Hello and welcome. Thank you to everyone for joining us today for the WAM Leaders interim results webinar. My name is Bridget Philander, and today I'm joined by WAM Leaders lead portfolio manager Matthew Haupt and portfolio manager John Ayoub. Before we begin, a quick disclaimer is displayed for you on the screen. As always, what we discuss today is general in nature and is not financial advice. To start, I'll first give you an update on the half-year results, and then I'll be passing over to Matt and John, who will be touching on the investment themes and reporting season insights. We look forward to taking your questions towards the latter part of the webinar. To kick off with investment portfolio performance, since inception, the WAM Leaders team have achieved an 11.8% per annum performance, outperforming the S&P/ASX 200 accumulation index by 2.7% per annum. In the six months to December 31, 2024, the portfolio increased 3.3%. This has allowed the board to increase the fully franked interim dividend again to AUD 0.047 per share. This represents a 7.4% annualized interim dividend yield on yesterday's closing share price. This is well in excess of the yield on the ASX 200 index. The investment portfolio's performance contributed to a significant increase in the company's operating profit. The profits reserve was AUD 0.295 per share at February 28, 2025. This is before the payment of the fully franked interim dividend of AUD 0.047 per share. On that note, I will pass to Matt, who will provide a market update and touch on the portfolio in more detail. Thanks, Matt. Thanks, Bridget, and thanks for everyone for joining us today on a Friday afternoon. We thought probably the most constructive way to do this is opening up for Q&A as well earlier so we can get through a lot of the questions. I'll keep the market overview brief, but probably we'll talk about reporting season first and foremost. What we saw there was incredibly volatile periods. Companies which were holding guidance were moving plus or minus 10%. It was incredible to see the volatility. That probably speaks to the volumes around where we are in the market cycle at the moment. What we're seeing, probably in the last three to four weeks, is huge global uncertainty, and this is not great for risk assets. We're seeing an unwinding of the momentum trades, which we saw for the last six to nine months, which resulted in a huge drift away from fundamentals. What happens is, in these moments, we all have fundamental valuations in the market. We all think stocks are worth a certain amount. Global flows have been dominating fundamentals for about six to nine months, particularly in Australia, and arguably in the U.S. These markets were seen as very, very safe and a great place to put money to work. We're seeing now is a huge unwind of those trades, which the WAM Leaders portfolio will benefit from that, and we're starting to see that already as this flow of money starts to unwind from these extreme valuations we're seeing across these momentum names. That's probably the biggest thing to highlight, the change from momentum to what we call anti-momentum, so stocks that haven't been following the trend. We're seeing that change now and a few catalysts why. It's really around uncertainty. Obviously, Trump getting in was a big positive event for stocks as the market thought regulation would come out of the market. You'd have a supportive tax environment. What we're seeing is a huge amount of uncertainty. Uncertainty around companies being able to invest, where to trade, what trading partners, how your supply chains work. All this uncertainty has created an air pocket in global growth, which we're starting to see now, and that's why we talked to companies during reporting season. A large amount of our time was spent discussing the impact on potential tariffs and the lack of confidence. All the companies we spoke to said their clients are feeling it, the uncertainty. They don't know how the environment or the framework will look. You're seeing this confidence come out of the market. Global uncertainty is incredibly high and increasing, and that has impacted the momentum trades, which we touched on there. I guess the other big thing to talk about is around the geopolitical environment. We're seeing now the huge impact on Europe. The Europe fiscal position has changed. The European governments are spending a lot of money, and we're seeing this in Germany of late. The impact it has for us in investing in Australia and in equity markets is the term premium is going up. That is the extra amount you have to pay over interest rates amounts to compensate you for the increased supply. What we're going to see this year is higher term premium, which is not great for risk assets. Again, where we're positioned, and to be honest, we've been a little bit early on that, on not being in the momentum trade, but the market's come back to us and come back to us very aggressively in how we've been positioned. It's actually a very pleasing development for us to see this volatility and the extremes come out of the market. As I said, the extremes are still there. We've only seen a small unwind of the extreme valuation. Our favorite stock and probably every stock, well, every person talks about is Commonwealth Bank. Again, great company, great management, terrific business. Valuation is extreme, and when we do our fundamental analysis on it, we think the stock is worth around AUD 80. It's trading at AUD 150 odd. You can see the extremes the market has pushed in that momentum direction, and we're starting to see the cracks. As we speak today, I think Commonwealth Bank was down about 3.5%, 4%. What we've been talking about is happening as we speak, and it has got a significant amount to play out if this uncertainty continues. If we switch to the next slide, if you're following the slide, we did touch on Australian banks and the crowded nature and them being very expensive. Generally, we've got a rule, with an Australian bank, we look at banks on a price to book, and you'd hope to buy them. It becomes on paying 1.2x, 1.4x book value for a bank, traditionally, in a normal cycle. When you're paying over 3x book, no matter what the quality, it really doesn't make sense, from our perspective, to be investing in the company on such extreme valuations. Again, this chart, if you're following the slide pack on slide eight, is just showing you that we are at extremes, but there is actually a long way to go if the trends we're seeing in the market keep developing, and we think they will. Because we're not going to get an easing of the uncertainty in the short term because Trump is on a very fast pace to get it done quickly this year, so we think the relief is likely later in the year. The other way we look at it is around credit spreads. Credit spreads indicate the amount of stress in the system. What we're trying to show here is the credit spreads are extremely low still. Generally, this is good for risk assets. What we're seeing now is credit spreads are starting to increase. Again, at the edges, it's showing signs that risk assets should be under a bit of pressure going forward based on that extreme valuation. The benefit for us is the areas we've positioned the portfolio haven't been caught up in these extreme valuations, and we're seeing that now. Even a big drawdown market, some of the positions we've been holding for a long period of time are actually going up. This trend, if it continues, and we have every belief that it will continue, puts us in really good stead for the remainder of the year. On that, given that we want to keep it short and open up for Q&A shortly, I'll hand over to John, who can talk through some of the portfolio too. Thank you. Thanks, Matt, and thanks everyone for dialing in on a Friday afternoon. Just to echo a couple of Matt's comments, just to understand where we are right now. In the past, we've talked about inflection points. We always try to identify inflection points in markets. That's where we typically capitalize on a performance standpoint. We are seeing an inflection point right now. Markets are going through a change of the phase in the market cycle. What we've gone from, an easy momentum story where global fund managers, hedge funds, were all exposed in the same directional trade, highly leveraged positions in these markets that we're seeing unwind today, which led to these extreme valuations in the U.S. stock market and pockets of the Australian stock market. That concentration that we've spoken about previously again is what we're seeing unwind. Some of the names that we'll call out and identify, not only is it CBA and the rest of the banks, it's names like Macquarie Bank, Wesfarmers, JB Hi-Fi, Pro Medicus, Xero, Goodman Group, Aristocrat. These are the bellwethers, the highest quality names in the Australian market, but they reached extreme valuation. This pullback, for us, we need to decide, is this an opportunity to get back into some of these names, which we will do selectively. Equally, we need to work out where they could potentially go to, and particularly the banks as Matt commented earlier. Given this is a new phase in the market, we're welcoming that because this is an inflection point that we have waited for. We're moving back to fundamentals. Valuation, again, like how Matt said, will matter again. Those easy directional trades we feel are over. The other concept is that for a long time, the investable universe of global investors was pretty much limited to tech and high-quality certainty where they can get the leverage. China's almost reopened as an investable universe, the rest of Asia, Europe, and the U.K. What we'll start to see is the flow of money moving away from these concentrated names in Australia and the U.S. and diversify. What we need to recognize is it could be a painful period in the market. We could go through some serious volatility as we are seeing this week, and this could be extended for a period of time. Where we get