Djerriwarrh Investments Limited (DJW) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to Djerriwarrh Full Year Financial Results Briefing. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to hand the presentation over to Alison Gibson, Managing Director of Djerriwarrh. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good afternoon. Welcome to this full year result briefing. I'm Alison Gibson, the CEO and Managing Director of Djerriwarrh Investments. I've just recently rejoined the team having spent the past 5 years at HESTA as a portfolio manager, helping to establish the Australian equities team there. I rejoined as a portfolio manager with the company from 2011 to 2021. I'm very excited to be back with the team. It's an honor and a privilege to serve our shareholders in this role, and I look forward to meeting and speaking with shareholders over the coming months. Firstly, I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners and custodians from all the lands we are gathered on today and pay my respects to their elders, both past and present. I have joining me today on the webinar, Brett McNeill, Portfolio Manager for Djerriwarrh; Olga Kosciuczyk, Assistant Portfolio Manager for Djerriwarrh; Andrew Porter, our CFO; Matthew Rowe, our Company Secretary; Geoff Driver, General Manager, Business Development and Investor Relations; Claire Aitchison, Head of Business Development and Investor Relations; and Suzanne Harding, Business Development Manager. This briefing is based on the material available on the company's website. Presentation slides will change automatically via the webcast. I'll now turn to the first slide, which is the disclaimer, which says we're here to talk about the company and not to provide individuals with any investment advice. Turning to Slide 3. This outlines who'll be speaking this afternoon. I'll cover the key features of Djerriwarrh and its objectives and then pass on to Andrew to talk about the results. Brett and Olga will cover the markets and the portfolio, and then Brett will talk to the outlook. We'll circle back to question and answers after formal presentation. And you can ask a question via the webcast using the tab at the bottom of the screen. Moving to Slide 5, the key features of Djerriwarrh. Djerriwarrh is one of the largest income-focused listed investment companies with a long history. We seek to invest in quality companies, which means companies with a sustainable competitive advantage, attractive returns on capital, solid balance sheet and quality management. As a listed company, shareholders have the full -- the benefit of full transparency of your investments and the high governance standards of an independent Board of Directors. Importantly, shareholders own the management rights to the company, and there is no fee leakage to external parties and no additional fees. Djerriwarrh is part of a broader group of LICs, which includes AFIC, AMCIL and Mirrabooka, which means shareholders receive the benefit of the full research team and the broader scale of operations. Turning to Slide 6. which outlines the key investment goals of Djerriwarrh. The key objective is to deliver an enhanced level of fully franked income that is higher than what is available from the ASX 200 Index. In this regard, the current yield is well above the Australian equity market, and this target has been delivered consistently. We're very pleased that Djerriwarrh has met its enhanced yield objectives and that shareholders have received continued growth in dividends again this year. In terms of the total return objective, it's important to remember that the use of options will typically reshape the profile of returns, producing more immediate income at the expense of potential capital growth. That said, the total return has not been where we'd like it to have been this year. This is in part driven by the fact that quality as an investment style has been out of favor. But the team will talk in more detail about the drivers of performance later in the presentation. I'll now hand over to Andrew Porter, our CFO, to talk about this year's financial results.

