Good morning, and welcome to the Jardine Matheson 2024 interim results webcast. It's great to have you with us today. I'm Graham Baker, Group Finance Director. You should be able to see the slides on your screen and the Q&A icon at the bottom of your page. Please submit your questions at any time, and I'll answer them at the end of the presentation. Four items on today's agenda: an update on Jardine's group strategic priorities, reviews of the financial performance of both the group and our key portfolio companies, and finally, the outlook for the full year, followed by Q&A. Before I talk about significant developments, I want to first remind you of our overall business approach. We start with a well-diversified portfolio of businesses across Southeast Asia and China in a range of different sectors to deliver resilience and value across the cycle.
We're disciplined in our capital allocation, focusing investment towards strategic growth initiatives, which will deliver long-term returns and growth. We're a long-term investor and seek to foster strong returns and growth throughout our portfolio and recycle capital dispassionately where appropriate. We, of course, rely on dedicated teams under strong and experienced leadership in our portfolio companies. We've made a number of important changes in this area over the last 18 months. All of this is underpinned by a commitment to maintaining strong balance sheets and liquidity and operating sustainably in the markets and communities we serve. Moving to the group's strategic priorities, I'll start with leadership. Over the past 18 months, we've made a series of changes to strengthen the boards and executive teams of our portfolio companies and at group.
New chief executives at DFI, Hongkong Land, Mandarin Oriental, and Jardine Pacific have been appointed and are all now progressing on strategy and uplifting delivery capability in their respective businesses. DFI announced the appointment of Tom van der Lee as Group CFO. Dr. Keyu Jin has joined the Jardine Matheson Holdings board. Recently, we also announced several board changes to the listed subsidiaries, strengthening sector-relevant expertise and enhanced perspective. You can find more information about these changes in the announcements issued by JCNC, DFI, and Mandarin Oriental. These changes, among others, have helped streamline accountability and reframed the group's relationship with its portfolio companies. Executive teams are, of course, fully responsible for business strategy and performance of their companies. They are directly accountable to their company boards, which, bolstered by independent non-executive directors with industry-specific expertise, provide challenge, support, and governance.
Jardine's, through our shareholder representatives on the boards of each of our portfolio companies, will continue to reinforce the group's commitment to driving long-term growth and value creation, focusing on four key areas: strategy and performance, balance sheet strength and capital allocation, senior talent and succession, and sustainability. Turning now to progress in evolving the group's portfolio. In June, Hongkong Land announced its $1 billion transformation of the Landmark estate in Hong Kong. The project combines a $400 million investment by Hongkong Land with an estimated $600 million investment from the group's luxury retail partners, including Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Chanel, Tiffany, Sotheby's, and Dior. This significant investment demonstrates the group's and the world's leading luxury brands' commitment and confidence in the Landmark and in Hong Kong.
Mandarin Oriental achieved the topping out of One Causeway Bay, its Grade A office development, and this is expected to be completed by mid-2025. The group also announced four hotel openings, reaching a milestone of 40 properties in its portfolio. We've seen progress in managing issues relating to our more environmentally sensitive businesses. In particular, AAL, which operates the group's palm oil business, recently announced its formal application to join the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, a globally recognized certification to drive sustainable production. The group continued with portfolio simplification and capital recycling. This included the sale of its 50% shareholding in Jardine Aviation Services, which completed in March this year, DFI Retail's sale of Hero Supermarket Indonesia, and the disposal of Mandarin Oriental's Paris hotels and two retail assets.
During the period, the group also increased its shareholdings in Mandarin Oriental to 85% and in JCNC to 83%, and JCNC launched a public tender offer to increase its shareholding in REE Corporation to 35%, subject to regulatory approval. Now to innovation and operational excellence. Our businesses are exploring the many opportunities presented by generative AI, including introducing secure environments, testing the technology in areas such as marketing and customer engagement, and leveraging AI to enhance productivity. All of our businesses have also developed policies to ensure we have a consistent approach to this fast-evolving area. Mandarin Oriental has implemented a new guest experience program and redesigned its Fans of M.O. guest recognition program in order to enhance their ability to attract and retain guests.