comfort from a portfolio level, and as Bridget has flipped over to our top holdings, we're not overly exposed to these positions. We are really excited by some of the positions that we have, I would identify things like IAG and CSL and Challenger, where they've been through tough periods of time, we feel like they're going to come out the other side stronger and better for it. The names that we really like that have some momentum, we think that momentum in earnings will carry on are the names like a2 Milk's, Orica, Telstra, APA, and Amcor. These are the bedrock of the portfolio. We think these are very defensive positions that have earnings momentum, that should continue to rerate in this environment actually put us in stead through the next phase. As we consider the rest of the market, we need to look at reporting season. The volatility has thrown up a bunch of opportunities. What we do is try to identify those that produce really good quality results that may have been sold off in this volatility. Those names are like SEEK, ResMed. I called out CSL, James Hardie, and even NEXTDC to the next level down. These are the names that we're starting to gravitate to. Then there are names that are a little bit more challenged that require a little bit more effort to actually see those returns that we think we will see over the next one to two years. Those names, and a bit more controversial, would be things like WiseTech and Mineral Resources, Ramsay Health Care, and Coles and Woolworths, but they have their own dynamics at the moment. What we're really excited about is the opportunities that we're seeing today, not just those momentum names that are unwinding that we may have an opportunity to get back into over the next month or two, but the good quality names that reported in the last reporting season, which can be the bedrock of the portfolio for the next 12 to 24 months. I think we'll leave it there for my opening statement. Hand it back to Bridget now to just to throw it open to questions. Great. Thanks, John and Matt. We'll start with the questions that were pre-submitted before the call. The first one is on your view on interest rates. You've touched on this briefly in the market update, yeah, can you please provide your overview on interest rates and inflation? Sure, thanks, Chris, for the question. Interest rates, RBA has done one cut so far, have basically jawboned the market trying to say, "We're not going to do any more." We think they will this year. Again, we're not too far away from where the market is. We think there'll be another two cuts this year. Again, we've touched on it a few times, we're in a very dynamic market at the moment, so if global growth did deteriorate, we could see three or four this year. I think best case, another one or two to get to the two or three this year, is probably your best case scenario for the RBA. Fantastic. The next question's from Peter. What is your view on gold exposure at the moment? Yeah, we've obviously flexed gold in the past quite a few times. Gold for us at the moment, we're finding it quite hard to make a bull case for gold. It's obviously running incredibly well, the spot price. Again, if global growth does slow and we get a question mark around what central banks are going to do, we'll certainly look at it again. At the moment it's really hard to make a bull case for gold. We do own a little bit in the portfolio, but we're talking very marginal amounts. It's really, really hard to make a bull case from here. What would get it higher is, like I said, a global growth scare where you'll get a pivot back. The ultimate thing for gold would be a QE environment. From here, it's done a lot of work and it's been a good trade. Yeah, it's just really hard to make a huge upside case from here. The only comment I'll add, Peter, is that we do expect to see more consolidation in the small to mid end of the gold explorer and early stage developer phase. We did own De Grey before Northern Star launched a bid for that, and we expect that sort of size company to either consolidate to get itself up the market cap. Think things like Capricorn or Vault, we expect there'll be more consolidation in that end of the market. The upper end of the market, Newmont's been left behind. I think our biggest weighting in the gold sector is Newmont now. As they continue to divest, we think what they may potentially do is buy up to 10% of their company back as they divest those assets. There's an individual story behind that one, but from a portfolio perspective, we are underweight. Great. Next question's from Ian. He says, "WAM Leaders has a small position in Dexus and Mirvac, but 9.6% in real estate. What other property or REITs does WAM Leaders like? Thanks, Ian, for the question. One of the bright sparks out of reporting season was the real estate space. We started to see a little bit more buoyancy, a little more enthusiasm in particular from some green shoots emerging, in particular around the office sector. With a lot of the global edicts, if you've seen Jamie Dimon's comments, the CEO of JPMorgan, if you haven't seen him, I encourage you to google it. Donald Trump's edicts, a lot of government policies of return to office four to five days a week, that's led to a dramatic change in sentiment towards the office space, and the biggest beneficiaries in the Australian market are Dexus, Mirvac and GPT. No surprise, all three of those feature in our top 20. I'll correct you slightly, they aren't small positions there. Those three are around about 2%- 3% each, so they are significant holdings in the portfolio, between Dexus, Mirvac, GPT, an underweight in Goodman Group, which was a tactical opportunity in the raising, which we've subsequently traded out most of that. SCG, Scentre Group, I should say, we've reduced their weighting in that. Our primary holdings in real estate are Dexus, Mirvac and GPT, and that is really around the evolution, the changes in the office sector, and particularly around improvements in residential, which should be coming over the next two years as rate cuts start to take hold. Great. We'll stay with Ian because he's actually asked a few questions in a row. His other question is on the NAB results, wondering if you could share a comment on that. He also noticed that Westpac didn't make your top 20. How come? Sure. Yeah, the NAB result was a little bit. The disclosure wasn't great. Like normally a bank will give you, like ANZ is a good example. Didn't have a great result, they explained it. NAB generally just put the notice out there. They don't give you the information to unpick it. It actually wasn't as bad as the market interpreted it as. They didn't do themselves any favors by their disclosure. What we think will happen is when we get the half year or the full year results, we'll get more information. They'll actually walk through all the moving parts. They didn't do themselves any favor. NAB was a very much loved holding on the institutional level. That uncertainty destroyed the share price. I think it's probably overdone. On Westpac, we're just a bit concerned around the risk. obviously new CEO coming in. There's still a lot of legacy IT issues to work their way through. Also, there's been some senior leadership changes, which we got an update today. Board member changes. It's on the screen, definitely on the screen. We're watching it. We just can't get the confidence yet. We still think there's potentially another IT write-down potential. Again, it just feels a bit hard in this environment. Great. He's also keen to hear thoughts on South32, and you're holding in Treasury Wine Estates too. Ian's going for all the greatest hits here. First of all, I'll take the latter first. On Treasury, as you can see in the updates, no longer in our top 20 holdings post the result. If I categorize the result in two parts, firstly, the strength and the success of the rebound in volumes of Penfolds and the Penfolds brand in China shown through in the result in mid-Feb. That was the main driver of a positive outcome for the company. What we were struggling with is the continued erosion of the commercial and U.S. volumes, and we think that the negatives will remain for the next three to six months. We still have a holding in the portfolio of around 1%. We still really love the Penfolds brand and the value proposition from an investment standpoint it does provide. There's a lot of water passed under the bridge from the other parts of the business, and we got a little bit concerned. A little side note, where a bigger part of our time is now spent on index inclusions and deletions. If anyone wants to go through the permutations around that, call me separately. At the moment, the MSCI ETF and the FTSE ETF and the S&P ETFs have much bigger impacts when stocks get included or deleted from those indices. Where we see TWE, it's right on the precipice of potentially being deleted from an index, and we're slightly concerned about our positioning. As we've always said, we look at macro, we look at the stock selection fundamentals, and we also look at flow and sentiment. Flow and sentiment right now for Treasury has some significant headwinds. It's something we'd love to get back in again at the right time because we think that Penfolds brand in particular is undervalued. There are some headwinds that we are concerned with. Around South32, they've been through a really tough period from a regulatory standpoint. They've got some clear air now, and so we're optimistic around their performance going forward. In Worsley, WA, where there were some environmental concerns, that's now been eliminated. Their assets in the U.S., which is where a lot of their capital spend will be going over the next year or two, they are protected and are promoted under the new Trump regime, so we're positive around that. We just reduced that down to 2%. It's still in the top 20 holdings. We still like it. We still think it's very cheap. We think just positive outcomes should emerge over the next year. Just to