Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks for joining us. Welcome to today's third quarter FY23 trading update. A slight change from our usual process of giving an operational briefing as we are hosting a US analyst investor tour, as you, as you're aware. Today, we'll hear from our CEO, Shemara Wikramanayake, who'll give you the update on the third quarter, and then we'll open up for questions. Thank you very much. Great. Thanks, Samuel, and good morning everyone from me as well. As usual, before I go through the results, we'll just spend a moment noting our business footprint, which, as everyone would know, comprises four operating groups in which we have deep expertise and which are all positioned well for structural growth but diversified across those four businesses. The first of those, obviously, is our Australian banking and financial services business, which is a digital banking offering in personal banking, business banking, and wealth. Still a small share of the Australian market in all those areas, so good platform for growth there. Our Global Asset Management business, which is a leader in real assets in the private markets area, but also has a meaningful footprint in public investments, and again, well-positioned across that entire capability to grow in a sector where our representation is still small. We have our Commodities and Global Markets business, where we have a strong base in commodities and financial markets that continues to grow patiently, adjacently into new regions and across new products, and also a long runway for growth. Lastly, Macquarie Capital, where we provide advisory and capital markets solutions, again, growing into many more regions but complement it, different to a lot of our peers with our principal investing capability across debt and equity. As I said, across those four businesses, very diversified underlying thematics that they're exposed to and supported by four very important and strong central services groups in Risk Management, Legal and Governance, Financial Management, and Corporate Operations. With that, turning to the most recent result for the third quarter of FY23, as I mentioned, given our diverse business footprint, there were varied conditions applying to each of our operating businesses. The net profit for the third quarter and the year to date indeed is slightly up on the FY22 year to date, which you'll recall, FY22 had a particularly strong record quarter in the third quarter. In terms of the annuity style versus market-facing businesses, the annuity style businesses were substantially down on prior comparable period, both for the third quarter and for the financial year to date in FY23. That was driven by the fact that we had strong realizations in our green energy sector assets last year, particularly in the third quarter, in the Macquarie Asset Management business. That was offset partially by continued growth in banking and financial services. In the market-facing businesses, Macquarie Capital faced more challenging market conditions and had both a lower level of realizations and lower fee and commission income. Overall, the market-facing businesses were substantially up, both on the prior comparable quarter and the prior comparable year to date, driven by the exceptionally strong results in Commodities, including in the gas and power business across all regions, with the results for the third quarter of FY23 being substantially up on the first half of FY23 results in Commodities and Global Markets. Looking in a little bit more detail at the third quarter in each of the operating groups and starting with Macquarie Asset Management, the assets under management were broadly in line with the prior comparable September 2022 amount. Sorry, broadly in line with where we finished the last quarter, with the public investments assets being down 1%, mostly driven by foreign exchange and net flows, partially offset by what happened with market movements over this last quarter. In private markets, our assets under management were up 3%, and that was mostly driven by fund investments and asset valuations. I'd note particularly there was AUD 7.4 billion of new equity raised in the last quarter, bringing the raisings in that business to about AUD 30 billion year to date this year compared to AUD 27 billion of raising for the whole of last year, which was already an increasing rate of raising for that business. AUD 5.3 billion of equity invested and the business ends the quarter with AUD 31.6 billion of equity still to deploy. The only other thing I'd note in relation to Macquarie Asset Management is that in our air finance business, we entered into an agreement for the acquisition of the ALAFCO Aircraft portfolio. Turning to banking and financial services, we had increases there in home loans up 4%, business banking up 2%, the deposits up 8%, now at AUD 125 billion, and the funds on platform also up 5%. We're seeing growth still across the BFS books, apart from the car loan portfolio that we continue to focus and streamline, but the rate of growth there has slowed. Turning to the market-facing businesses, Commodities and Global Markets, as mentioned, an exceptionally strong result in this third quarter across the commodities platform, particularly in relation to gas and power and oil in all regions. That was driven by both the trading results and physical execution and logistics, as well as risk management activity for clients and reflecting volatile market conditions that we experienced. We also had a solid contribution from our financial markets business across foreign exchange, credit, futures, equities, et cetera. We had a strong performance as well from our asset finance business driven by TMT and structured lending. Strong annuity-driven revenue continuing across that platform. Macquarie Capital, as we said, faced very different market conditions. While we had AUD 92 billion of transactions completed, the revenue there was significantly down on the prior comparable period. The investment-related income was significantly down on the prior comparable period, given the significant realizations we had in the comparable periods. The private finance credit book grew to AUD 16 billion, and we continue to invest there with AUD 1 billion deployed in that book. Turning from the businesses then to our funding and capital position. Sorry, before that, just touching on our global footprint, important to note