DFI relaunched its Wellcome app and website in Hong Kong and expanded both Click and Deliver and Click and Collect services for food and convenience, while the yuu Rewards program continues to grow, with around three million monthly active members in Hong Kong and 1.7 million members in Singapore. We continued scaling up our in-house global business services function, which supports our portfolio companies in their process-based back office activities. Five of our businesses, including the group head office, are now leveraging GBS. The group continues to prioritize sustainability as a key driver of business strategy and risk management, with a focus on making Jardine stronger for the future. At the end of May, we published our third group sustainability report, which highlighted progress against our key pillars of climate action, responsible consumption, and social inclusion.
On climate action, our ambition as a group is to achieve net zero by 2050. All our subsidiaries have developed Scope 1 and 2 emissions targets and decarbonization pathways to 2030. Notably, DFI, Gammon, Hactl, and Hongkong Land have received approvals from the Science-Based Targets Initiative for their 2030 targets. Good progress is now being made against these targets, and we saw a reduction in total greenhouse gas emissions in 2023, as well as an increasing proportion of total energy consumption coming from renewable sources. On responsible consumption, we achieved a 4% reduction in total waste generated, and 94% of the group's waste was recycled, reused, or recovered. Our businesses are focused on further strengthening waste management and exploring circular solutions.
On social inclusion, our businesses continue to support learning and development opportunities for our colleagues and the provision of financial support to students from less affluent backgrounds to access higher education. We also continue to raise awareness and invest in mental health support, with $1.7 million channeled towards mental health initiatives in 2023. In total, we invested $64 million in charitable support for our communities in 2023 and contributed over 95,000 volunteer hours. Turning now to the group's financial performance for the first half. Overall, the group delivered underlying profit attributable to shareholders of $550 million in the first half of the year, and EPS of $1.91.
Both were down by a third against the prior year, reflecting a number of headwinds, the largest being impairments taken in Hongkong Land on a small number of development projects, properties projects on the Chinese Mainland. The group's share of these impairments was a $157 million charge to underlying net profit or $0.54 against EPS. Total group revenue for the first half was $17.3 billion, down 5% from the same period last year. Excluding disposals, principally JMG U.K. and Malaysia Food, however, revenues were flat at constant exchange rates. We have maintained a stable interim dividend of $0.60, in line with 2023. This chart shows first half underlying net profit this year and last across our portfolio companies.
I'll go through the performance of each business shortly, but for now, I'll note that the group's underlying profits before the impairments at Hongkong Land were down 14% or 9% at constant exchange rates. This more modest decline itself reflected a couple of headwinds we expected to impact the first half of 2024 in particular. At Astra, lower earnings in heavy equipment and mining against record coal prices in the first half of 2023. And at Zhongsheng, lower new car margin, again, versus a much stronger comparable in the first half of 2023. Beyond these, we also saw marginally lower underlying profits in most other businesses amid challenging market conditions. There was, however, a significantly improved performance from DFI. Lower group corporate costs reflect lower losses in Livy and lower financing costs....
Outside underlying earnings, the group recorded a net non-trading loss in the first half of $590 million, compared with $257 million loss in the first half of 2023. The largest component in both years was net fair value losses from the revaluation of investment properties, primarily against the central office portfolio in Hong Kong amid soft market rental conditions. Among a number of offsetting credits in the prior year, I'll only remind that the credit for Zhongsheng's second half 2022 results reflected our change of accounting policy last year to report Zhongsheng's results in our underlying earnings on a contemporaneous basis using external analysts' estimates.