add to that, they had a great result because of the alumina price run-up last year. We increased the weight. I think we got up to three- Yeah three and a half% of the fund, as the alumina price was running up for the issues in Guinea. They had a great result. Huge. They delivered a lot of cash and again, buying back shares, so in a very good position. Great. We'll go to Spark New Zealand now. We've had a few questions on that from shareholders. Could you explain your view on Spark New Zealand, and are you still invested after the result? Yeah, we're still invested in Spark. It obviously had a terrible result. Surprise to the downside on earnings, again, this really reminds us of what happened at Telstra about 12 months ago. The enterprise division of Spark is essentially government contracts, and New Zealand's been in recession for about two years, and the government effectively stopped spending. They had a huge hole in the enterprise with a fixed cost base, and they've been caught out. Now they're reducing the cost base within that business, so they're taking out, I think it's almost AUD 120 million out of that, and you'll get the benefits flowing through. It's exactly what happened with Telstra on their enterprise business. Spark just got hit later and now are going through their response period. The core business of Spark is actually pretty good. What people are concerned about is they've been doing data center roll-outs and the ability to pay dividends. But again, we think within the next three to six months, we're going to have an outcome on the data centers, and they'll be able to release a lot of capital. So it's a function of the environment they're operating in rather than a business in decline. It's a high-quality business with margins higher than Telstra, dominant position in the New Zealand market. So it's really just a timing issue at the moment with costs. Again, but it probably surprised, well, it did surprise to the downside. But they have pulled that cost lever pretty hard now, so would expect to see some benefits coming through in the next six months there. So the story's definitely not broken, but it's just going to take longer now. Great. On a longer-term basis, do you think Elon Musk's Starlink worldwide expansion delivering cheaper internet by satellite will materially impact the telcos? Well, that's a great question. Actually, when Starlink came to Australia, the first thing I did was ring up Telstra to try and work out, because I immediately thought it'd have a negative impact. They were like, "No, it's actually positive. To connect, Starlink's got to plug into the network, so they have to put in all these little mini towers everywhere, and it plugs back into their own infrastructure. You can't just have a Starlink infrastructure without being plugged into the ecosystem. It's actually a benefit for them. They can actually piggyback off regional areas using Starlink, which they've done. My immediate reaction was that it was going to be negative, but when you understand how it works and having to plug back into the ecosystem, it's actually a benefit because they can not run out all the infrastructure in regional areas where they don't make any money. It's actually going to be a net benefit for Telstra, and that's the same thing with Spark as well. You can't have a Starlink ecosystem. You need to be plugged into fiber for the transfer, so it's actually a benefit for the network operators. Great. The next question from Colin. He says, "WAM Leaders shares have been trading at a discount for some time. Is there too high profits reserve, and are franking credits in jeopardy? Would you consider potentially paying a higher dividend? That's a board decision. I can talk around that. We're trading pretty close to NTA now. We went through a period where we were under NTA at a discount for a period. I think the dividends. Again, this is just our opinion. The dividend looks pretty fine at these levels. We definitely don't want to get in a position where we pay out too high a level of dividends. The franking is good as well. I can't see any issues around that. Again, dividends are a board decision. Every board meeting, they assess the profit reserve, they assess the franking and work out what is an appropriate dividend, and that's what they feel is appropriate. Again, I think after we had that period of underperformance, which we're coming out of now, I think that will help the share price too and give a bit more confidence on the outlook as well as people go through it. Just to echo that, we have 3.1 years of dividend coverage with franking available. We're pretty confident over the next three years that we'll be able to continue to top up the profit reserve. From that standpoint, we're comfortable with the sustainability of the levels of dividends and franking that we have. Great. Thank you. That leads on nicely just to Bruce's question. I think it would just be good to explain for any shareholders who don't really understand the difference between the cash position and the profits reserve. Bruce has said, "The cash position of the Leaders Fund appears to be quite low. Are you going to have to borrow money to pay the dividend?" It probably is worthwhile explaining for any new shareholders on the call. For Bruce, thanks for the question. The way that you need to consider the profit reserves, that's just retained profits that we can distribute to shareholders in a smoothing manner over a few years. Given where we invest is primarily in the ASX 100, and a lot of it's skewed to the top 50. Any time we need to pay a dividend, we either draw on those cash reserves or we sell some stocks to increase the cash. We have ample liquidity in our investable universe. Absolutely, we will not be borrowing any money to pay out that dividend. We'll be using either cash reserves or we'll sell a small slice of the portfolio to facilitate those biannual dividends. Great. Thank you. Another question from Ian. What effect has the U.S.'s tariff policy had on your portfolio considerations? It's an interesting question. One, obviously, we monitor on a daily basis as we go from tariffs being on to tariffs being off. For us, it's really a case of, at the moment, the end markets, how they are affected in Australia at this point in time. The effects are indirect. We've got to look at where our companies are at their facilities. For example, Reliance produce a lot of their plumbing products in China. Obviously, when they import into the U.S., they're going to get hit. We're like, can they pass those prices on? Potentially not. We've got to think that's negative. Rio Tinto, with aluminum coming out of Canada, we've got to think about that, too. For an overarching point of view, where we've landed is, and what we've seen in the past week is China's response. When we were up in China in November, they were telling us they're just waiting for the tariffs to be implemented, then they'd work out a response. What we're seeing this week is they are having a more domestic-focused response. They are trying to counteract the tariffs by stimulating domestic demand and investment. What that means for us is the commodity stocks actually look pretty good on a relative basis at the moment. We're seeing copper. Copper's a big one for the U.S. We're seeing copper up over 10% after the tariffs. Aluminum, the spreads in the U.S. have already moved in anticipation of the tariff. We'd rather own the producers as it's normally like a material producer because they normally push through the price. Where you get in trouble is the people selling. Last time in the tariff wars, we saw them eat margins, they couldn't pass the full amount of the tariff off to the consumer. They had to absorb a lot of the tariff. At the moment for us, the way to play is on the commodity producer, not the retailer of finished goods. That's how we're playing it at the moment. What does it mean more generally? You could argue it's inflationary. Jury's still out, but we're seeing higher bond yields in some areas of the market as well. Ultimately, it's really a case-by-case situation, but for us, it's definitely you'd rather be in the commodities than the retails. I'll add one other thing, just an observation that we've seen in markets. Over the last four or five years, there's been no appetite from political parties to see any sort of risk out there. It's very much been policies of populism. What we've seen recently in the Trump, there is a little bit of appetite for pain and the introduction of pain in the short term, and we've seen some strong rebuttals from the global economy and the global leaders to say, "We'll go through the pain, too." That goes to the question around the direction of the market. A lot of what we've seen, a lot of the propping up and a lot of the leverage that we've seen in the market has been directionally premised on things will always be fine, and there's always a backstop, be it government or policymakers and central banks. Feels like we are going through a period of normality again, where we can have highs and lows, and we look forward to that because that actually brings valuation opportunities back. Great. The next question's from Seth. He says, "Can you please provide an update on the Leaders Trust?" He's keen to get more updates on this. Sure. Seth, it's exactly the same as the WAM Leaders Limited. When we talk about the WAM Leaders investment portfolio, it's actually mirrored the same within the trust. Everything we talk about here is replicated and applicable to the trust. Yep, there is no difference. It's just the vehicle that it's in. There's not much more we can elaborate on the trust rather than just say it's an exact mirror of what we're doing within the investment company. Thanks, Matt. The next one's from Simon. He says, "Orora appears to have dropped off your top 20 holdings. Are you still positive on the company or have you lost faith? Can you provide a bit of an explainer? Thank you, Simon. That was pushing 5% or 6% of the