MA Financial Group Limited

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the MA Financial Group Limited FY21 result briefing. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Julian Biggins, Joint CEO. Please go ahead.

Good morning. I'm pleased to welcome you to the MA Financial Group full-year results for FY21. My name is Julian Biggins, and I am joint CEO of MA Financial Group alongside Chris Wyke, who is also in the room with me. Also here is Graeme Lello, the Group CFO, and Michael Leonard, our Head of Investor Relations. Before we go to the financial results, we've provided a quick snapshot of the Group for those that are relatively new to the company on slide four. Key takeaways are, We are a diversified group with a number of parallel businesses where we aim to be market leaders. We've been in business for over 12 years and listed the company in 2017. The group has had a very stable senior management team and we are focused on building a sustainable and scalable growth company. We aim to build businesses where there is an opportunity to create material value and we have competitive edge. We take a long-term view. We now manage nearly $7 billion at AUM and have over 425 people in the business. We're very focused on specialisation and having deep expertise in our chosen fields. We aim to have a broad diversity in our distribution channels and activities and acknowledge that cycles come and go. Long-term alignment is at the heart of what we do. Collectively, we own approximately 45% of the company with our original partners at Mollison Company and alongside fellow shareholders. Since listing, we've generated over 25% compound underlying earnings growth, which has underpinned a 32% compound total share price return over the same period. With this backdrop, we'll now turn to the FY21 result. On slide six, in FY21, we've generated another record result with earnings up 52% on the prior year, with all divisions demonstrating strong growth. Net inflows exceed $1.1 billion, which is up 2.5 times compared to the prior period. This underpinned AUM growth of 28% to $6.9 billion, and given the pace of this growth, our year-end annualised base fee run rate of $89 million was up almost 50% on the prior period. Corporate advisory and equities also had a record year supported by conducive equity markets and an active M&A environment and selective senior hires. The lending division grew its loan books by 44% and made some significant strategic steps over the year. And with the acquisition of Finsure, we look forward to accelerating the lending strategy in 2022. We raised $120 million of new equity in conjunction with the announcement of the acquisition of Finsure, which leaves the balance sheet in great shape to support growth and future acquisitions. Today, we've announced a $0.12 per share dividend, and when coupled with our maiden interim dividend of $0.05, It takes our annual dividends to $0.17, up 70% on the period, all fully franked. All of this while we continue to invest in our platform to ensure the foundations are set to deliver future growth. Looking to the financial results on page 7, I'll call out a couple of key takeaways. Over the year, we have grown revenue by 45% to $232 million. NPAT was up 53% year-on-year to $54.9 million, which equates to 38.2 cents of underlying earnings per share, up 52%. EBITDA margin was stable over the period, which is positive given the acquisition of Repro and the significant investment in the business. We increased our return on equity materially over the year to 21%, reflecting a return to a full year of activity versus 2020, where we had a very cautious first half as the pandemic first settled in. At 31 December, we had over $240 million of cash, which reflected the group's $100 million institutional placement in December to fund the $145 million acquisition of Finsure. Even post-settlement of Finsure, we still retain approximately $100 million of working capital to support future growth. The financial result today is the result of the team executing a well-considered strategy to scale our business and continually looking for the next opportunity to apply our business building approach to underpin future growth. In summary, the business is in great shape. On slide eight demonstrates the consistent performance of the business and the strength of the 2021 financial results with both the first half and second half being record respective results for the group. And now turning to slide nine. The slide demonstrates the diversity in the group and the very strong results across both corporate advisory and equities and asset management. We continue to hone in on lending and the large addressable market of residential mortgages. As we have discussed at prior results, we're really excited about this opportunity and have continued to invest in the division to accelerate its growth. In terms of key takeaways, 33% growth in base management fees was underpinned by strong inflows. The hospitality assets were a significant contributor over the period, with valuations supporting both performance fees and non-cash mark-to-market movements. The lending bulk grew by 44% over the period, reflecting strong growth in our priority income fund. Corporate advisory had a record year. What makes this especially pleasing is that although both Chris and I spent more time focused on strategy, the advisory business has continued to grow stronger, with selective senior hires and strong leadership. Turning to slide 10, we continue to deliver on our priorities. I mentioned earlier the strong growth in our base fee run rate that provides a foundation for our FY22 earnings guidance. We continue to see benefits of further diversifying our distribution and investment products with the domestic distribution channel raising $450 million over the year. This is up nine times the prior period. The foreign flows continue to remain strong with both flows inside the SIV program and outside the program growing. We've utilised our balance sheet proactively over the