At the bottom line, the group reported a net loss attributable to shareholders of $40 million, compared with a net profit of $566 million in the first half of 2023. The balance sheet and liquidity of the group and parent company remained strong. Net borrowings at thirtieth of June, excluding financial services, fell by $400 million to $8 billion, and gearing remained at 15%. At JCNC, consolidated net debt, excluding Astra's financial services subsidiaries, decreased from $1.1 billion to $543 million, reflecting strong operating cash flows and positive working capital movement in Astra. At JCNC corporate level, net borrowings also dropped from $1.3 billion to $1.1 billion at the half year, as a result of receiving its share of enhanced dividend income from Astra.
DFI and MO also continued to see net borrowings fall. I'll cover cash flows and net debt at Jardine Matheson corporate level separately in a moment. Turning first to group cash and liquidity, cash from operations rose 8% in the first half of 2024, reflecting improved working capital management, lower tax payments, and higher dividends from associates and joint ventures. Investing activities generated a net cash outflow of $556 million in the first half. This contrasts with the net inflow in 2023, which reflected higher repayments from Hongkong Land's property joint ventures. Capital expenditure was lower at $929 million, after a substantial capital refresh in Astra in 2023 following the pandemic. Ongoing capital investment for mid and long-term growth by the group's businesses remains, of course, our first priority in the capital allocation framework.
Lower cash outflows from financing activities in the first half of 2024 were mainly due to decreased dividends to non-controlling interests in Astra. Overall, the group's businesses continue to be highly cash generative, supported by strong balance sheets. The group has around $11.8 billion in liquidity headroom to finance future growth. While the majority of the group's cash flows and capital allocations take place within our portfolio companies, I thought it would be helpful to provide a little more detail on cash flows and capital allocations at the JMH parent company level. Income at this level primarily reflects dividends from direct portfolio holdings, net of operating costs and financing charges. Dividend income rose substantially in the first half, following a strong business performance in 2023, and operating costs fell marginally.
Around two-thirds of the group's net dividend income is received in the first half of the year. Capital recycling from disposals was minimal in the period, compared with a cash inflow in excess of $350 million in the first half of 2023 from the sale of JMG U.K. Cash dividends payments fell marginally as scrip elections increased as a share of the 2023 final dividend paid out in May. Typically, around three-quarters of the group's cash dividend payments are made in the first half of the year. We expect the dividend to remain well-covered, near to 2x cash cover by net dividend income for the year as a whole.
Parent net debt increased to $1.3 billion in the first half as we took the opportunity to acquire an additional 5% of Mandarin Oriental in a block sale in April, taking our interest to 85%, and an additional 5% of JCNC, taking our interest there to 83%. The parent borrowings are financed by 10- and 15-year bonds, totaling $1.2 billion, issued in 2021 at an effective interest rate of 2.6%, together with bilateral bank facilities. I'll now briefly go through the individual performance of each business. For a detailed analysis, you can access the results briefings of most of our businesses via our Jardine's corporate website.... Starting off with Astra, which was the largest contributor to the group's underlying net profit in the period.
The group owns its interest in Astra through JCNC, and as always, we've presented the numbers on this slide based on the contribution made by Astra to JCNC. Astra reported lower results in the first half, mainly reflecting the lower coal prices in its heavy equipment and mining business noted earlier, as well as the translation impact of weaker foreign exchange rate against the U.S. dollar. United Tractors recorded its first nickel mining profit contribution in 2024 from Stargate Pacific and Nickel Industries, both of which were acquired in 2023. The contribution from automotive decreased by 8% to $160 million in a weak new car sales market. Astra's four-wheel sales fell 17%, although market share rose from 55% to 57% as the overall market declined 19%.
Astra two-wheel sales fell by 4% on lower market share of 77%. Astra Otoparts, however, saw a 26% increase in net income on strong export sales and margins. The contribution from Astra's financial services division rose marginally due to increased penetration in consumer and heavy equipment finance. Astra's other businesses grew strongly in the period. Turning now to Zhongsheng. The group has recognized an estimated contribution profit from its interest in Zhongsheng of $63 million, 30% below the prior year, as new car margins continue to be impacted by intense market competition on the Chinese Mainland. The group continues to believe Zhongsheng is well-positioned and has strong execution capabilities to deliver its strategy, focused on growth of its aftersales and used car franchises as the Chinese Mainland's most trusted premium auto service brand.