portfolio when it last touched AUD 2. We sold 91% of our holding above AUD 250, close to the AUD 2.70 range. The reason why we did that is one of the mistakes we made when we made the initial investment into the Orora was around Saverglass and how long it would take for earnings to normalize. When they completed the sale of the U.S. packaging business, that provided the catalyst, so to speak, for us to sell the majority of our holding because we did think that albeit the Australian canning business is high quality, very defensive, one of the top businesses in the Aussie market, the Saverglass business, which is exposed to luxury liquor, has some headwinds that we didn't want to take on. We made the right decision in selling the vast majority of the holding. The portfolio, it got down to 25 basis points or 0.25% within the portfolio. At current levels, in the low AUD 2, we've been picking up a little bit more from an optionality standpoint because we do think that on a sum of the parts basis, you're not paying a very demanding multiple for that Saverglass business, and it probably becomes a bit of a takeover target if it stays down here at these levels given the strength of its balance sheet. Comfortable at these levels. We'll need to see improvements in global liquor trends for it to get above the AUD 2.50 level. It's an interesting point. We had the one-on-one with the company, and they've pulled forward the closure of the Gawler glass furnace because of that lack of demand which is, again, I think we touched on Treasury as well. In Endeavour, there's a real decline in alcohol consumption. We're just seeing that more broadly across all our investment holdings. That definitely is a trend at the moment. Whether it reverses, I think there's been a shift when we speak to Endeavour. It's around ready to drink. The young people have moved much more towards the ready to drink. Ready to drink and premiumization are the two trends. Yeah. People are drinking less but high quality. Great. Thank you. The next question we'll go to is on the banks. Matt, you touched on this in your opening, but for any investors who've joined late, I think it's worth touching on again because we're getting a few questions on it. Just to summarize the few questions that we've received, they're saying, "Can you please elaborate on why being underweight the banks and overweight resources is your strategy? What are your underlying assumptions for this to beat the index? Yeah. To be honest, it's been the wrong call. Being underweight the banks has been quite punishing in the short term, well, the medium term, the last six to nine months. We never saw that massive run-up in the banks where they move away from fundamentals. For us, as a relative call, you can see a few in the top 20 there that they've dropped out. We were in there during reporting season, while there was still some strength and we thought given the recent run-up in banks around the results, a couple of them performed well. When we got the first wobble, we reduced all of those banks. Just to clear that up in the top 20. Why resources? Again, it's on a relative trade. Resources, when we look at BHP and Rio and we're looking at what China will do this year, we are quite positive on those companies. The risk is obviously a global slowdown. If we go into a bit of a spiral on global growth, they will fall. What we're seeing now, we've got enough evidence that China will stimulate this year. The economy is already picking up from last year's stimulus. This stimulus will compound on the previous year's stimulus, and we're going to get stronger performance out of China. That's why on a relative basis, and then obviously within Europe now too, with the defense spending, generally that's pretty good for commodity demand. Overall, I think from a relative point of view and a straight fundamental point of view, they look much more attractive. Banks for us is really on a fundamental basis, we touched on price-to-book. You should really look at price-to-book when you look at banks. You shouldn't really look at PEs, but price-to-book on banks. Again, I'll say if you can buy them at one time, so that's perfect, but generally you can buy them between 1.4 and 1.6 through the cycle, and that's probably a more reasonable level. What's CBA on? CBA trading on? CBA is well above three. It's basically double where it should be. The valuation's just not there for us. We're trying to invest your money in smart decisions, and we look at the valuations and we're just like, "It really doesn't make sense." It really goes back to the opening comments around the extremes we got to. You'll only realize it in the fullness of time when you look back and go, "That period was crazy." When CBA is AUD 100 and did it get to AUD 170 or? AUD 72. Yeah. It's really incredible. I never would've thought we'd see it. Yeah, it's probably when we look back in six- 12 months' time, that was just an unbelievable period. The rest of the banks aren't too bad, if you assume a bad debt cycle. They're getting back towards more fair value. Again, you look at the valuation of the resource companies versus the banks, it just makes so much more sense. You actually get a higher dividend in the resource companies, too. You're getting compensated on both sides. The only other comment I would add, when we ask ourselves the question of why did they get there? Why did valuations get to where they wanted? There's certainly a strong correlation between the falling Aussie dollar and the strength of CBA and the rest of the major banks. There's also a correlation between concerns around China and China growth and the money being pulled out of ex-Asia money. They're going to Australian industrial bank financials. That's a lot of weight of money pushing these stocks beyond standard valuations. As we said earlier, around now the opening up of China and the ability to reinvest in China and the global sentiment shifting towards the giant Chinese economy, that potentially sees money getting pulled out of Aussie banks and being redeployed more regionally and into resource companies in Australia. Great. Thanks, both. We'll stay on resources. We have had quite a few questions come through on Ampol and Woodside. Mm-hmm. On Woodside, could you please talk about the views on the controversies about development approvals and the future of hydrocarbons? Yeah. Thank you. Woodside's been, I think for those that have followed us for a while, has never really, I don't think it's ever featured in our top 20. May have once or two briefly, but it's now back in our top 20 and Santos no longer is there. We've had a shift in our view on the pair. On Woodside, over the last two years, their portfolio has shifted materially. They've swapped assets, they've acquired assets, they've developed assets, so much so that the portfolio today doesn't resemble anything that they previously did. The question now going forward on Woodside is their ability to execute. Their ability to execute on asset sales and sell downs, their ability to ramp up assets in Sangomar or Trion in the U.S., and their ability to negotiate with the Australian government around extensions to the North West Shelf. From where we are today, from a transparency standpoint, Santos and Woodside both screen incredibly well, and Matt will probably comment on the macro view in a second. We think Woodside will have some more positive catalysts around asset sales, the positive ramp-ups around Sangomar and Trion. The biggest pushback that you will get elsewhere is around their cash flow and their cash generation and their ability to pay the dividends. At the moment, a lot of those dividends are being supplemented by asset sales and sell downs, and we're comfortable with that. As Sangomar ramps up and production increases, as Trion comes online, as some of these other assets start to come online, these will be high cash generative assets as they come out of the CapEx cycle and come into the harvest cycle. For us, Woodside's our preferred play. Notwithstanding that, we are underweight the oil sector, and Matt might comment on our macro oil view. We did reduce our Woodside and Santos when we saw OPEC opening up the taps a little bit or bringing forward their ramp-up. Again, the uncertainty, global uncertainty, global growth has hurt a little bit on the energy side. What we've seen recently, though, is probably in the last day or so, is the ramp-up on pressure on Iran. Scott Bessent was having a go at them, obviously Trump under previous administration, when he's in president, he really pushed hard against Iran. We think Iran is probably a potential positive for the hydrocarbon space, oil. What we've seen in the past Trump presidency was the ability to push OPEC and make them release more barrels. We're just a bit, I'd call it neutral to slightly negative on that space. Again it's something we're watching because it does There is no expectations in the share prices of these companies, they do screen incredibly cheap. The other one, ALD, Ampol. That is a name that we've been buying over the past week. It's a good flag. It had a few own goals over the last 12 months, which led to some material underperformance from its ability to extract refining margin. It had some outages, some essential repairs and maintenance, which hampered earnings in a material way. Where we are today, you don't need to make any heroic assumptions to see earnings go from around AUD 715 million EBITDA to back to that billion-dollar mark. If we get a kicker of refining margin, which is a big delta in their earnings, from the depressed levels where they are around at AUD 8 a barrel, if they can get back to normal or mid-cycle, which is around AUD 10 to AUD 12 a barrel, that gives you another lever of positivity. For us, we are buying it. We are conscious that people are always asking about EV cars and the like. You see the take-up of EV vehicles, the necessity for combustion engines will be here around for much longer. Ampol is something we think following