Thank you, Alison, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. So the financial results for the year are here on this slide. I'll run quickly through them. And I'm very happy, of course, to take questions about this or any other aspect of Djerriwarrh or Djerri after the presentation. So the net operating result, which as many of you will recall, strips out the movement in the unrealized portion of the options portfolio and most importantly, upon which dividend decisions are made, was $41.4 million, so up marginally on last year. Dividends received were slightly up with increased holdings in the likes of Region, JB Hi-Fi and CAR Group plus a special dividend from ARB, more than making up for the loss of dividends from reduced holdings in NAB, Westpac, CBA and Telstra. Option income was particularly strong this year being the highest that we have had since just after the end of the GFC in 2008, 2009. Interest costs were also up as we used more gearing to take advantage of opportunities and the tax cost was higher due to the increase in profit. I'll touch on the management expense ratio here or MER, as one of the contributing factors in the increased profit was the lower costs driven largely by the increased profit from AICS, the company that actually employs all of us working for the 4 LICs and of which Djerriwarrh owns 25%. This profit offset the costs that are incurred and was driven mainly by changes in staffing that happened during the year. This meant that the MER, which is the net cost of running the company over the average portfolio for the year was down 0.41% for the year or $0.41 from every $100 invested. So although the costs benefited from that one-off contribution from AICS, the portfolio itself has a material impact on the MER. I should note that the Board is very conscious of maintaining Djerri as a low-cost investment vehicle whilst recognizing that the work needed to produce the enhanced income does lead to a higher MER than for the larger LICs. So this enhanced income is shown on the top 2 boxes in the top row, which Alison has already mentioned. As shareholders will be aware that we've moved to quarterly dividends, recognizing that for many, the income is such an important part of the investment proposition for Djerri. So looking at dividends for the year, as Alison mentioned, Djerri is currently paying a yield of 7%, including franking on its portfolio or 8% on the share price at the end of June, considerably above that offered by the ASX 200. After the payment of this final quarterly dividend, Djerri still has franking credits sufficient to cover an additional $0.23 or so of dividend. So we would consider ourselves adequately reserved for the future. The portfolio value we've touched on and is shown here at $855 million. It doesn't actually include sales from option exercises, which for trust happen right at the end of the year. Including that, the portfolio value will be closer to $896 million versus $920 million last year. So still down, and this is reflected in the return figures, which just to remind people, include both dividends and franking. Now the next slide, Slide 9, shows the premium discount. The discount was actually below 10% when we issued the estimated NTA on Monday, but it is something the Board are acutely aware of. As noted, we have increased the dividend frequency and invested in increased marketing. And Alison has already introduced both Claire and Suzanne were a testament to that. We've also activated our share buyback over the last couple of years. During the last financial year, we bought back just under $9 million worth of shares. So we more than covered the amount issued under the DRP and the DSSP. The plan remains active, and we will buy back shares when it makes investment sense to do so. So as I said, I'm very happy to take questions at the end. But in the meantime, I'll hand over to Brett.

Thanks, Andrew. Good afternoon, everyone. It's great to be presenting another full year result for Djerriwarrh. On Slide 11, we present our summarized version of our profit and loss statement, and this is done to show how we produced the $41.4 million net operating profit for this year, but also to demonstrate how it flows through to the $0.1575 of dividends for financial year '26. The 2 key drivers of Djerriwarrh's net operating profit are our dividend and distribution income. That was up 1% to $35 million and our option income, which was up 11% to $18.6 million. And we'll go into some more detail on these items shortly. Before we do that, though, moving down the rest of the table, finance costs up 45% to $2.9 million and administration costs down 12% to $3.7 million, along with our income tax expense up 11% to $6.6 million, delivered the net operating profit result of $41.4 million. On a per share basis, this equates to $0.1574, and that covers the full year dividend of $0.1575. So pleasingly, we're able this year to declare and pay a full year dividend that has grown on not only the prior year, but grown for the fifth year in a row. And importantly, we think we want to point out that it's in a very sustainable position being the dividend is fully covered by the net operating profit result. So looking at our dividend and distribution income in more detail on Slide 12. As a reminder, this is the income that we received from the companies that we own in the investment portfolio. We show the 5-year trend in the income received on the left-hand side. And on the right-hand side, we show this metric calculated as a percentage yield on our portfolio value. These are the green bars compared to the equivalent dividend yield on the broader share market, which is shown in the blue bars, and both here are reported before franking credits. So overall, from Slide 12, we can see that our dividend income was up slightly this year with a dividend yield that was well above that produced by the market. One of the key drivers of this outcome has been our ability to again reinvest option exercise proceeds into other high-yielding stocks and both the buying and the selling has been timed with a strong awareness of company dividend payments. In future, our expectation remains that our portfolio's dividend yield, this dividend and distribution income will continue to be at or ahead of the dividend yield of the broader share market being the ASX 200 Index. Going through a similar analysis for our option income on Slide 13. Our option income grew strongly this year. It was up 11% to $18.6 million, and this equated to an option income yield of 2.2%. There was active management of the option book, especially around times of higher market volatility, such as the sell-off that we saw earlier this year that resulted in what we thought was a better-than-expected result from our option income strategy this year. And in terms of future periods, we think an option income yield around 2% is a reasonable expectation. So with that overview, I'll now pass over to Olga, who's going to give an update on the portfolio.