this. Typically we've been generating about 30% each from the Americas, EMEA, and Australia over recent years, and 10% from Asia. You will have seen that the Americas contribution has continued to grow as a percent quite a bit over recent years. Given that, we will be hosting investors and analysts in the Americas in early March to have a deeper dive into our business footprint there and globally in the commodities and global markets day in Houston, in the asset management business with a day in Philadelphia, and in Macquarie Capital with a day in New York. You'll get a deeper insight into those businesses then. Now, as I said, turning to the balance sheet and capital position, our funded balance sheet remains strong with our term funding comfortably exceeding our term assets. During the period, our deposits grew 7% across Macquarie Group to AUD 130 billion, and we were also able to raise AUD five and a half billion of term funding. In terms of our capital position as well, we were AUD twelve and a half billion at the end of the first half. That has stepped up notionally to AUD 12.5 billion with the earnings of the third quarter offset by the dividends. Of course, we will have the APRA unquestionably strong reforms taking effect from the first of this year, and we're estimating an AUD 2.4 billion impact from that, which will bring our surplus down to AUD 10.1 billion. The businesses were net neutral in terms of capital absorption over this quarter with, as you can see on this slide, Macquarie Asset Management absorbing capital both into co-investments and seed assets for our core and adjacent fund strategies. BFS also continued to absorb capital in the growth of the home loan and business banking portfolio, partly offset by the vehicle leasing. In Commodities and Global Markets, we had a reduction in credit risk capital driven by market movements in commodities, but that was partially offset by increased market risk capital. In Macquarie Capital, we had growth in infrastructure investments absorbing some capital. In terms of capital management activities over the period, on the 18th of January this year, Macquarie Bank Limited issued $1 billion US of Tier 2 capital, and that's to meet APRA's loss-absorbing capital requirements. It's the ongoing response in relation to that. With that, our capital ratios remain comfortably above the Basel III minimums, as you can see here on this slide. In terms of regulatory update, nothing material that's new, but we continue to work, as you can see there, with APRA on a range of matters to continue to build the resilience of the group. That includes the unquestionably strong embedding that I mentioned earlier, the ongoing work we're doing to strengthen the voice of the bank, and the APRA review of the non-operating holding company structures. With that, let me turn to the outlook for the short term. Starting with our annuity-style businesses, there's no change really in the outlook here from the end of the first half. Where in Macquarie Asset Management, we're saying that we expect base fees to be broadly in line, given the raising and the deployment in the private markets business and the impact of recent acquisitions in public investments, which have been substantially offset by the unfavorable market movements. We also expect net other operating income to be significantly down, and that's due to the non-repeat of the Macquarie Infrastructure Company gain last financial year, partially offset by higher performance fees. We, in the Green Investment Group, expect also to the result to be significantly down, given the material gains on realization we had last financial year and that we don't expect them to recur in this FY23. Banking and financial services, as I mentioned, growth in the loan portfolio deposits and platform volumes, but market dynamics will continue to drive margins and the rate of growth we have seen slowing. Macquarie Capital, no material change there. As we said, the market conditions have meant that transaction activity we expect to be substantially down on the record year we had last financial year with market conditions weakening during FY23. Investment related income we expect to be broadly in line with last financial year, with increased revenue from the growth in the principal finance credit portfolio offset by lower revenue from asset realizations. We don't expect material realizations in the fourth quarter of 2023. As I just mentioned, we're continuing the balance sheet deployment in both debt and equity. In Commodities and Global Markets, as we said, subject to market conditions which do make forecasting difficult, the commodities income has benefited from strong trading conditions in FY23 year to date and is expected as a result to be substantially up on FY22, including the impact of timing of income recognition on gas and power and transportation and storage contracts. We also expect an increased contribution from the financial markets platform across client and trading activity and continued contribution, as I also mentioned, from asset finance. In terms of compensation ratio and effective tax rate, we expect those to be within the range of historical levels. That overall short-term outlook, of course, remains subject to a range of factors, particularly in the current environment market conditions, including global economic conditions, inflation and interest rates, significant volatility events and the impact of geopolitical events. In addition to that, the completion of period-end reviews and completion rate of transactions, the geographic composition of income and the impact of foreign exchange and potential tax or regulatory changes and uncertainties. Because of that, we continue to maintain a cautious stance with a conservative approach to capital. Still a good, strong surplus, conservative approach to funding and liquidity that should position us well to respond. Over the medium term, as we've said consistently, we think we are well positioned to deliver superior performance given, as I mentioned at the beginning, our deep expertise across a diversified range of specialist capabilities, supported by our ongoing program to identify cost saving initiatives and efficiency, ongoing technology investment across the group, strong and conservative balance sheet and our proven risk management framework. With that, I'll hand back to Samuel to take your questions. Thanks. Thanks, Shemara. We will now open up the lines for questions. I'll hand over to the operator from Chorus Call. Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. The first question comes from Andrew Triggs with JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Good morning, and thank you. A couple of questions, please, on the commodities business. Firstly, how much of the outstanding commodities performance this quarter related to risk management versus the inventory management and trading line? Yeah. Hi, Andrew. Obviously we provide that in more detail in our in our full year results, you know, as we get through to May. We haven't sort of disaggregated for purpose of this update. You know, as you know, the business is, you know, primarily a client-facing business and servicing clients through a range of products. You know, one of the things that we do obviously is make markets for clients. Disaggregating the I guess the trading component or the inventory management and trading component from the rest of the business is not something that we're doing in the third-quarter update. Plainly, as we said in the comments that Jim just made, you know, the market, the trading conditions for the business have been strong through the third quarter and were strong through the nine months. You know, we benefited from, I guess, the volatility that we've seen, you know, particularly, in recent times across the gas and power business both in the U.S. and Europe, the oil business and also, you know, in the early part of the year, obviously through FX and interest rates. You know, we will, as we usually do with the full year result, when we provide the audited financials, you know, provide a little more detail on that. That's where we are for now. Thank you. Just to follow up there, if I go back to the half, there was a maybe a tone of caution had sort of set in around the potential opportunities in this business, given markets were said to be well stocked for winter in both Europe and the U.S. Can I sort of elaborate perhaps on what changed over the quarter? Was this all driven by bottlenecks in the market or was it weather-related? Maybe just what does volatility and momentum look like heading into to Q4, please? If I could start on that and then I'll hand back to Alex. As you know, the business footprint is diversified across many regions as well as products. Europe was one factor, but North America obviously had a lot of volatility as well through this third quarter, through their winter. The CGM business today is bigger in North America than it is in Europe. North America as well is very diversified. There are multiple markets there. There's the Permian region, there's Southern California, there's the MidCon, there's the Huntington region, Pacific, et cetera. The CGM result, as mentioned in our statement here, basically was diversified across all regions. In Europe specifically, obviously TTF had risen very high during last year. Europe had a milder winter. It always did have reasonable storage coming into this winter. TTF has come off. For us, the bigger issue is volatility. As long as there's movement, that is something that benefits the CGM business. As Alex said, ultimately we're trying to patiently, adjacently grow the franchise into multiple regions and products. The result was contributed to from many, many regions, not just what happened in Europe. Thanks, Shemara. How do things look sort of heading into Q4? Very hard to predict, sadly. As we said in the results, it's subject to market conditions. As we head into Q4, ultimately the base franchise we're confident will deliver results. We can't predict things like demand. We're sporting a lot in Europe this winter, so the storage situation is better at the end of winter than we expected in Europe. It's still tight as we go into next year and next winter for Europe. North America, hard to call. There's been a short extreme weather event in the northeast happened, but that was very short term. Generally, prices are coming off and the situation is a little bit more benign at this stage. Sadly, it's very hard to call what the market conditions could be in a, in a short term. Thank you. Your next question comes from Jonathan Mott with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead. Thank you. Just following on from on the theme around the commodities business. I understand conditions were very strong and volatility is what you need to make good money in the commodities business. I was looking to feel for the direction of the price. We're seeing Henry Hub and the other benchmarks come down substantially. I think Henry Hub's down 70%-75%. Volatility is good, but when the notional value of the contract and the commodity falls, does that reduce the opportunity to make money from each trade just 'cause the notional value is lower? In a lower commodity price environment, trading opportunities and revenue opportunities should in theory be lower than they are in a higher environment. I understand volatility is great, it's an ability to make money, but just when the prices are so much lower, does that make it harder next year? Thanks, John. Maybe I'll take that one. The first point, we've obviously made this point for some time. The key driver of the business is really this growth through customer franchise. You know, the idea being that we're growing our customers, we're dealing with customers in multiple regions, we're dealing with them more often. You know, we're trying to put relevant product in front of them to help them manage their exposures. We're trying to extend capital where it makes sense to do that. We're trying to provide market access to people. You know, the real driver of the business is obviously that growing customer franchise. As we've said before, obviously, the business is also tends to be long volatility. Where the volatility exists, that generally provides good opportunities for the CGM franchise. The reason for that is to a large extent, obviously that volatility reflects an environment where our clients are wanting to manage risk more actively. That provides opportunity to actually deal with those clients, you know, on a more regular basis. We tend, as I said, we tend to be long volatility, and so as we're managing that exposure on our balance sheet, that environment tends to be better for CGM. That's really the key driver. I mean, obviously in terms of sort of absolute prices, you know, to some extent, if absolute prices are coming down