their own missteps last year, they've probably turned the corner. It sits at about 1% of the portfolio today. We're very comfortable buying at these levels and hope to see it north of AUD 30 over the next 12 months. Fantastic. Graham has asked about QVE. He said, "Did the QVE acquisition have a negative impact on the Leaders portfolio? No, it didn't. We managed to transition that in a very short amount of time. It actually had zero impact on the portfolio. That one's nice and quick and easy. There's not much more to add after that. It was seamless. Yeah. Perfect. From Jocelyn, can you compare the results for the WAM Leaders Limited to the Leaders Fund, including unit price distribution to dividend, and share price TSR of the LIC? The difference in prices. We don't have those numbers ahead of us. If it's okay, can we take that question on notice and call back? Yeah. Provide a little bit more detail when we get an answer. Is that okay? Happy to. We'll give you a call, Jocelyn, after the call. From Jill, are we starting to see the start of a large global sell-off of equity markets? Great question, Jill. We have evidence of it, 100%. The push up in credit spreads, like we said at the start. Rising interest rates, the global uncertainty. We're getting all the ingredients for a sell-off. The depth of it, to go lower from here, we need to see an impact to the job market. We're going to get a preview tonight with the U.S. non-farm payrolls, our intel says we're not at a prolonged sell-off. We are in the midst of a sell-off, we have evidence that it will continue. Again, probably 3%-5% from here is the level without further evidence. To go further now, we'd have to see Trump escalate and provoke further uncertainty. What happens is, when uncertainty comes into the market, we can see it through the price of volatility. It's a technical thing, but we watch it all the time. It's actually quite elevated. There is some protection being bought at the moment. What could happen is, if Trump actually behaves for a period of time, it will come off, the volatility, and your risk appetite will come back. We could get a small bounce, but I think we've got the framework in place now where the uncertainty, the slowdown in the U.S., the rising credit spreads, and term premium will continue. The sell-off, we're in the midst of it. What we think will happen is the sell-off is happening, but we're going to get a broader rotation now. The breadth of the market will change, and we're seeing that very much so, where, like in Australia, John mentioned those names where it's very crowded. That is coming away now, and we're starting to see the breadth increase. The sell-off's probably got a little bit more legs to go, but then the sell-off will spread to breadth. Perfect. A few people are asking, what is your view on WiseTech, if that's a current holding? Yeah. It snuck into the top 20, and it's something that we have been buying over the last 10 days, following, let's call them the trials and tribulations of the CEO, Richard White, and a lot of the publicized happenings there. What we will say is that the business hasn't changed. Some of the characters have, but the business hasn't changed. Undoubtedly, this is one of the highest quality businesses that we have on the ASX. If you look at its market share, its margins, its growth profile over the last decade, it's been remarkable. They have a strong product. They have a strong product offering in a really, really dynamic market. What we do know is that you had a leader of that business that didn't want to let go. There's been a boardroom tussle, and he's come out victorious if we want to kind of characterize it like that. What we do think's next is that he's going to be highly motivated, we feel, to drive this business forward. We're going to give him the benefit of the doubt. A lot of people, for governance reasons, can't invest in WiseTech, a lot of local peers and competitors of ours, but that doesn't mean globals can't step in. For us, sub-AUD 100 was a really attractive opportunity to get into a high-quality stock. As we said earlier, there's a cohort of stocks that we haven't been able to own from a valuation standpoint. WiseTech's come back into the realms where it is attractive again, and I think Richard White is motivated and driven, and he puts the right people around him on a board and management level, and we think and we're optimistic that they are, that we should see this rebound over the next year. It's going to be a bit of a journey, it's going to be a bit of a battle, but we're backing the business, and forgetting the politics of it. Probably the only thing I'll add is they had a really good update. The business is actually performing really well after a few speed bumps, but like John mentioned, the outside the business stuff has dominated the valuation. If the business had been deteriorating, we wouldn't look at it, but the underlying business has actually performed really well in most recent times. Once this clears, there is a significant rerate. The risk here is if you get this global sell-off and is an expensive stock, but luckily it's not in the momentum bucket anymore because it's fallen from above 130 down to the mid-80s. It's already had the derate. From a risk-reward perspective, it looks quite good. Great. Thank you. The next question is from Leon. John, this one's for you. He says, "John, you mentioned Mineral Resources as a possible candidate for the portfolio. From press reports and the plunging share price, one might think that it's a death spiral. Why are you interested in it? Yeah. We're never shy of a battle, I'll say that. When we look at MIN, it's certainly a battle. I think simply put, if the sum of the parts are greater than the share price, we're typically attracted to it. We look at the sum of the parts of this business, in particular, the cash generation that the iron ore business can produce, the sustainability of its mining services business and the strength and dominance of it. The third lever is the asset quality they have in their lithium business as opposed to the lithium market right now, which is in a little bit of turmoil. For us, the major overhang that the market is really concerned on, well, there's two things really, but the major one is around the balance sheet, and the second dynamic is around management and the board and some of the governance issues. Typically, when you have some governance issues, it dismisses a whole bunch of market investors. What MINs have dedicated and demonstrated and said that they're going to do is put a strong chair in place to ensure that the corporate governance going forward is much better than what it has been. We take a positive view on that. Chris Ellison is a strong CEO. He's complicated but strong, we'll call him. He's built a business from scratch, and he has a lot of his private money and personal wealth tied up in MINs. The way we look at it and the transaction they were able to do with Gina Rinehart on their gas business shows that there is a lot of potential for an asset or divestment program, if things were to deteriorate even further. From sum of the parts standpoint, we are comfortable that if they go down that path and they were to sell, say, the Onslow Iron Ore project or the other half of the Haul Road or the lithium business in its entirety, they will realize significant cash and eliminate the debt burden that the market is currently fixated with. We have a small position. I would characterize it as a small position. We understand and acknowledge a lot of the headwinds that the market is pointing to, hence why the position is where it is. We think there are a number of catalysts that could take place that could unlock value. Given the significant short interest that is in the names, you could get hyper returns if this were to take place. It's attractive from that standpoint. I acknowledge the concerns around the death spiral, from a debt perspective. If you look where the debt bonds are trading, the bonds are trading, I should say, they're not demonstrating the risks that the equity market is suggesting. We're taking some solace from that. It really reminds us of Fortescue back when everyone thought that was going to go bust or raise equity many times over. I think Fortescue was AUD 1.50 or AUD 1.75 for a period of time, then everyone thought they were going to go bust for a period, and MINs is very similar. If you believe the Onslow gets up and the cash flow starts coming back, there is no issues here. There is that, a series of events which led it, obviously the governance issues, then you had not the toll road, but the Haulage Road CapEx spend, and everyone's just like, "too hard Lithium's gone so far down it's falling in the too hard basket." That's where we start looking because the risk/reward here, if they get it right, the stock could double. Yeah quite easily. You do often get outsized returns when you take on challenges like this, so we just need to control our weighting in the portfolio. Fantastic. Thank you. The next question's from Peter: "Can you please explain the difference between WAM Leaders and WAM Capital? Is it based on the market cap of the companies, or is there other investment criteria? The way we look at it as well, the WAM Leaders is ASX 200 with a real tilt towards the top 50. We can go anywhere in the 200. WAM Capital, again, it can go anywhere, but it really hunts in the small to mid-cap space on the growth space. I'd say the other difference between, apart from the universe, is the intensity on how we turn the portfolio over it. Every day, because we have the liquidity, we have the optionality on moving portfolio weights around reacting to new information. The turnover is higher within WAM Leaders. It's really the universe and then the turnover, which is the two differing factors there. Great. Thanks, Matt. Richard and Saranjeet have both asked, how is the profits reserve calculated, and how are the profits reserves being invested? The profit