Finance and Investments
Mt Barney Lodge
The Numbers for 2025
$236m
total corpus
$11.4m
approved in FY25
$224.3m
distributed since inception
The Board extend their appreciation to Trent Duvall, Andrew Sykes and KPMG who provide their audit services to VFFF and Vincent Fairfax Ethical Leadership Foundation (VFELF) on an honorary basis.
Using the Yale Distribution Model, Directors set a granting target of $11.7m for VFFF in 2025/26.
| VFFF | VFELF | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023/24 $m | 2022/23 $m | 2023/24 $m | 2022/23 $m | |
| Corpus | 228.0 | 221.1 | 8.09 | 6.2 |
| Grants approved | 10.0 | 10.2 | 0.4 | 0.85 |
| Cumulative grants | 224.6 | 214.6 | 9.3 | 8.9 |
VFFF Corpus and Grants
*Note: Historical grants represent total cash distributions in that year. From FY20 onwards the amount represents new grants approved in that year.
Investment Strategy
The Corpus of VFFF and VFELF is invested in a diversified portfolio overseen by Cambooya Services Pty Limited assisted by the Cambooya Investment Committee.
VFFF has restructured its investment portfolio into two components. The Granting and Operations component is invested in liquid investments to meet granting and operating expenses and targets a return of 6.5% plus franking credit refunds. The Growth component is invested in higher returning illiquid investments and targets a 12% return. Both components met their targets over the seven year period to 30 June 2024.
VFFF's goal is to have 5% of Corpus invested in impact investments. These are defined as investments that generate measurable social impact alongside financial returns and are expected to yield a below-market level of return for the risk taken. These investments are viewed as an extension of the philanthropic work of VFFF.
Impact Investments committed at 30 June 2024 are:
| Name | Amount Invested/ Committed $m | Inception | Asset Class | Social and Financial Returns to Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HOPE Housing Investment Trust | 1.5 | August 2023 | Property | 4.4% p.a. Investment in a diversified portfolio of residential property investments from shared equity contributions in homes purchased by essential workers. |
| White Box Enterprises – Bangalow | 2.0 | July 2021 | Credit | 3.5% p.a. Funding for the purchase of a property to provide long-term premises to the Lighthouse Laundry business. |
| Family Place | 0.5 | May 2021 | Property | 3.2% p.a. Purchase of a property to provide long-term premises to the The Family Place, a community centre supporting families in Logan, Queensland |
| Family Place Renovations | 2.2 | June 2023 | Property | Renovations to the Family Place |
| Loan to the Crusader Union of Australia | 3.0 | September 2019 | Credit | 4.4% p.a. Loan to help fund the development of the Crusader's campsite facilities in Lake Macquarie, NSW. CRU Camps is the largest provider of Christian holiday camps in NSW, welcoming over 4000 campers each year to over 75 camps |
| Yume Group Holdings Pty Ltd | 0.8 | November 2016 | Private Equity | This is an early-stage investment in a food technology platform. Yume has produced social returns including 10.1m kilograms of food redistributed to businesses and charities, 38.7m kilograms of Co2-equivelant embedded in food redistributed and 2.2bn litres of embedded water in the food redistributed. |
| Brightlight – Urban Villager | 1.5 | October 2024 | Property | Investment in the development of townhouses targeting frontline workers and young families in the Newcastle, Hunter and Central Coast growth corridor under a shared equity program. |
The development of impacting investing at VFFF
Historically, the impact component of the VFFF portfolio contained investments where a lower financial return was acceptable because of an investment's positive social impact. These impact first investments were limited to 5% of the portfolio reflecting the need for the Corpus to generate sufficient returns to perform its main role of granting.
Investments that have a commercial financial return and a positive social impact are also part of the VFFF portfolio. Investments in special disability accommodation and clean energy have delivered commercial returns and “done good”.
In FY25, Cambooya as VFFF’s Investment Manager identified core equity investments which further align the portfolio with positive impact without compromising financial returns. State Street offer two exchange traded funds (SPDR S&P/ASX200 ESG ETF and SPDR S&P World ex Australia Carbon Aware ETF) which expect to deliver commercial returns through broad market exposure, values alignment and a mechanism which rewards companies that improve on impact metrics.
These investments also exclude gambling, tobacco and controversial weapons. At the same time, by favouring companies that perform strongly on metrics such as corporate governance, labour practices and environmental impact they may help promote change at the company level.
While the funds exclude poorly ranking companies, should they improve their performance on these metrics they increase their likelihood of being included as a component of the portfolio. In this way, the fund inclusion methodology may encourage improvements rather than simply restricting capital to certain companies.