and that's sort of reflecting in transaction activity, then, you know, plainly, you know, that might have an effect on how often we're dealing with clients, you know, for extending financing, for instance, on a receivables basis. If the actual price is lower, then the return you're making for the extension of that financing will obviously be, or at least the absolute dollar amount will actually be, will obviously be lower. Really the key thing I think to focus on, John, and if you look at what happened in the third quarter, you know, had, as you said, Henry Hub coming off, but you had some regional dislocation based on demand and supply in the U.S., which provided great opportunity for us to, you know, work with our clients and obviously opportunity on the trading income side for the business and the inventory management side for the business. Equally in Europe, if you look at what happened, you know, the Dutch TTF, which we've talked about before, I think was sort of a third lower if you compare it on a spot basis, you know, for 30 September versus 31 December. The price came down, but there was continued volatility and that provided opportunity for the business to actually transact and help clients manage those directional movements in price. Generally speaking, customer franchise volatility is good. Obviously, absolute dollar amounts in terms of things like extending financing, you can. When the prices are lower, the return from that extension of financing or the absolute dollar return is lower. Generally what we're looking for is transaction activity which really drives the business. Thank you. Just following on from that, just as the price came down, it was warm, people probably took the opportunity to lock in some contracts. Mm-hmm. Was there any element of pull forward where customers thought, "Hey, prices have come down, this is a great opportunity, I'm gonna lock in longer term," and therefore you had great opportunities with your customers, but effectively it was a pull forward. Do you get a feeling that that happened in the quarter to just generate such an enormous amount of money? Yeah. What we saw, I mean, obviously maybe just to sort of broaden it for a little bit and, you need to as Shemara said in her introductory comments, we saw different conditions in different parts of the world. In North America, for the sake of example, you know, what we saw particularly through the quarter was regional dislocations. You saw you know, significant dislocations between certain regions in the U.S., and that provided opportunity for us to service clients, and it provided opportunity for us on the trading and inventory management side as well. You know, in Europe, I think what we saw, you know, and we talked about this at our half year result, we actually felt that, you know, the prices through the first half of the year had obviously reached, you know, record highs. We actually felt that the gas situation in Europe was actually more benign than the market was reflecting at the time, that provided opportunities in the first half for the business to actually transact with customers. You know, as the market came off in the last quarter. You know, the business did see opportunities to work with clients to lock in prices at lower rates. Whether it was to bring forward or just, I guess, the market reacting to the circumstances they see on a daily basis, we did see quite a lot of transaction, customer activity in Europe, particularly in the third quarter. We also saw opportunities in oil, John, during the quarter, and obviously we saw some quite significant movement in oil prices as well. It really was, you know, I think the important thing about the business is it's, it is a very diverse business. You know, the conditions that are affecting one particular part of the world, you know, are often, it may be different to elsewhere. The way our transaction, our clients are actually responding to those conditions can be different in different parts of the world. Obviously, if you then look at, you know, the FX and interest rate business, really strong first half. You're starting to see some of that volatility in FX and interest rates come out. We've obviously seen that continue into, you know, into January as people know. You know, the economy's slowing down a bit. You know, there's a varied result, and I suppose the point really about the business is it is very diverse. Its ability to service customers, you know, is really about us responding to the conditions those customers are seeing in the markets in which they're operating. Shemara? Yeah, look, I imagine there'll be some questions on commodities, so I was just going to say it's fair enough to ask questions about TTF and Henry Hub. As I was mentioning at the beginning, what the teams have been doing is spending decades building deep, deep expertise in many, many submarkets. What can be pertinent is things like the variance in that submarket to Henry Hub at a point, for example, where the team will have, through, supporting clients and customers and producers, deep insight on the demand curves, the supply side, the infrastructure constraints in pipelines, in storage, et cetera. Be able, through that, not just in client service but in trading as well, to have asymmetric risk-taking. That's what really matters, is in a deep submarket, how all these factors are playing out. I was also gonna say Nick O'Kane's on the phone. I don't know, Nick, if you want to make any comment at this point or whether it's covered for now. You'll get opportunity in March, everyone, to speak to Nick much more deeply. Nick, anything you'd like- Yeah, look. Thanks, Shemara and Alex. I think you covered it very well. You the point you were making, Shemara, around managing the flow of commodities throughout the network is an important one. That's one of the things which we do to help service our clients. Certainly, that was something that impacted the results through the third quarter as well as some of those macro events that we discussed in terms of the benchmark gas prices in Europe and North America. Thank you. Your next question comes from Matthew Dunger with Bank of America. Please go ahead. Yes, thank you very much for taking my question. Just on the CGM business again, and in the context of the reduction in credit risk-weighted assets you saw, you talked to on slide 13. How are you thinking about deploying balance sheet in CGM, and how quickly