our Capital Management program. All of our Capital Management initiatives are really designed to get a relativity between the net asset value per share and the share price. But I'd prefer not to comment. We intend to continue the Warrant program. But we make those decisions at the time rather than have them scheduled in right now. So another warrant could be expected. Exactly when, I can't say.
And the other question is. Marlin's investment performance is not good compared to other funds. And I'll skip two. So what are the priorities to protect shareholder interests?
I'd like to think that that question's been answered. I think we've been quite open about the fact that our performance hasn't been strong. But we've also been, at some length, explained the reason for that underperformance. So unless I see lots of shaking of heads, I think that question's been answered. I did mention the fact that. The Directors had engaged with Fisher Funds and Manager. To discuss the underperformance, notwithstanding the fact that we understand the significant contributions to that underperformance. But I can't be more explicit than that. But I think it's fair to say that question has been answered. So if there are no, yes, there is one more.
Thank you. Barbara O'Connor, the New Zealand Shareholders Association. I'm interested to know for how long you think you can continue your current dividend policy, given that it's not always covered by interest and dividend income.
Yep. No, no. We have no concerns about that. One of the. Advantages of warrants is that to the extent that distributions are made paid out of capital, and this is the first time in three years, I think, Wayne, that they have been. Warrants help restore shareholders' funds. I also want to point out that where we make distributions out of capital, and we talk about. Shareholder return, which is the. Combination of dividends and share price, if the capital is paid, distributions are paid out of capital, in an efficient market, of course, the share price would adjust for the payment of that dividend or distribution so that they balance each other out. But the short answer to the question is, notwithstanding declining interest rates, we believe quite strongly that the 8% per annum is an important. Attraction for Shareholders. We don't intend to discontinue it.
And we don't see that there's going to be a problem in maintaining. Sufficient capital. Okay. I think on that basis, now we'll now move to the. Resolutions for the meeting. For those, again, connected to the meeting online, the voting for the three resolutions can be accessed on the voting tab in the top of your screen. Today, we will be voting by poll. When the meeting comes to an end, please remember, for those present, to put your voting paper in the voting box before you leave. All votes cast during the meeting, either in person or online, will be added to votes already cast. And those results will be announced by the NZX later today. If you didn't bring your voting paper with you, you can get another one from the good ladies at the computer desk at the end of the room.
Now, as per the notice of meeting, we received the Marlin annual report for the year ended 30 June 25. We're not required to pass a resolution to adopt the annual report. But also, as per the notice of meeting, there are three resolutions which we are required to vote on. The first of those is to re-elect Fiona Oliver as the Director of the company. Secondly, to re-elect. Sorry, to elect Dan Coman as the Director of the company. And lastly, to authorize the board of directors to fix the remuneration of the Auditor. So moving to these resolutions, I'll introduce each resolution and then propose the resolution to the meeting. After the resolution is passed, I'll ask if there are any questions. If you wish to ask a question, please follow the same procedure.
Introduce yourself, say whether you're a shareholder or a proxy holder, and give us your name. So. The first resolution is the re-election of Fiona Oliver. Fiona has been a Marlin Director for just over three years, having joined the Marlin Board on 1st of June 2022. The Board unanimously supports Fiona's re-election. And I'll now ask Fiona to speak to her re-election. Thank you.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming today. Great to see so many familiar faces, some of which we saw last week. And thank you for your continued support of Marlin Global Limited. You might remember that I was very pleased to be asked to join The Board in 2022. And work with a very committed group of people that make up both The Board and The Manager. It's already been said that we are and have been experiencing unprecedented behavior. And a sort of. Conflagration of risks in the global markets. And it's created challenges. But I believe that from a Board perspective, The Manager remains absolutely committed to meeting the objectives of Marlin. I'm hoping that I can continue to add value to the company. All my executive management career was in financial services and the investments industries.