DFI performed strongly in the first half, reporting 127% higher underlying net profit. Food profits grew to $26 million, driven by improved sale mix and disciplined cost control. Convenience profits grew by 73%, primarily as a result of a shift in product mix away from tobacco. Health and beauty profits grew marginally, as Guardian in Indonesia and Singapore reported good profit growth. Profits in Hong Kong were marginally lower. The home furnishing business was impacted by a challenging sales environment in all markets. Among associates, Maxim's reported a decline in profits due to challenging trading conditions in Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland. Yonghui, however, reported reduced losses. Moving on to Jardine Pacific, which operates across three main sectors: engineering, consumer, and transport services. Jardine Pacific reported a net profit of $52 million in the first half, 19% below the prior year.
Among the group's engineering businesses, Gammon grew 14% in the first half, while JEC was lower on project delays and margin pressure. In the consumer businesses, JRG recorded a net loss, although lower than the same period last year. Zung Fu Hong Kong also reported a net loss, as changes to government EV subsidies led to lower deliveries and margin pressure for premium vehicles. Higher vehicle inventories also increased financing costs. However, deliveries of the newly launched smart model were encouraging. Finally, in transport services, Hactl reported a strong uplift in profits, driven by higher cargo volumes. Mandarin Oriental, our luxury hotel business, delivered an underlying profit of $23 million in the first half of 2024, slightly below the prior year. Performance benefited from the reopening of Mandarin Oriental Singapore and the opening of four new hotels in Costa Navarino, Zurich, Mayfair, and Muscat.
However, underlying profit from the management business fell marginally to $14 million, as higher fee income was offset by timing differences in marketing spend. Underlying profit in owned hotels was $11 million, down from $14 million in 2023, which had included a one-time tax provision release. Hotels in Europe and the Middle East benefited from strength in leisure demand and occupancy, while America saw a modest improvement in the performance. In Asia, there were higher contributions from the Singapore and Tokyo hotels. In June, the group achieved the significant milestone of operating 40 hotels worldwide. Its strategy calls for significant further growth ahead. JCNC, the group's Southeast Asia investment company, reported 14% lower profit than the same period in 2023 at $500 million.
JCNC has reorganized its business segments to provide greater clarity and now comprises three business pillars: Indonesia, Vietnam and regional interests. In Indonesia, Astra and Tunas Ridean contributed $513 million, a decrease of 9%. JCNC's businesses in Vietnam, THACO, REE and Vinamilk, saw 12% lower contributions overall, at $30 million. THACO's contribution was higher, mainly due to smaller losses from its real estate business and progress in the agriculture business, which recorded a small profit in the first half. However, reduced hydropower demand led to lower contribution from REE, and Vinamilk produced a lower dividend due to a weaker foreign exchange rate. Finally, JCNC's regional interests, which comprise Cycle & Carriage, Siam City Cement, and Toyota Motor Corporation, contributed $25 million, down 13%. Cycle & Carriage in Singapore and Malaysia saw lower contributions, while Siam City Cement saw improved profits, supported by lower energy costs.
Hongkong Land reported an underlying loss of $7 million, principally reflecting the non-recurring, non-cash impairment charge of $295 million. Excluding this, underlying profit was $288 million, 32% below the prior year. The impairments were principally against the carrying value of a small number of residential projects on the Chinese mainland, following deteriorating market conditions in the first half, which prompted an extensive review of the pricing and competitive positioning across the group's entire DP portfolio. Otherwise, in development properties, residential sales on the Chinese mainland continued to be impacted by low consumer confidence, although performance varied between different cities, with demand for well-located projects remaining healthy. In the first half, for example, Hongkong Land fully sold all residential units in its flagship West Bund Shanghai development on the first day of sales.