can you organically expand across these geographies and customers you've just mentioned, to maintain revenue momentum into FY 2024? Thanks for those questions, Matthew. In terms of deploying capital for CGM, you've seen we're sitting with a huge amount of surplus capital. We are comfortable to do that because, you know, the environment is uncertain, and it's a good time, we think, to have surplus capital. We're managing to more than deliver our targeted mid-teens returns while holding that large, double-digit surplus capital amount in billions. The CGM business, the capital drawdown can be quite short, and so we need to have the capital available to be accessed quickly and then potentially for short periods. As we mentioned during last year, we had a lot of credit risk capital drawn down for derivative positions we had supporting clients, hedging their exposures, European utilities particularly. Given what was going on with TTF rising, the credit risk capital, the exposure to those clients went up. That came off. In the winter in North America, we had to draw down market risk capital quite quickly. You can see by the end of the quarter that has moderated quite a lot. We're wanting to be available with a lot of capital to support CGM as needed. In terms of how fast we can grow the client franchise, it's taken decades to build the deep expertise that we have. Once we actually have the technical knowledge, taking it into adjacent markets, is a matter of just getting familiar with what's going on in that market. The key drivers hopefully are better known to us. Our growth, say, in gas and power from North America into Europe, while it took potentially two decades in North America, and Europe has grown much faster, say, over the last five years. We're now growing into Asia, and the growth rate, I certainly feel in the position I sit is, happening a lot quicker as we bring expertise and contacts and relationships from North America, Europe into what we're doing in Asia. Again, I might let Nick O'Kane comment, Nick, on that second point in terms of building the base and what it means, not just for FY24, but we look beyond that. We're trying to build medium-term, resilient franchises based on deep, deep expertise and insight. Nick, any comments on the speed of growth? Yeah. Thanks, Shemara, and thanks, Matthew. I think the way you've described it is right, Shemara. We're very deliberate in terms of the way that we grow into adjacent spaces and into areas that we see client needs. What we've seen over the course of the last few trading periods is the impact of work that's been put in over a number of years and indeed decades, if we think about how we built the business over that time. The way I tend to reflect on it is the absolute size of the markets that we're operating in, we're still relatively a small participant. Certainly in some markets we're larger than others. If we think about our involvement in things like some of the resources markets and some of the oil markets, there's tremendous opportunity for us to continue to grow. There's tremendous opportunity for us to continue to leverage a strong position that we have in Europe, and a building position that we have across Asia. From our perspective, we still think there is opportunity for us to grow patiently and into adjacent spaces. Then, of course, as we help our clients transition, we think there's enormous opportunity to continue to grow from that perspective. We're quite, we're quite optimistic about the medium term given the position that's been built over the last few years. That's a good point, Nick. I think as I mentioned at the beginning, for all four of our operating groups, not just the deep expertise, but small is beautiful. They're, you know, all four of them have a long runway over the medium term to keep growing and very much a case in CGM as well. That's great. Thank you very much for that. Just, at the first half, you talked to some FY24 asset realization, Shemara, in MAM and MacCap. Is there any update you can give today on those, understanding that they might take some time? At this stage, not. The realizations are really driven by when we can get the best return for either our balance sheet or our fiduciary investors from the particular asset. We don't force or rush realizations. It depends on the maturity of the asset and the environment for exit. Nothing further, Alex, anything from you? Nothing from me, Shem. Thanks. Your next question comes from Andrei Stadnik with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Andrei Stadnik, your line is now live. Please proceed with your question. Good morning. Yeah, just wanted to ask two questions, please. First, I just wanted to ask around Macquarie Asset Management in the private markets side. What are you seeing in terms of the appetite, you know, for new fundraisings? It's like a seven and a half billion in the quarter, was certainly quite strong, but a bit slow on the run rate from the earlier first half, and some of your peers have also reported, you know, some slowing appetite there. What are you seeing in terms of the conversations with investors for private markets raising? Yeah, Andrei, fair question. Basically, we're seeing the market be a lot tougher generally from stats we see externally. For our own funds, we're not seeing issues, happily. We're seeing good support. All of the funds we're raising at the moment are still closing at their hard cap oversubscribed. We've had the seventh in our series of European funds, MEIF7 raising, and MIP VI, the sixth in our North American funds in infrastructure are raising now. MEIF7 closed at hard cap oversubscribed. The reason this quarter may be a bit slower is we had MEIF7 do two large first quarter large raisings happen. It's now closed. MIP VI is taking off. It's driven for us a lot by the timing of what may be raising in a particular quarter. Also, large co-investments that are coming into projects, et cetera. We in Macquarie Asset Management are not seeing challenges in raising money, and that's across, you know, private credit, agriculture. Real estate's a sector we've seen a bit going on, but we're still managing to raise well. AUD 30 billion year to date is a better run rate than last year's AUD 27 billion for the full year. We're seeing reasonable demand, even though, as we say, we're conscious that in the sector, people are pulling back from liquid strategies at the moment. Happily for their