Thank you, Brett, and good afternoon, everyone. On Slide 15, we show the key contributors to our performance in financial year 2026, along with their 12-month total return, starting with positive contributors on the left side of the slide. Rio Tinto was the biggest positive contributor to our portfolio, delivering a total return of 68% in FY '26. The gain was driven by resilient iron ore prices and a strong rise in copper prices, further aided by the market rotation out of banks and into resources companies. This was a pleasing outcome given Rio Tinto was our largest purchase in FY '25. Woodside Energy has been one of our biggest portfolio holdings for the past 2 years. We looked through the market's concerns about oil markets potentially being oversupplied heading into FY '26, recognizing the long-term value of cash flows that Woodside assets would produce in the future. This positioned us well when the war in Iran erupted, raising oil and LNG prices. That, together with renewed focus on energy security, translated into robust share price appreciation. And pleasingly, the full benefit from rising cash flows is yet to flow to our shareholders in a form of fully franked dividend yield. We also benefited from stocks we did not own in the portfolio, Commonwealth Bank and Xero. We see Commonwealth Bank as a very high-quality company that is managed exceptionally well. However, its valuation became extreme. We recently saw some normalization in valuation, which allowed us to reinitiate our position, noting we are still significantly underweight this company. Xero sold off as the market was concerned about AI disruption. These positive contributors, however, were more than offset by negative contributors, we present on the right side of the slide, and they were the key reason why our portfolio underperformed the ASX 200 Index by 4.4%. CSL has been a disappointing investment for us with the share price down 51% in FY '26. The fall reflected multiple earnings downgrades as every part of the business faced headwinds at the same time, competitive pressures in the core bearings franchise, the U.S. anti-vaccination movement weighing on secured and generic competition eroding before earnings. Abrupt CFO and CEO departures during the year compounded the derating. We continue to hold CSL, believing the current share price fails to reflect their earnings potential and their leadership position in growing markets. Cochlear and ARB also significantly underperformed during the year. Both companies face short-term cyclical issues, and we are prepared to back their management teams to navigate these headwinds, recognizing their excellent track record, net cash balance sheet and future earnings potential. And finally, EQT. It's a solid business that operates in an attractive industry. However, EQT's share price was under pressure due to AFIC action related to the failure of the First Guardian super product. We have reduced our portfolio position in the stock, recognizing the significant risk continued litigation poses for the company. Moving to Slide 16. Our main investment objective is to pay our shareholders an enhanced dividend yield. And to achieve that goal, we generate income by writing call options against select portfolio holdings. On this slide, we show the performance of the market as defined by our benchmark, the ASX 200 Index, overlaid with a top-down view of our portfolio's call option coverage. We started financial year 2026 with call option coverage of 32% at the bottom end of our normal range of 30% to 40%. We then continue to increase our portfolio's call coverage in response to the rising market until it briefly peaked at 48% in late October. The coverage then decreased with option exercises and option expiries to 34% in January before we rebuild it to 45% in February, which positioned us well for the subsequent market sell-off. In June, we saw significant option exercises across a number of our holdings, which took our portfolio coverage briefly below 30%. And we then once more rebuilt our coverage to finish the financial year with portfolio call option coverage at 35%. On Slide 17, we show our key transactions in the last 12 months. We had significant option exercises across a range of holdings, Macquarie Group, BHP, Telstra, Rio Tinto, Woolworths and Transurban. And we also exited the positions in PEXA Group and Domino's Pizza, both of which have been disappointing investments for us. During the period, we invested over $0.5 billion into the market as we saw opportunities to buy high-quality companies at attractive valuations. This included increasing our holdings in Telstra, Wesfarmers and JB Hi-Fi. We also bought back half of BHP stock that was exercised. We have also invested meaningful amounts across the major banks, NAB and ANZ given their significant share price underperformance in the year and subsequently more reasonable valuations. And we also initiated a position in Commonwealth Bank following our exit in financial year 2025 on valuation grounds. Whilst our holdings across the major banks have materially increased, we continue to be underweighted sector. We have also added 4 new stocks to the portfolio during the year, Sigma Healthcare, AUB Group, ProMedicus and TechnologyOne. We own AUB Group in the past and decided to re-enter the stock in recent months, given its significant derating. AUB is one of the leading insurance broking businesses and has a solid track record of leveraging its market-leading position to deliver strong earnings growth. Sigma, following the merger with Chemist Warehouse is one of the highest quality retailers in Australia with an attractive customer proposition. The company has a strong track record of growing earnings and significant opportunities ahead of them as they continue to roll out stores and win market share in attractive health care and beauty sectors. ProMedicus and TechnologyOne, were bought after their share prices fell sharply in February 2026. ProMedicus is the market leader in medical imagining software and TechnologyOne is a dominant software business that is used by governments and universities. Both companies have delivered very strong returns over the long term and have high-quality management teams. We were able to purchase these companies at what we consider to be attractive valuations.