year, securing assets for new funds and the strategic acquisition of RepPro and Finsure. Both represent important acquisitions supporting future growth. Our people are one of our most important assets. We've put in place a well-considered remuneration structure this year to ensure that we have deep participation in equity plans that align long-term remuneration outcomes for our senior executives with MA financial shareholders. We've also recently taken occupation new offices in Sydney and Melbourne, which has delivered a massive amount of energy in the business. We want to be a leading company for attracting talent and offering a unique amenity for our people is an investment for the long term. We'll now turn to slide 12 to talk about the business activity post December 31. In terms of the quick update, we've had a positive start to the year. In asset management over the six weeks to today, We've had approximately 135 million of net inflows into our funds. We settled a 50% interest in 25 Grenfell Street, Adelaide, which was an $83 million purchase for our diversified property fund and is an iconic office asset in Adelaide. We're currently marketing Hotel Brunswick to investors, which is an established hospitality venue located in the Byron Bay region. We have high conviction about the region and have had positive early engagement with our investors. We've settled on the acquisition of Finsure and welcome John Clendis and his team to the business. While it is early days, it is very exciting to discuss what the opportunity is to diversify and accelerate the growth of our lending division. Corporate advisory has had a solid start to the year with a number of mandates rolling into FY22, including our role advising consolidated press holdings on Blackstone's $9 billion bid for Crown Resorts. As I previously mentioned, the performance of CA&E is especially pleasing as we've made select senior hires that bolster the depth and breadth of the team and all have hit the ground running. On slide 13, we reiterate our guidance from 17th of January this year for underlying earnings growth of approximately 10% to 20% in FY22, equating to our previous range of $41.5 to $45.3 per share. As we have demonstrated, the business has great momentum and we look forward to delivering another year of growth As to the health warning, we're obviously cognizant of the current volatility in markets and the geopolitical uncertainty and will keep the market abreast of any changes as the year unfolds. Turning to our divisions, first asset management on slide 15. As mentioned, asset management had another strong year with base management fee revenue up 33%. Transaction and performance fees were significant contributors at 71 basis points of average AUM. reflective of transactional activity across many of our funds and strong performance, especially from our equities, hospitality and PEVC strategies. The scale and maturing of the number of investment strategies leads to more consistent and larger performance fees, and in the case of PEVC, an increased number of realisations. We believe this will be a trend that continues to be prevalent in our results to come. The mark-to-market contribution this year was significant at $22.6 million, versus $5.1 million in the prior period. The large majority of this related to Red Cape, where the fund's NAV increased significantly in the second half, which was supported by strong transactional evidence for hospitality assets late in the year. Importantly, the majority of the valuations were directors' valuations and did not crystallise a performance fee for MA Financial, although we would anticipate that if valuations hold, then this should provide a significant positive tar wind in FY22. On the expense side, we continue to make significant investment in the platform to support additional scale in the future. We want the platform to be ready and market leading. Turning to slide 16, we continue to grow AUM across our investment strategies. The growth in credit AUM stands out and further the strategy to push harder into the large addressable market of credit investing in FY18. We expect this investment strategy to continue to be attractive in the current market and see a lot of opportunities for growth. Net inflows of $1.1 billion is two and a half times the prior period of $430 million. As you can see in the numbers, real estate and credit demonstrated very material step-ups in inflows. We launched a number of real estate funds in FY21, including an open-ended logistics fund offering that was very well sought after by investors. In credit, the credit-backed income strategies continue to gain strong interest from domestic and foreign high net worth investors, and we see further upsides to these flows. Our real estate credit strategies have experienced strong net inflows over the year, increasing to $370 million from $75 in the prior period. The performance of the funds have been outstanding. Equities is a beneficiary of the SIV program, and with excellent performance last year, investors were very supportive of the strategy. We believe that equities can be a larger business for MA Financial and consistent with our approach to other strategies, we continue to look actively at how to further scale this strategy beyond SIV flows. Our flows were diversified by channel as we continue to see the benefit of investing in our domestic distribution over the years. Domestic high net worth was a standout for the year, delivering $450 million of net inflows, which was nearly nine times the prior year. This was due to broader engagement with investors, tailored product offerings and support from an increased number of research houses and platforms. Foreign high net worth investor inflows were up nearly 29% over the period, which is also very pleasing with strong growth in inflows from both inside and outside the program. Our investor wagon presents well with good diversity in investor base. I do however note the flat result in institutional AUMs. In this regard, we continue to