key managers, of which hopefully we're one, we're continuing to see good demand and re-upping plus new investors. Thank you. My second question, I wanted to ask just around, you know, M&A activity. You know, globally it's been, you know, quite subdued for maybe half a year now. When do you think it will, you know, improve? Could it be different in terms of different industry segments? I mean, noting, for example, that MEIF4 sold an Open Grid stake, which is gas-related. What are you thinking about M&A activity recovering? Will it be different by different segments? Yeah. If we're talking about it in the Macquarie Asset Management context, for now rather than Macquarie Capital. Macquarie Asset Management, when we raise funds, typically has a four-year investment period to deploy the funds. If there's a market cycle playing out at the time, one either that's very conducive for getting well invested or one that's challenging, we'll time our investments around that. In this environment, usually when we raise a new fund as well, we'll have quite a pipeline of investment opportunities we'll have been looking at. You might have seen in Italy news coverage of things that have been going for a while or other parts of Europe. Usually we'll be pacing ourselves and looking for the investment opportunity. In environments like this where M&A activity is down, usually it means investment opportunities could become better. Is Ben Way on the line? If he is, I might let him add any comments. Sam, we have Ben online, do we? Should be. Okay. Ben, if you're there, anything you wanna add on investing in M&A? No, I think that's a good way to describe it, Shemara. I think the answer is, I think everyone knows that the markets have slowed down. Therefore, you know, we do expect deployment versus, say, the last couple of years to be slightly to take slightly longer. I think that's because people are cautious. I would say that, as we head into sort of the next quarter, I think we're starting to see some more deal activity in the marketplace. I think that's the first thing. You know, I think we find ourselves in a good position, and you can see how the strong fundraising we've had over, you know, sort of the last, you know, third quarters have put us in a good position in terms of having, you know, capital deployed when, you know, opportunities start to present themselves. I think Shemara made the other point, which is, you know, our funds have, you know, have, you know, really look to realize over the medium to long term. We're not in a rush and we'll wait for the right market conditions. You know, our teams remain busy with investment activities, but we're also just making sure that we understand, you know, where the appropriate assets are pricing, and to make sure that, you know, we make prudent investments over the medium term. Ben, I was just gonna briefly say in relation to Open Grid, that's not really a message in relation to MAM's view on gas. That's an asset that's been held now for a long period and has reached maturity. We bought that in a consortium with three other investors, and we had a quarter of the equity in that. That's why the realization will be happening. MAM has made a very strong commitment to net zero and transitioning in terms of climate response, and we'll take that into account in looking at investments. I'd say today, areas like digital infrastructure, an area where MAM is investing a lot, the Green Investment Group has moved across, we will be investing in assets in relation to climate response in energy, transportation, et cetera. Open Grid isn't really a message on gas. I think the Net Zero Statement speaks more to MAM's view on energy investment generally. Maybe just one thing from me, Shemara. I mean, Andrei, I think the... we talked about the half year. I mean, obviously what has happened, you had a dramatic change in the interest rate environment. From a macro perspective, what typically happens, you know, is a reasonably wider bid, you know, ask. That's sort of playing through, I think, across sectors more generally. In terms of the things that, you know, we would look forward to, you know, at a macro level, I think it's more stabilization in the interest rate, you know, cycle, bringing back the debt markets in a more, you know, efficient way or effective way. I suspect it'll be a good indication of a pickup more generally in the M&A markets. As Shemara said, I think the defensive sectors, you know, tend to come back first. You know, we will I suspect that'll play out. It'll still take some time just given where interest rates interest rate cycle is at the moment, would be my guess. Thanks so much. Your next question comes from Brian Johnson with Jefferies. Please go ahead. Good morning, congratulations on what obviously is a great result based on the share market performance. Just a few questions, if I may. The first one is, on slide 13, we can see in Commodities and Global Markets that over the quarter, the credit risk actually went down, and that was offset by the increased market risk. I apologize, I know that you've addressed this a number of times. Over the quarter, there was a lot of concern about basically, margin pressures that we could see in a lot of the European energy exchanges. Could you just reiterate how the credit and market risk works in the Commodities and Global Markets business as far as the capital consumption? Do you want me to do that, Shemara? Sure. Yeah. Hi, Brian. Yeah, Basically, the credit capital, a lot of that credit capital is related to our European business. We obviously talked about this at the half year results. You have very elevated, you know, gas and power prices across Europe. Obviously, we provide risk management solutions to our clients to help them manage that risk. We manage our market risk by off-laying our exposures into exchange-traded markets. At those elevated prices, you're seeing more capital usage and seeing more funding usage. Obviously, what we saw, across the quarter is you saw the gas and power prices in Europe, where we're seeing elevated levels in September. Those gas and power prices came down. You obviously had some maturing of contracts as well. The combination of the maturing of contracts and the prices actually coming down, you'll see that reflected in the credit capital. On the other side of that, obviously from a balance sheet viewpoint, we need less funding to support our hedge position to