reserve's a purely accounting measure where at the end of each month, we get to effectively do a snapshot. If the portfolio's up by a certain amount, you can book the profits. It's an accounting entry. There's no physical cash, or there's nothing within the portfolio that says it's part of the profit reserve. It's just purely an accounting measure. It's a hard concept to get your head around. People think that it's like cash back, but it's actually just an accounting entry rather than a physical pot of money that's been put aside. It's just actually an accounting entry which happens. Okay, great. We're getting lots of stock questions. If you don't mind, I thought we might do a quick buy, hold, sell on a few of these stock names. Sure. We've got so many coming through, so I might just do a bit of a rapid-fire at you both, Matt and John. We'll start with Challenger. Buy. Buy. Yeah. Buy. CSL? Buy. Buy. Endeavour Group? Oh, hold. Yeah. Hold at these levels. Yeah. Not sure if this is within your remit, but Domino's? Yeah. It's definitely not a buy. It's a hold. Yeah, it's a hold. Great. Next, DSE? Hold. I'll stick with- John's not so sure. No, I thought we were going to buy. Yeah. We've recently sold some, but again, we've been looking out for the pullback. Great. Origin? That's a hold. Yep. Eagers Automotive. This is one of Oscar's finds, I think. Yeah. It's a WAM Capital, so we've got to say buy. We've got to say buy because they like it. Yeah. Yeah, they like it. Great result, yeah. Bendigo Bank? It's been sold off so aggressively. You'd be holding it. You wouldn't be selling at these levels, and if it fell a little bit more, it could move into the buy territory. Okay, great. Fortescue? Buy. Buy. Buy. Qube Holdings? Just a hold. It's a solid result, but it's nothing too exciting there. Great. Paladin Energy? Sell. Yeah, it's bordering on the sell. Yeah. Okay. Oscar actually touched on this in the WAM Cap. This is more of a small-cap stock. Viva Energy. Well Yeah. Tough space. I'm going to go sell there. Okay, great. We'll go back to the other questions soon. If we keep getting stock questions, we might have to do that again. Yeah. This next one's from Gary. Would WAM Leaders ever consider taking over another listed investment company like AFIC, which is trading at a significant discount to its NTA right now? If Geoff was here, he would say everything's a possibility, but I think AFIC's probably a bit more than we can chew. Yeah, never say never. Never say never, it's been part of our DNA. It's been part of Wilson Asset Management's DNA. We always look at making acquisitions and trying to help the LIC industry. Yeah, look, I think it's just something that we'll always do and always look at. I don't think AFIC's ever been contemplated. I like the idea. Okay, great. Paul has asked, is it possible to see all of your holdings and not just the top 20? A little bit of a clue. Every year in the annual report, you can see the entire holding. We bury it a little bit, but you can find it all in the annual report. Yeah. We have this debate. We'd love to show you more, but then all our competitors and brokers see all our holdings, and because we turn them over quite often, we'd rather not show you any. For shareholders, we've obviously got to show you some. We thought we landed on probably the most fair way of doing it. Yeah, like John said, I think in the half yearly as well. Yeah You get a view, and then in the annual report you'll get a view as well of the portfolio. Great. This next one's from Bill. You mentioned the miners. Are you more comfortable at these prices, or is there too much uncertainty with regards to the Onslow project and lithium? This is related to Min. I think we pretty well covered off Min. Yeah. The risk/reward, huge return potential, obviously high risk. Again, we like backing these guys that have built businesses as well. Chris has built it. He's been through this situation before. He's got support from Gina, like for that previous transaction. We think there's options available, and once you get Onslow on board, the cash flow is remarkable. They just need to navigate this period of low cash flow and high spend. The debt they've got is unsecured, so there's no possibility of that being called early. There's also asset sale potential, like Morgan Stanley have done a couple of transactions with them as well. The mining services business is an absolute star. People love that business. Great. The next one is definitely not a stock that you hold, but Roger has asked, do you have a view of GYG? Yeah. It's an interesting question, that one, because we were amazed at the run from AUD 20 to AUD 45, we decided to go and meet management, and we met management twice. We were really surprised at the strength and the positive story that Guzman articulate and demonstrate. Their success from a store rollout and profitability standpoint has been nothing short of astonishing. From that perspective, we're really pleased with what we see from that perspective. The greatest question that you have to ask yourself is their ability to sustain this and their ability to do this into new markets to justify the multiple that it's trading on. To date, the growth has shown that they have that ability and they'll continue to do this. We will monitor it. There's going to be a series of liquidity events potentially on the horizon, which will make us consider if we want to pull the trigger on buying it, in any sort of significant way or not. We are interested, which may come as a surprise. We think the business model and the franchise model and what they've been able to build in a really short period of time is wonderful. Yeah, we are certainly interested and you need to take a leap of faith with the valuation, but we think there is certainly potential to make some money, if you go in the 20s or low 30s. Yeah. I guess the other thing to point out is the trend we've seen in alcohol, like the reduction for health reasons, new IG, whether it's good marketing or not. They're actually a beneficiary of people wanting fresh food made fast. They're saying that is a clear trend for them. Obviously, the rollout in the U.S. is slow and very measured. I think there's a lot of question marks around their expansion plan. Like John said, we'll get to see more evidence of the U.S. plus the sell-down. really rate management, rate the business. We'll like to see, obviously like everyone, cheaper valuation. Yeah, fundamentally the business is better than I thought. Great. The next one's from Ian. What percentage of cash are you currently holding? You've got that. Around about 3% at the moment. Yeah. Which has been our average for the better part of four or five years. Great. From Angus. Any chance of WAM Leaders changing to quarterly dividends? Is there a product with dividends paid more frequently than twice a year? No. I don't think there's any change expected on the dividend front for WAM Leaders. All our LICs are paying semi-annual. There's no more frequent. Obviously, there will be at a point in time a more frequent WAM product coming to market. Yeah, WAM Leaders will not be adjusting its dividend. Bridget, we can't hear you. Must have muted myself. The next question is from Michael. He says, "The monthly report has the list of the top five active security weights, overweight and underweight. Could you please provide an explanation and the benefit of this measure? For us, I think why we do this is just to give you an idea of us versus the benchmark. We're not really hugely benchmark aware, the way we can show you the portfolio and some of the way we are positioned versus the benchmark so you can make a decision. Would you like a passive exposure or here's something which is deviating away from the benchmark? It just gives you a good example of maybe a bit of a top-down view of our view on different sectors and stocks as well. I think that's probably the best explanation. Great. Thank you. From Gary. He says, "What is the prognosis for commodity prices like iron ore and copper, and what does this mean for BHP and Rio? Yeah, we think iron ore, again, China will be producing around 1 billion tons of steel. With demand profile, supply coming online, around AUD 100 a ton is probably where we see iron ore, which is still good enough for the majors and FMG. On copper, obviously we're seeing a huge run-up post the tariff announcements, and we're seeing a bit of a shortage in the inventory levels across various warehouses globally. We thought copper might actually have a weak first half of the year, but the demand for copper is just going to increase and increase over the next decade. We're long-term copper bulls. Obviously, we'll trade around in variations in copper price, but long-term thematic is very, very strong because there's really not high-quality copper mines coming online in the short term or even the medium term. We'd love for Resolution to get up for Rio Tinto and BHP in the U.S., which we think there's a higher probability now Trump's there. Again, that's decades. Yeah, demand and supply, we think copper is where you need to be over the next decade. Bridget, I see there's a question from Alan on WAM investing in resources. I think I'll make the distinction for Alan's purposes that Geoff had previously said that WAM Capital would not invest in resources, and they do from time to time invest in resource companies. If you look at the premise of WAM Capital and the history of that product, WAM Capital was trying to identify small-cap, undervalued stocks with catalysts. If you look at the smaller end of resources, it's a lot more speculative, a lot more of a leap of faith on the exploration space as opposed to WAM Leaders, which was set up around nine years ago. We're focused more on the ASX 200 and the upper end of the 200, where we're dealing with resource companies that are in the production phase, their earnings are far more visible and reliable, and predictable than those smaller, more exploratory resources. That's the distinction between