Thanks, Olga. Slide 18 gives a summary of our portfolio at the end of the financial year. We show the key metrics on the left-hand side being a portfolio value of $855 million across 47 stocks, call option coverage of 35% and no put option positions. And all of that added up to a net tangible asset backing of $3.22 per Djerriwarrh share at the end of the financial year. Portfolio activity that Olga ran through has produced the top 20 holdings in the portfolio as shown here. BHP remains our largest holding, followed by Region Property Group and Telstra, both of which have been terrific for our dividend income. CBA is back in our top 20 and Macquarie now is the 20th largest holding given the significant option exercises that occurred during the year. Before we move to the question-and-answer part of the presentation, we provide some outlook comments on Slide 20. Overall, we think the Australian economy and share market have proved very resilient in the face of a number of disruptive events, especially the Trump tariffs last year and the current Middle Eastern conflict. Against this backdrop, the Australian share market looks moderately expensive to us based on current valuation metrics such as the market's forecast price-to-earnings ratio and the forecast dividend yield. Notwithstanding this, we have recently been adding to some of our positions, and that's been in companies such as BHP, ANZ, Westpac, Telstra and ResMed. As a result of that, we're well positioned for the year ahead for our dividend income and also for our option income, where we already have a good amount written for this next financial year. And finally, just a reminder that we've increased the frequency of Djerriwarrh's dividend payments from semi-annual to now quarterly dividend payments. And with that, I'll hand over to Claire, who's going to conduct the question-and-answer session.

Thanks, Brett, and thanks, everybody, for your questions. [Operator Instructions]. Andrew, this one is for you. What impact will the changes to the capital gains tax settings have on Djerri and traditional LICs more broadly?

Thank you, Claire. LICs actually require separate legislation, which treasury are aware of. So we don't know exactly how they will impact, but we are part of an industry group that will be having discussions with treasury over the coming months, and we'll inform shareholders, obviously, when that information is issued. So the original intention of the LIC legislation when it was put in was to keep shareholders in an LIC in the same position tax-wise as taxpayers who own shares directly themselves or through a trust. And this will be the starting point of our discussions. So watch this space. In the meantime, nothing has changed and the LIC gains that we're paying with the final quarterly dividend and $0.025 of that $0.0425 were LIC gains will be paid out in a normal way and shareholders will be able to claim that on their tax return for this year in the normal way. AFIC policy -- sorry, Djerri's policy has always been to pay out those LIC gains as and when they arise as indeed as AFIC.

Thank you very much. This shareholder would like to know if it's time to be more aggressive with share buybacks to close the NTA discount. Just noting that we have bought back some shares, but it's only a small amount compared to what we actually have approval to buyback.

That's correct. The Corporations Act allows us to buy back up to 10% of the share capital without having to go to shareholders. Over the year, we bought 3 million shares. So as I said, just under $9 million worth. We'll keep it under. But as I said, the buyback plan is still active, and we will do it when it makes investment sense. That's crucially. We regard buyback as part of the investment thesis for Djerri. So Brett and Olga will be looking at that as part of the normal methodology of reviewing the portfolio and whether it's the right time to do buyback.

Yes, it's a good point because how it works in practice is obviously, Olga and I work it out with -- largely with Andrew because it combines both the capital management for the finance bit and the portfolio management as well. So the share buyback provides a really good hurdle for any investing that we want to do across the portfolio, but we've got to balance up, obviously, absolute level of the market, Djerri's share price relative to the NTA and the funding that we've got.

Okay. Thank you, Andrew and Brett. And a question here just on the reporting. How are we going to publish the portfolio's forward PE?