manage the risk on our own balance sheet. That's what's going on on the credit capital side. You know, the other thing we've said before, Brian, as you know, is that market risk tends to be a bit more exposure to market risk. We're actually taking, you know, risk on market prices, you know, basis risk and so forth. We tend to take more of that market risk, you know, historically in the US business where we've been in the markets for longer, you know, deeper expertise, obviously, or longer expertise in deeper, more liquid markets. Over the course of the half, what we saw is a step up in volatility, particularly in some of those markets in the U.S., and that reflects in additional market risk capital. That's really what happened over the course of the quarter. Just the next one, if I may. If we have a look at slide 15, we can see that the CLF, the liquidity coverage ratio, excluding the CLF, has grown over the quarter from about 175% - 203%. Yeah. When we have a look at basically the slide, talking about how much term funding, I think from memory you've raised about another AUD 5 billion. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We can see that you've got a very strong surplus capital position, and you're now able to tell us, basically what the Is the capital position and the liquidity position either it's telling us... It seems that your position for some kind of opportunities that may well present themselves. Could you give us a feeling what might actually interest you in that space, whether it's acquisitions or whatever? Could we just get a feeling about what this super strong balance sheet is for? Thanks, Brian, for that question. We, as you know, are in a very uncertain environment at the moment in terms of the macroeconomic backdrop. There's been some slowing in inflation and interpretation that central banks may slow rate increases. Just in the last 24 hours, some perspective that that doesn't necessarily mean we've won the battle against inflation. We've also got a lot of volatility going on in terms of energy markets at the moment, not just with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but the entire climate transition going on. We're seeing a lot of dislocation potentially happening. In that sort of environment, it behooves us to have capital in case there may be acquisitions, for example, in the asset manager, in a Delaware-like opportunity in terms of the correction that happened when we invested in that business. CGM, as we've seen, may need to draw capital for short periods, and meaningful amounts of capital. That's another place where capital could be drawn. BFS, who knows? Again, you know, there's activity going on in its sector. We have very good organic growth. It doesn't mean we wouldn't look at opportunities if they came up. Macquarie Capital obviously is continuing to deploy balance sheet into private credit and across equity in the four areas we invest in, which is the tech area, the growth area, the infrastructure and energy area, and then alongside our principal finance credit investment team. We always sit with some level of surplus capital. Probably at this point of the cycle, we have a particularly large level of surplus capital. As I said earlier, while we're still delivering a mid-teens return, we think it behoves us in the sort of environment we're in at the moment to be sitting with this capital to support our businesses if they find opportunity to put it to work. It is very much led by each of our four operating groups and the deep expertise they have that they will be coming to us saying where they see opportunity. At the moment, we think it behoves us to be positioned ready to back them if they find things. Maybe just, Shemara, on the liquidity piece, Brian. You obviously get quite a bit of variability in that liquidity coverage ratio. You know, plainly, you've got, you know, some debt might be maturing in a 30-day period that falls into the second quarter, that's not falling into the third quarter. There is a bit of variability in that LCR. One of the things we've been really deliberate about, I think, is getting in front of the task of raising funding to refinance. Obviously, the CLF's coming off as you said, but you've also got the TFF coming off as well over the course of the next 12 months or 14 months or so. We've been really deliberate, I think, and very clear that we're raising deposits ahead of that time. We've raised funding ahead of that time to make sure that, you know, from a liquidity viewpoint, we're really strongly positioned as well. You know, I think, Shemara's obviously covered the capital point really well. The next one, if I may, Alex, is the market tends to get very excited about performance fees, but it strikes me the way that you account for them is far more conservative than the peers. Most of the earnings actually come from the base fees, which are driven not by the EUM, but by the deployed EUM. Mm-hmm. What we can see is bond rates basically gapping up. Can you just give us a quick thoughts on what these rising bond rates mean for the deployment of that dry powder? Well, I. Ultimately what will drive the base fees higher. Yeah. I mean, it might make sense for me to hand to Ben in a second. The one thing I would say just to characterize it, I mean, I think your observation around the base fees, Brian, is a really good one. Obviously, what Ben and the team have been doing is growing the assets under management and the equity under management. Those base fees coming through is obviously, you know, a key part of the overall business. You know, I would say performance fees, obviously there is some variability period on period. One of the key drivers, and just to sort of I guess, make the distinction, I'm sure Ben will pick it up in a bit more detail. One of the things that I think we've done over a long period of time is actually driven the underlying performance of the assets. It's not just a cost of capital exercise that's happening. It's actually expertise that Ben and the team have to improve the performance of the assets over the medium term. Plainly, you know, weighted average cost of capital from an exit or an entry point of view plays a role. Really, the team spends a lot of time thinking about how you actually enhance the performance and deliver better services to the communities in which they operate. Maybe I'll just hand over to Ben to add a bit more on the deployment and anything else