WAM Capital and WAM Leaders. We have that ability to invest. When we say we like copper, the biggest copper producers in the world are BHP and Rio Tinto. We get exposure to that from really strong management teams with really robust balance sheets. Yeah. I can add to that as well, because I used to manage WAM Capital and WAM Research back in the day as well. Like John said, we wouldn't touch it because the very reasons John mentioned, it just was at the speculative end. To be honest, when we were looking at BHP and Rio, we actually didn't really know much about them when we were in WAM Capital. We'd never spend much time analyzing them, whereas they're a big part of our universe, so we spend a huge amount of time analyzing, speaking with the analysts and the company. Very different from when I was back in WAM Capital and WAM Research. Great. Thank you. I'm going to pull a few questions together. Yeah. You've been asked for your top picks in a few different sectors. Top picks. Top picks in the Australian gold companies, healthcare companies, and energy companies. How was that? Okay, gold companies, I'm going to go Newmont because it provides a bit more defense. Yeah. A lot of the golds we were in have run pretty hard. Yeah, probably the only one that makes sense is Newmont at this point in time. What was the other one? Healthcare. Health? Healthcare and energy. Okay. Healthcare. I mean, we had a great meeting with CSL. Banks started off on concerns around Seqirus, and also the vaccine program, given the RFK's joined the party now. Yeah, underlying CSL looks pretty good, in the healthcare space. I'll go ResMed. I mean, yeah, ResMed's been solid for a long time, reported well. It gets knocked around with GLP-1 noise, again, yeah, ResMed and CSL are our two bigger weights in the portfolio. In energy, I'll take the broader spectrum of energy. It's a toss-up between, I'm going to say Ampol is probably the top pick, followed by Whitehaven Coal. Yeah. We did really well out of Worley as well, which falls in the energy sector. That reported really well, but we've reduced that. Again, if you're a deep value person, they all look incredibly cheap. Again, we talk about flow of money. No one wants to invest in them in Australia, it's really tough. The one comment I'll add, just for some context, and we typically are in WAM Leaders, we're politically agnostic. If we get a Liberal victory in Australia, from a federal standpoint, that'll provide a lot of clear air for investment into Santos and Woodside. Global investors have seen some geopolitical issues with investing in Australia, particularly under a minority Labor government, where they question the ability for projects like Barossa or the North West Shelf to have clear conviction on their ability to continue and where the investment will go. If we get a Liberal government, I wouldn't be surprised to see Santos become a takeover target. Interesting. One that you'll be monitoring quite closely, I'm sure. Of course. The next one's from Ronald. He says, "Over the last 12 months, what did you get wrong, and what have you learned going forward? Ronald, great question, something we obviously talk about every day. The bank underweight. Again, in hindsight, the problem in hindsight, you've got to work out what lesson did you really learn rather than just try and make up an excuse. Probably ignoring the flow dynamics. We got an inkling of what was happening with the banks. Probably it was maybe October, November last year. We missed a lot of it anyway, but we're starting to get all these soundbites around the incredible amount of flow coming into the Australian market. We missed the banks for a couple of months, the run-up. The results were pretty good. They actually were reporting good results, we were like, "The valuations are too expensive for us." We probably should've followed the earnings signal, even though the valuation was silly, which we've done previously, where we'll look at fundamentals then allow the flow dynamic to play out for a bit longer. We were probably a bit contrarian there. That's definitely something on that front. I mean, being underweight the banks, CBA cost us a few hundred basis points of performance because of the impact of the size of it. The index, it's gone up to about 10.5% of the index. Whatever happens to the CBA has a huge impact on our performance versus the portfolio. Then on obviously Star, that was a terrible investment. What did we get wrong there? The asset backing looked attractive and we probably got a little bit too close to the company and it always seemed like there would be a way out for the company, but we didn't realize the impact on the operating business. We were always looking at the asset backing, but the operating business deteriorated faster than we thought. That would've been solved with sizing. If we had a smaller portfolio weight, we probably would've been a little bit more flexible on the duration we held it to. The other thing, one thing we've reminded ourselves of when we did really well and when we do well, is that we stay very close to companies, ensure that we understand the earnings momentum and characteristics of the market. Over the last year, we probably took too much of a contrarian view where the market had no appetite for turnaround stories or patient investing. It was all about short-term momentum and we had deviated. We'd premised a lot of our positions on fundamentals, on turnaround stories, and no matter how cheap we thought they were, if they missed their earnings, they went down further. That was a function of the market, and a function of the economy that we're in. Hopefully, with this inflection point we're seeing today, we revert to fundamentals and a little bit more patience around the ability for companies to turn around and be rewarded for investing in that. I will also just add on The Star, because we always get questions on it. Do we still hold it? We have a de minimis position and we hold that position for, if it goes into default, we want to ensure that we have some access to ensure that if there are legal cases that we can participate and get some remedies from that perspective. We've got less than 0.1%. It's nothing. For all intents and purposes, we are no longer shareholder. What's going to happen with it? I think that's a question that we've been asked a few times. Your guesses are as good as mine. I think most participants in the process, and there'll be lots and lots and lots of people interested in owning these assets. They would all want to own it without having the liabilities to AUSTRAC. People want to do a deal with the government and to own this without the liabilities that Star Corporation has to AUSTRAC. From that standpoint, there will be lots and lots of interested parties and we think they should be able to do a deal that keeps the jobs going, and that's the most important thing. The one thing we can't believe in, if you look at what happened to Star from the outset, the regulatory environment, a lot of what was happening around junkets and what has led to where they are, was done in plain sight. The regulators that were supposed to be regulating Star at the time are still the same regulators today, and they missed all the shortcomings. I really wonder who's really ultimately responsible for this. You've got board members and management of Star at the time being hauled over the coals. I'd like to see more people investigated for this because it's led to significant losses for our shareholders. It's led to significant losses for mum and dads out there who are investing in a business that was seen as defensive, that was seen as regulated, and I feel that the politicians and regulators have let down mums and dads. We'll lick our wounds, we'll bounce back, and we'll make sure that we earn every dollar that we've lost back for our shareholders. I think there's more to be done to protect shareholders in this instance. Thanks, John. That's great. Moving back to Roger, because you touched on this earlier, John, I think important to just cover off his question as well. He said, "How much risk do you think is attached to a returned Labor government, especially for gas and minerals?" You touched on it earlier. Roger, it's a great question because it's less so an outright Labor government or an outright Liberal government because I think one thing has been clear from politics is that there is a need for gas to become the transition fuel that allows economies and people to remain powered as we go through the battery transition, which is taking longer and longer and costing more and more. There is a definite need, and you can see from Chris Bowen and the others that there has been a pivot away from the negativity that attached to gas, and it's now being seen as the savior and the hope. Where the risk is if we have a minority Labor government which starts doing deals with the Teals or the Greens, and that could actually lead to a reluctance in investment, which could lead to the short-fall in gas and project development. That's where the risk lies. It's less so around an outright Labor or an outright Liberal. It's if it's a minority, and that's where the risks lie. Just to add as well, we had a great example with APA Group where there was talk about regulating transmission lines in gas, and that was dealt with in a favorable outcome as well. I think both parties have pivoted to realize that gas is important, as John touched on, around the transition fuel. There's almost a bipartisan approach now where the risk has diminished a lot from where it was. The APA ruling was great and once we saw the APA ruling come out, we invested back into APA, and they had a great result too. It's actually, you can see in the top 20 there, it's come back. We are getting some stability finally in energy markets and a finally bipartisan approach that gas is needed going forward. Great. Thank you. The next question's from Glenn. He says, "Can you please compare the Woolworths and Coles results, and do