make considerable investment in people with a focus on making sure we are marketing the institutional investors and understanding what they are looking for. We acknowledge that we need to be patient in this pursuit. Importantly, as a general principle, we are focused on attracting high quality investors who are long term minded and appreciate our specialised strategies. Having the most AUM is not always the most profitable strategy. On slide 19, we provide a quick snapshot of some of the highlights in our real estate and hospitality strategies. In real estate, we were active across all three core real estate asset classes with increased activity across both office and industrial compared to prior years. As mentioned, we established an open-ended industrial fund in late 2020 and today it has a pipeline of $240 million of product when completed and the fund continues to grow. We acquired Sugarland Plaza in Bundaberg for $140 million, which formed a single asset fund and was well supported by a development opportunity in Taylor Square, Darlinghurst in Sydney, and the other being a standalone pub in Bendigo in Victoria, our first asset in Victoria. The platform managed to navigate the many COVID disruptions through the year, and when opened, the venues largely traded very well. We're very pleased with the performance of our real estate and hospitality assets, despite the impact of the global pandemic and believe that the operational capabilities we have across these strategies is unique and valuable. Turning to slide 20, we look at credit equities and PEVC. AUM growth in credit was $475 million, or up 42%, which was underpinned by strong demand for our two marquee credit funds, which have received a number of positive research ratings, including LONGSEC supporting the priority income fund. Late in the year, we launched the US dollar series of our Priority Income Fund with the aim of offering our foreign investors a credit-backed USD product based on the same construct as the A dollar Priority Income Fund. This is an important entry for the business into the US credit market, arguably the largest credit market in the world. Equities AUM grew by over 400 million, or 85% over the year, with the strategy now managing nearly $1 billion. The performance fee contribution was underpinned by strong portfolio performance, and as mentioned earlier, we believe equities could be a more meaningful strategy for us in the future. It has both scale and addressable market traits that we look for when thinking about future growth opportunities for the group. Our PEVC strategy continues to be an important strategy for securing our SIV investors, and the performance of the underlying assets has been positive over the period. Realisations are expected to become more frequent as this strategy matures, and we are currently into our third VC fund, having invested in over 22 high-growth private Australian companies. We've only realised five of these investments. All of our investment strategies are gaining in scale, and as this occurs, we continue to build on track record and broader awareness of what we do. The strategies all have deep markets and broad appeal for investors, which should support long-term growth for the group. Now turning to the Lending Division. Lending is our newest division. The focus in 2021 has been on building a scalable platform to position MA Financial to capitalise on positive tailwinds, such as the rise of non-bank lending in a large addressable market. Our loan portfolio grew at a healthy trajectory, increasing 44% to $455 million, while our revenue increased 30% in FY21. The significant investment we made in operational capabilities did somewhat drag on our return on invested capital, which was 12.2% for the year. Lending's NIM or net interest margin of 5.3% reflects the strategy we've previously foreshadowed for shifting our lending activities towards residential mortgage lending, which is lower NIM but highly scalable compared to specialty finance. In December, we announced the acquisition of FinShore, which is an important strategic acquisition for the group and one that I'll talk through in a couple of slides. One of the strengths of our lending division is its ability to work closely with asset management to design products that provide unique funding options for the division, which accelerate growth options for both divisions. Turning to slide 23, invested capital in lending increased to $92 million over the period. This largely reflected an increase in our co-investment stake in the Priority Income Fund units in both the AUD and USD funds. We continue to explore opportunities to optimise our invested capital. Pleasingly, the AUD Priority Income Fund has experienced strong demand over the year, increasing from $195 million to $311 million, up 59%. Our strong track record and the nature of the return being a margin over the cash rate means we are seeing deeper interest from a broad base of investors for this product. On the back of this success, we launched a USD priority income fund in late 2021. While it is early days for this fund, we're very excited about its prospects for growth. The structure is nearly identical to the Australian dollar PIF, where we take a B-class unit, provide investors with a preferred return, and then earn NIM on the spread. As with many of our new strategies, we've put a toe in the water in the US around a US dollar credit product, and we'll continue to assess other opportunities as we go. Turning to slide 24 in Finsure. In December 21, we announced the acquisition of Finsure for $145 million. Finsure is a leading Australian mortgage aggregation business with a book on platform of almost $60 billion, focused on Australia's $2 trillion residential mortgage market. Finsure adds technology-enabled distribution infrastructure for loan products at scale to our lending business. It has a simple business model which is a combination of platform fees, activity fees and other revenues such as white label commission. Finsure enhances our