he thinks that is relevant to that. Thanks, Ben. Yeah. Thanks, Alex. Brian, I mean, I think Alex has done a, you know, a really terrific job there at, you know, kind of giving you the answer in short. You know, I think the key point is, I think as we've already mentioned on the call today, is that, you know, while since we've had a change in interest rates, you know, I think people have been cautious to think about what are the right returns to be deploying that capital at. We've had, you know, very good success in raising capital. As Shemara said, you know, we're at a much better run rate this year than we were last year. The third quarter of last year was a record fundraising period for us. You know, we continue to see really good strong support for our private markets businesses. You know, most of our clients are underallocated to private markets in terms of their portfolio, so that appetite continues to be strong. You're right. We only, you know, we get fees, you know, on deployed capital, and so when there is some volatility in the markets or the markets are being a bit more cautious, that can slow down our deployment, and therefore you will see that in terms of, they're coming through in terms of our, you know, our base fees. I think, yeah, we think we're in a very good position. We've been building the franchise well. As Shemara said, you know, we don't try to be all things to all people. We have real expertise around infrastructure, around green investing, around agriculture, around opportunistic real estate, around private credit infrastructure, and we're continuing to see good opportunity sets there. I think that's where this point of expertise and experience does come into play. We've never been one to sort of just participate purely in, you know, cost of capital shootouts. We actually have, you know, deep networks around the world in the areas of where we have real expertise, and that allows us to surface opportunities, you know, often in a bilateral in a bilateral fashion. That's because, you know, people can trust us in terms of being able to own and run those investments responsibly. It's because they know we can execute well, but it's also that they know that, you know, we will bring an edge to those investments, which is more than just capital itself. I think that puts us in good stead. As I said before, we might be in a period where people are being slightly more cautious, but, you know, we continue to be busy and continue to find opportunities and, you know, think that we'll continue to deploy capital over, you know, the medium to, you know, in a responsible but steady fashion. The only thing I'd add to those very good points from Ben and Alex are that we, MAM doesn't feel from us or, yeah, by itself any rush to deploy capital. Ultimately what we need to do is get the capital really well invested so that we continue to drive superior track record and continue to maintain the trust and support of investors. If the deployment gets delayed a year, that might have implication on base fees, but on AUD 30 billion of deployment, if it's delayed a year, it's not gonna have huge impact on MAM's long-term results compared to getting the money really well invested in a disciplined, patient way is the only thing I'd add. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Shemara, and congratulations. Thanks, Brian. Your next question comes from John Storey with UBS. Please go ahead. Hey, Shemara, thanks so much for the time. Just coming back to the commodities business again. I mean, obviously it's been growing incredibly strongly over the last few years. It's become a big part of the group and, you know, certainly over the last two years you've been able to show the market the sustainability of this performance. I just wanted to ask, I mean, is it ever anything that comes up in terms of board discussions around seeing the commodities business actually as a standalone, kind of listed entity, right? Just thinking about some of the constraints and the disadvantages for the commodities business sitting out of a financial services group. You know, could it be a separately listed business? It could ultimately, in my view, be much bigger if it was. Just be interested to get your thoughts on that. Sure. Look, we think we get at Macquarie Group very good value out of the commodities business in terms of the diversification we have, and the overall footprint because, you know, we have annuity style earnings. The commodities business, as we said, is market facing. It benefits from the annuity offset of some of the other businesses we have. I think also in terms of the structure of how we support that business, the vast majority of it today sits in Macquarie Bank Limited, and we find that very helpful for a commodities business because you need to access large amounts of funding as well as capital to run the commodities business. Our banking license gives us good standing with credit counterparts to access large amounts of funding for that business. Also it allows us, in terms of capital deployment, if we have spare capital to make it available for CGM over short term, other times to deploy it elsewhere. As we sit today, I think, in terms of discussion at management and at the board, we are very happy with the mix of businesses. We have the diversification and our ability to support them. I certainly haven't seen our commodities business at this point constrained in its patient adjacent growth, given that it sits within Macquarie Group Limited. If that point came, then we would discuss how else we could support it. I think the commodities business benefits from sitting inside Macquarie Group more broadly, whatever the structure, from a diversification and access to funding and support it gets. Equally, Macquarie Group benefits from the diversification of having the commodities business there. As we sit today, I think we are very comfortable with the mix of businesses we have, and I think each of the businesses also feels comfortable enough that none of them certainly have approached us saying we should look at restructuring. We certainly see. Great. That's all right. an ongoing runway with what we have. Thanks, John. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Samuel Dobson. Great. Well, thank you again. Thank you for your interest, as always, and we look forward to catching up with you either over the next few weeks or in person in the U.S. Thank you very much.