Including working in private equity and asset management in London and Sydney and leading up funds management businesses in New Zealand. Before that, I was a Corporate Lawyer. And for about 10 years now, I am a Professional Director. My governance portfolio is across a range of business sectors, including the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, Freightways Limited. Somerset Holdings Limited, and Gentrack. And of course, the two sister companies, Barramundi and Kingfish. I'm also an active personal investor in the capital markets globally and, as you know, hold shares alongside you in Marlin Global. And I undertake to continue to bring my commercial experience, my governance experience, my professional legal skills, and my knowledge of New Zealand and global business environments and their respective capital markets to my role as a director and would welcome your support of my re-election. Thank you.
There's a man coming. It's okay.
I need my 11-year-old grandson to come and help me, I think. Something came unplugged. Oh, shame. Don't go away just yet. Right. Just finishing off on Fiona. Fiona, as you've heard, has a very fulsome. Portfolio of companies, or directorships, I should say. But I can assure you that Fiona is a very diligent and conscientious Director. She's well-read, she's well-prepared. And you need not have any concerns about the fact that she is on a lot of Boards. I think it's just a testament to what she can bring to a Board table that she is. Invited to be on so many Boards. Now, switching to the right page, which I should have done last time, the second resolution is for the election of Dan Coman.
Oh, we haven't voted. Sorry. I've got discombobulated. So I'll now put the resolution. I move that the company re-elects Fiona Oliver as a Director of the company. Are there any questions? There being none. Shareholders should now complete their voting papers. Okay. The second resolution is the election of Dan Coman. Following Carol's notice to The Board of her retirement at the end of this year, The Board undertook an extensive executive search for a new Director. The result of that search was the appointment of Dan to The Board effectively. 1st of October this year, 2025. Dan's impressive bio is contained in the notice of meeting. So I now ask Dan to address the meeting.
Thanks, Andy. And good morning, everyone. A little bit about me. I'm a chartered accountant by training and a former Chief Financial Officer with broad financial services experience in New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom. That experience includes working in funds management and also. Financial reporting for listed companies. I believe I have the skills, capabilities, and experience to make a positive contribution to The Board to ensure the company is well-governed on behalf of you, the Shareholders. I think this is particularly the case in relation to audit and risk-related matters where I have extensive experience in areas like assessing internal controls, dealing with financial reporting, and engaging with external auditors. From my interaction with the other members of The Board, I'm confident I can work well as part of this team. With constructive engagement, dialogue, and challenge.
At a personal level, I have a strong interest in investment and. Am excited by the opportunity to join the Marlin Global Board. I would welcome your support for my election as a Director. And thank you.
Thank you, Dan. I better give you a chance to vote this time, shouldn't I? The Board unanimously recommends that Shareholders vote in favor of Dan's election. So I will now put that resolution. I move that the company elects Dan Coman as a Director of Marlin Global. Are there any questions? There being none, please complete your voting forms and. Give them to computer share at the end of the room. If you're online, hit the button. Resolution three. We now move to the resolution to authorize The Board to fix the remuneration of the auditor for the ensuing year. No resolution is required to reappoint the auditor, Pricew aterhouse Coopers, but a resolution is required to authorize the Directors to set the resolution. I move that the Directors be authorized to fix the remuneration of Pricew aterhouse Coopers as the auditor for the ensuing year.
Are there any questions? There being none, I'll now put the resolution. You should complete your voting form. So this brings us to the conclusion of the resolutions. The online voting will remain open for approximately five more minutes, but will then close for counting. And as I've said earlier, the results will be announced on the NZX later today. Once the minutes are confirmed. Sorry, the presentation is available on the NZX and on the Marlin website, and it'll be on by the end of today. Once confirmed, the minutes will be also placed on the website. Before I declare the meeting closed, I'd like to note that this is Carol's last shareholder meeting.
On behalf of my fellow Directors, I really want to sincerely thank Carol for her almost 14 years on The Board and acknowledge the tremendous contribution that she's made to Marlin Global and also she has done to Marlin and Kingfish, not just her chairing of the Audit and Risk committee, but also lending us her very valuable governance experience. So again, we thank Carol for what she's contributed, and we wish her well. I now declare the meeting closed. Thank you very much.