Profit contributions from DP in Singapore and the rest of Southeast Asia were also lower due to timing of planned project completions. Investment properties delivered a solid performance, just 3% down overall. There were stable contributions from luxury retail and Singapore office. The group's central Hong Kong office portfolio also remained resilient, with occupancy stable and rentals dropping by around 4%. Hong Kong Land's fundamentals remain strong, supported by a strong balance sheet, resilient IP operating cash flows, and a development properties portfolio which remains high quality and profitable despite the impairments to a small number of projects on the Chinese Mainland. Turning now to the group's highlights and outlook. To recap, group underlying profit before Hong Kong Land's impairments was down 14%, 9% at constant exchange rates.
We have maintained a stable interim dividend of $0.60 per share and strengthened our executive leadership teams with new CEOs in four of our portfolio companies. We continue to expect the group's full year results to be modestly below those of 2023. The group has a strong balance sheet, and under newly strengthened leadership, will continue to focus on delivering sustainable long-term value and growth from its growing markets in Asia. Thank you. I'll now take some questions. Please press the Q&A button on your screen. I'll give you a few moments to do that. I think while you do that, I've got a couple of questions that have come in while I was speaking, and I'll start with those.
A first question from George Choy at Citi: How should we think about the likelihood of more impairments to be taken at Hongkong Land with respect to the development property projects in Chinese Mainland? We note that the impairments were mostly done on projects in Wuhan, Nanjing and Chongqing. Any risk of further impairments to your projects? Thanks, George. Great question. Obviously, in the context of a fairly significant charge that's gone through in the first half. You'll understand that obviously, when these things arise, we look pretty comprehensively. The Hongkong Land team went through a very thorough evaluation, with, of course, combining the experience of Craig and the team on the Chinese Mainland, together with the eye of Michael as the new CEO.
Having done that work, it was clear that in five or six projects in the cities that you mentioned, that changes in the market environment and pricing in particular had brought us to a place where we needed to take a different view. And we believe that we've done that in a way that will cover, you know, future movement in those territories for the foreseeable future. And at the same time, in reviewing all the other projects across Mainland China. The group was satisfied, Hongkong Land was satisfied, that there was good profitability, good margin in all of those, to provide us with a cushion, before a question of impairments in any other projects needed to be considered.
So overall, I think we're pretty confident. You can never say never in this space, because of course, the market progresses, and we have to watch that. And of course, our accounting will follow the realities in the market. But having undertaken a very thorough review, I'm not expecting anything more in the second half of the year. Certainly not at that scale, or anything particularly major to arise in the coming year. So, I think, George, you had a follow-on question. We noticed that dividends per share almost always increases year-over-year, or no worse than flat year-over-year. Given your solid balance sheet, should we expect this trend to continue?
Obviously, I can't give you a fully gold-plated prediction for the full year. You wouldn't expect me to do that. But our dividend policy remains unchanged. It's to grow the dividend with earnings over time. We have in recent years, as we went into the pandemic in 2020, seen very substantial impacts to the full year earnings of the group. In 2020, earnings per share dropped 30%, because of the pandemic, and we held our dividend. That I think reflects the diversification of the group's businesses, our prudent approach to managing the balance sheet, and the strong cash flows that we have supporting the dividend, both from our portfolio companies, both in our portfolio companies and then flowing up to the parent.
So, I think, without saying any more, we've held our dividend at the interim unchanged. Our guidance for the full year is to see a modest movement down in earnings for the full year. That's unlikely to be the 33% that we've seen in the first half. That's not modest. And I've given you some sense through the earnings progress in the first half of the year, excluding those impairments, of what a more modest overall progress for the year as a whole on earnings might be. So I think I've probably covered a little bit more than was embedded in that question there, but I don't have any real concerns in that space. And lastly, George, you actually put a three-part question.