you have a pick of the two? Yeah. Yeah, great question, actually. The backdrop to both these companies right now, they are in the middle of the political spotlight. We'll have an ACCC outcome later this month where there will be more and more headlines coming out around price gouging or whatever might be suggested around Coles and Woolworths and what they've undertaken over the past few years. The negative flow and the negative sentiment in the space will continue for the next two to three months. If we put that aside and look at who's delivering and who's delivering better, it's Coles. Momentum is a really big thing in retail. When you have that momentum, when you have that trust of the customer, it continues for a period of time. Coles have been executing particularly well, and they've taken market share and they've grown their sales. Some of that was caused by the industrial action that affected Woolworths and Endeavour late last year, which led to a lot of out of stock and de-shelving of their stores. There's been a significant change of management, which will take a bit of time at Woolworths. For us, we think Coles is better positioned for the next 12-1 8 months. If you look at Woolies, they've probably got a little bit more to do from a Big W standpoint. They've got a little bit to do from a brand and marketing perspective, but the valuation is screaming attractive to us right now. As we wash through some of that ACCC and government and political uncertainty which they'll face over the next month or two, it could provide a wonderful opportunity for long-term investing there. Right now, our preference is Coles, but we think there could be an opportunity over the next few months in Woolworths. Yeah. A lot of Woolworths was incurred bad decision by themselves. It really started off with Australia Day last year, and then their NPS really fell off, their engagement with the customers, like John said. Eventually, the franchise is incredibly valuable. Going back to talk about some of your lessons we've learned, do not step in front of government intervention. While they're under the spotlight, it's happened in many, many industries within banking sector. Casinos. Casinos, gambling, like with Endeavour. Do not put capital at risk while they're under investigation. You will not get the incremental buyer out there, and that's what we're seeing at the moment. Obviously, Coles have traded incredibly well. For us to get more comfort, we need to see this ACCC report. We need to see where they land. Obviously, divesting or breaking them up makes no sense. We think common sense will win at the end of the day. Until that is cleared, we will not be pulling our weights up in that sector. Great. Thank you. The next one's from Andrew. "Given the probability of a substantial sell-off exacerbated by Trump, which sectors will you be concentrating on for your portfolio?" I know you touched on it earlier. Yeah. For us, probably the simplest way of explaining it is defensive companies. We talk about healthcare, so CSL and ResMed largely should be unaffected, but touch wood on that. Again, the defensive companies like APA, we're looking at Transurban again. We'd love to own Coles and Woolies, but again, too much noise around that. Your really defensive companies, we're pivoting back to those. Ampol's another great one. Linked to just everyday consumption and not really that cyclical. We're looking for really defensive characteristic stocks, high-quality stocks, and they're the ones that stand out. Your utilities, consumer staples, not linked to supermarkets, but a2 Milk's been a great one for us. Again, China consumers being stimulated, so that should be good for them. It's really pivoting back to high quality. Eventually, if Trump does cause a lot of damage, we're going to see U.S. interest rates fall and then the global discount rates coming off, which will benefit some of these companies like the utilities and infrastructure names. They look like good places to be. On the flip side, lower U.S. interest rates, lower U.S. dollar, higher commodity prices. You get all of that coming through as well. Great. Thank you. Next one's from Nava. "What is your portfolio downside risk today, and does the AUD exchange rate influence in managing the downside risk? You want a live NTA? Hot take. I don't think we can give it, but like. We had a good day today. Yeah, we had a very good day versus the market. It's probably as much as we can say. Like we're saying, the market has probably in the last four weeks, there's been ups and downs, but the market has really moved back towards our favor. Yeah, we had a very nice way to finish off today. We welcome this volatility. It just brings things. The rotation is what we've been waiting for, these inflection points are what we've been waiting for, long may it continue. Great. Ian has joined late. He's asked, "Does stock selection remain within the ASX 200 for the trust as well? Yes, it does. Yeah, it does. Spark is one that has fallen out, but we think it will come back. It was in the ASX 200, it slipped out. If you look at the combined weighting of Spark New Zealand and Australia, it's definitely big enough. It's just some nuances. The way to think about it is ASX 200 or things that we think have a pathway to get back into the 200 because of their own success. One from Anthony. He says, "Does or would any of the WAM LICs invest in another WAM listed investment company, especially at times when it's trading at a discount? No. WAM's had a cross-holding only through a transaction, but no other LIC will invest in a WAM LIC. Keep it clean. Yeah, I think ever since I've been here 15 years ago, Geoff has always said that we'd never do that. Yep. Great. This is going to be the last one. We've had lots of stocks come through again. We'll have one final rapid fire on the stocks to close out the call. Sorry to put you on the spot here, we'll start with NAB. NAB. I'm going to say tactical. It looks like a tactical buy, but we're just cognizant of where the market is. I'm going to say sell. There you go. Matt will win this one. No. It's still in. Yeah It's probably been oversold. We're very high frequency. It's a fundamental sell, but tactical, that's how I'd advise it. Great. ARB Corporation. I'm going to go sell. I think it's got more to go. Okay. Yeah. Yep. Macquarie Bank. Ooh. Sub AUD 200, buy. Yeah. It's a market beta play. It's a market call, so yeah. I'm just going to link it to the market. Okay. Carsales. Oh, these are great questions because of the sell-off we've had. Yeah. I'll answer that one. I say we prefer SEEK to Carsales. Yeah. We think SEEK's a buy. I'm going to call it a buy. We'll call Carsales a hold. Okay, great. Atlas Arteria. That's a buy. That's got to be a buy, yeah. It's a buy. It's a buy. Yep. Pro Medicus. Oh, these momentum stocks are tough because we're in a momentum unwind. Hold yeah. I'm going to go sell. Okay, great. Pilbara Minerals. Hold. Sitting on the fence. I'm going to say buy. Sitting on the fence. Okay, great. We have received this, I think this might be more of a WAM Capital one. Sigma Healthcare. A little context on that one. It's one of those ones that, as I mentioned earlier in the call, we're spending more and more time around index inclusions and impact of inclusions and deletions from the big global indices. Sigma's one that's certainly benefited from the significant up weighting or basically buying that's taken place. Great business, really expensive. I'm going to go sell. Sell. Great. Just to quickly call out, there is a shareholder who's saying he's fearing that he has joined late to the call. Yes, Chris, it will be recorded, and we'll share the recording with you at the end of the call. To continue, Bank of Queensland. It's definitely not a buy. Just debating whether it's a hold or a sell. It's very cheap, but it's cheap for a reason. It's not good. I'm going to say hold. It's derated a lot. Great. Sandfire. Buy. Yeah, had a good run. I'm going to say hold. Great. NIB Holdings. Hold. Hold. I'm going to actually sell. Sell. It's overrating. Sell. Great. Wesfarmers. Wonderful company, but too expensive. Sell. Sell. Yep. Beautiful. AGL Energy. Hold. I'm going to say once we get through the political cycle, it's a buy. Buy it in May. Great. Origin, whoever's called out Origin, we have actually touched on that earlier in the call. Telix Pharmaceuticals. Got to follow the money a little bit there. Yeah. It's been some insiders and selling. Got a long, yeah, go hold. Yeah. You should follow the money a little bit. Great. Netwealth. I think WAM Capital own this one. Buy. Yeah. We'll follow our friends across the table. Neuren Pharmaceuticals. Yeah, we've got a small holding in this one. Again, high risk, but yeah, it's a buy at a small weight. Great. The final one we're closing off on is MA Financial Group. I don't know it. Fortunately, it is too small for us. I cannot help. Okay, great. That closes off the call. As always, please subscribe to our email insights and follow us on our social media. I'll pass back to Matt for any closing remarks. Thanks, Bridget. I just like to thank everyone for their support. It's been a pretty tough time over the past 12 months for us, but we're here fighting every day, and the market has finally come back towards us. We are at this inflection point. The portfolio's got momentum, and we think we're in a great position for the remainder of the year. It does feel like it's been a long year already. We're only in March, but I was thinking the other day, Trump's only been in power for six weeks, but it feels like six months or six years even. It's going to be a long year, very volatile, but this is where we make a lot of money in these volatile environments. We're actually really happy that we've gone from a pure momentum, no fundamental market, back to a more grounded market with fundamentals coming back into the picture. We're really optimistic about this year, and just thank everyone for their continuous support. Yeah, thank you.