exposure to recurring revenue streams in the large residential lending market with positive tailwinds. The platform offers over 4,800 loan products from a panel of 65 lenders to a network of more than 2,000 mortgage brokers. It is highly complementary to our proprietary capabilities in credit, lending and technology. Importantly, Finsure is led by a highly regarded and experienced management team who are committed to the growth journey with the group. We now turn to corporate advisory and equities. Corporate advisory and equities had a very strong year, generating a record result of just over $68.6 million of revenue and $21.9 million of EBITDA, up 58% on the prior period. The revenue per executive was in the middle of the band at $1.2 million, with a broad contribution from all of the sectors of specialisation. M&A was a significant contributor to the year, with a number of key transactions for the group, including the speedcast restructure, acquisition of Halcyon by Stockland, and the acquisition of Reconstruction Experts by John's Ling Group. A number of these mandates were global and showcased the strength of MA Financial and Mollus and Company working together. Pleasingly, the broad contribution from the managing director cohort is a real positive. Over many years, we've carefully curated the expansion of corporate advisory with a focus on methodically adding expertise that can be successful in our business model. It is also pleasing to see the natural succession of senior members within the business take it to a new level. Slide 27 shows that seasonality was right on the 60-40 split this year, with a skew to the second half, which is typical in this business. Slide 28 a snapshot of some of the deals we've worked on through the year and slide 29 shows a table that we show each reporting season to demonstrate the consistency within our corporate advisory business. The table talks for itself although we do tend to hit within the 1.1 to 1.3 million range in a majority of years. The pleasing thing out of this table is the increased headcount in recent years and we've still retained productivity and therefore profitability. We're very selective in how we go about building this business, and we are focused on doing it profitably. I'll now pass over to Graeme to talk through the financials before wrapping up with strategy and Q&A.

Thanks, Julian, and good morning, everyone. Starting on slide 31, we've talked a fair bit about our revenue growth and resilience today, so I thought I would touch on the expense side of the equation, and in particular, our continuing investment in platform and talent. As we mentioned at the half-year result, we expected a continued increase in compensation expense, and this is how it turned out, with the increase split between both fixed and variable comp. Some factors impact both components of comp, with headcount being the most material driver. Excluding the impact of RetPro, organic headcount grew 34% over the year, and this growth is expected to continue as we invest in the platform. A significant driver of variable comp is also increased revenue and given our strong result, this has stepped up. Most importantly, though, is we have maintained our comp ratio at our target of 50% and EBITDA margin in line with the prior year. The combination of increased earnings and our strong cash conversion has resulted in us declaring a 12-cent final dividend, and when combined with our maiden interim dividend of 5 cents, reflects a 70% increase on the prior year. While this is a great result for shareholders, we have stayed within our dividend policy range of 25% to 50%. And this means we have balance of good levels of operating cash for future investing. And on the topic of cash and investing, over the page on slide 32 is our operating balance sheet, which we present because we think it gives a simpler view of both our economic exposures and the capital available to us to allocate. A key highlight in the year was our successful cash levels return to a more normalised position in line with the $100 million of average cash we maintained across 2021. Borrowings remain unchanged in the period and we are comfortable with the current levels of debt, although we may look at new, more flexible instruments as we reshape our debt capital structure in 2022. Looking forward, I don't see any change in our approach of maintaining a dynamic but prudently capitalised balance sheet. It certainly stood us in good stead and allows us to not only invest in existing platform growth, but also explore new opportunities. And over the page on slide 33, I'll touch on some of those investment highlights. We were particularly active in the second half, which was a continuation of the first half's momentum. On the slide, you can see we continue to support the ongoing growth of the lending business in the period. which included seeding some $15 million into our new U.S. dollar PIF strategy, which we are really excited about. We also successfully churned some of the seed capital and bridge funding of our fund co-investments. And this, coupled with the realization of our Japara stake, gave us confidence and firepower to commit to the Finsure acquisition and still retain good levels of capital for ongoing growth. This dynamism talks to how we think about and position our balance sheet for growth. The recycling of capital is a clear focus in this regard, and I believe a real strength of ours. All in all, across 2021, we rotated out of some $80 million of assets and reinvested $60 million into new opportunities. And a real feature of our capital recycling in the year was the maturity profile of our longer-term investments, with the return of this longer-dated capital making up a large part of realisations. And this only comes with time in the game, And it gave us additional confidence and capital to continue to look at new opportunities. And so with some great earnings momentum and a strong balance sheet behind us, I'll now hand back to Julian to talk you through our strategic outlook.