Does management continue to see Zhongsheng as one of the group's core businesses? Simple answer on that, yes, we do. In the first half of the year, we compared against first half earnings in 2023, that still saw significant new car sales margins in the prior year. That did not continue into the second half of 2023, and so I would expect that that new car sales margin headwind will be largely behind us in the second half of the year. And then the good progress that they've made in used car sales, we expect them to be making in used car sales, and in aftersales, will start to come through. That's where the strategy is ultimately founded.
As I mentioned earlier, we think that they have great assets there, with a broad network across a number of key cities, not across the whole of China, but in key provinces, and great execution capabilities from entrepreneurs who are still very heavily invested in the business's success. So, the short answer is, yes, we do. More questions coming in from other places. Understanding that there's new leadership across different business lines from Karl Chan at JP Morgan, from your perspective, what would be the key KPI for them? What kind of strategic changes would you expect they may bring? A great question, Karl. All of our portfolio companies have clear targets for progressing earnings, and growth in value.
That may come in different ways in each of the portfolio companies, but fundamentally, it will be driven by progress, driving delivery, and growth of the earnings within each of the portfolio companies. The time frames are different in the different portfolio companies. Property, for instance, has a very different time frame for turning a large juggernaut around at Hongkong Land from the more dynamic boats that we have with more rapid turnarounds in, for instance, the retail sector at DFI. The strategy at Mandarin Oriental will continue to be founded on the strong progress, which has already been seen, and significant runway ahead for building the management contract business.
The KPIs will therefore be driven by a combination of short-term profit delivery, and broader targets around people development, sustainability, market progress versus competitors, and longer-term targets around shareholder return, around returns on capital, and also around growth. The mix will be slightly different in each of the companies, but a focus on growth, returns, and strategic-- sustainable strategic improvement targets is the key in all companies. I'll move on now to a question from Jeff Kang at CLSA. "Mandarin Oriental, it seems pent-up travel demand was largely absorbed. How should we think about the business's momentum in the second half of the year, as well as going into 2025?" Jeff's also got a two-part question, but I'll take the first part of it ahead.
Look, Jeff, I think we shouldn't get distracted by short-term noise around Mandarin. The key value creation opportunity for the Mandarin is the mid and long-term progression of its management contract portfolio. Getting to 40 is great progress, but of course, the competition are moving forwards as well. And so under Laurent Kleitman, there's a really tremendous sense of energy and excitement to move forwards with greater velocity on that key strategic objective. As we saw in the first half of the year, there can be pluses and minuses in the first half of the prior year comparable, that can get in the way of, you know, quarter-over-quarter, half-over-half, pluses and minuses. I don't think we should be too distracted by those.
The Mandarin is performing extremely well, improving the offer that it has to its customers. And in the second half of the year, they had a very, very strong comparable in the second half of last year. But I know that they're a competitive team, and they will be pushing to ensure, first and foremost, that they deliver great service to their customers and push forward with the strategic objectives, and they'll also be looking to deliver progress in earnings. But however it comes out in the second half of the year, there's an important long-term, secular growth trajectory ahead that I think is the key thing that we need to focus on at the Mandarin. Second part of the question, One Causeway Bay, how should we be thinking about this asset, which appears to be peripheral to Mandarin?
I think we've been pretty clear in the strategy of Mandarin for a number of years, that One Causeway Bay and the property business that goes with that is not a core business for Mandarin for the long term. Right now, the market for residential, sorry, commercial office sales in Hong Kong is not particularly strong, and therefore, the team are tenanting it up to let it and wait for the right opportunity to realize the significant value embedded in that asset. That is not gonna distract them from their core strategic objective of building the development property, sorry, the development pipeline, the asset-light business that comes with management contracts. They're making good progress on the tenanting, the pre-leasing conversations with prospective tenants.
I expect there'll be some further progress on that in the second half of the year. I'll go to a question from Simon Cheung. "Resimplification and capital recycling, where else do you see opportunities within the group?" And look, I'm not going to name specific businesses, but I will be clear that we undertake a regular, routine look across the portfolio to consider whether low-yielding, low-growth assets have the chance to be turned around. That would, of course, be our first port of call, particularly under new leadership teams, to ensure that we can drive long-term value and growth.
If, however, we get to a place where we see an asset is probably gonna perform better in somebody else's hands than our own, and there's a value-creating opportunity to recycle capital and move a business out of the portfolio, then we've done that on a number of occasions. I think we've increased pace over the last four or five years, and we will continue to do that. And I believe that there are opportunities in a number of places for that to continue to happen, both within the portfolio companies and at group level. In another question from Simon, he's recalled that we mentioned that we have a target to bring the group's net gearing back to single-digit percentages.
How long do you expect it to take to reach such a target, and what could the potential sources of deviation be?" That remains our objective. Great question, Simon. We are absolutely focused on rebuilding the flexibility that we have to invest for long-term growth, as well as maintaining our strong investment-grade credit metrics. However, the journey sometimes will be slightly unpredictable. At group level, in the first half of the year, we were given an opportunity to pick up a 5% block in the Mandarin Oriental. That's the sort of position that doesn't come up very often, and we took that opportunity, and we also significantly increased the pace at which we've been picking up JCNC shares.
We were a little bit surprised that MSCI dropped JCNC from its listings and that led to quite a lot of volume in JCNC coming out in the middle of the first half from passive funds selling their positions. So again, we took the opportunity of a good price and building our exposure in one of our stronger growing parts of the portfolio in Southeast Asia to pick up some more shares there. So it won't be a linear route.
Within the portfolio companies, Astra has been the main reason for our gearing nudging up over the last couple of years, paying out an enhanced dividend last year, and the financing that was put in place for that led to a number of payments out to non-controlling interests. They also made significant investments last year, both in organic refresh of the CapEx, particularly in the palm business, but also more broadly, as well as new investments in nickel mining. In our capital allocation framework, our first priority is to continue to invest in organic growth and CapEx needs of our portfolio companies. The second is to continue to support the dividend and progress of the dividend with growth.
The third is M&A, but all of that sits within the framework of our commitment to strong investment-grade credit metrics. So I'm not going to put an exact timeframe on it because we have a... You know, at 15%, and of course, that's on the Jardines basis of debt over equity, rather than the more conventional debt over debt plus equity basis that people tend to quote externally. So it, it's a very comfortable position. We will make progress, but I'm not going to put a particular timeframe on it because whilst it remains a priority, other opportunities may pop up from time to time. With that, I have just two more questions, one from Karl Chan: "Recently, JM has been proactive in increasing its stake in JCNC.
However, JCNC has been trading at a premium to Astra. What's the rationale for the stake increase? Look, both JCNC and Astra are trading at historic low multiples of their earnings. I won't make a comment on market pricing because, clearly that's for the market to decide. But, as well as bringing greater exposure to our interests in Indonesia, JCNC also brings exposure to our interests in Vietnam, which in, in, in a different way, I think, are under cyclical pressure on earnings right now. And so we see good value in both JCNC, and in the, parts of the portfolio below that. And again, with our disciplined approach to capital allocation, we will, you know, continue to review that.
If the price point were to change significantly, we might very well change our position there. We also—Karl also noticed the increase in the stake in Mandarin Oriental. "Why increase the stake in these two, but not other subsidiaries like Hongkong Land?" You know, Hongkong Land is. We already have a very large exposure in our capital base. Over half of the group's capital sits in invested capital, sits in our position in Hongkong Land. Clearly, we think that there's good value there, too, but primarily we think that that's an issue for the Hongkong Land team to think about in considering their investment portfolio.
In terms of the growth outlook and the diversification of our earnings base, both Mandarin and JCNC offer a different growth profile and a different geographic mix of profits. So those, I think, are the key points that I'd make in that space. We love all of the portfolio companies in our group, but unlike children, we are allowed from time to time to love one or two of them a little bit more than others. So with that unsavory analogy, I think we've run to the end of the questions, and I'll call the Q&A to a halt. Thank you all for attending the half year results, and we'll see you again in six months' time.