Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the ARN Media fiscal year 2023 results conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your host today, Ciaran Davis, CEO and Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Welcome to ARN Media's results. Good morning. Thank you for joining today's call. My name's Ciaran Davis. Joining me is our CFO, Andrew Nye. We seem to have a lot of people on the call, so we're gonna get started with our agenda covering the financial and operating highlights for the year. Andrew will go through the financial performance, after which we will look at our investor proposition and provide an update on the proposed transaction we put to SCA on the 18th of October, 2023, before closing with the trading outlook and Q&A.
Against the backdrop of advertising markets facing ongoing macro challenges, total ARN Media revenues fell 1% to AUD 334 million. Despite an improving second half where our revenues outperformed the market and costs coming in in guidance, in line with guidance, EBIT settled back 13% to AUD 72 million and NPAT back 22% to AUD 29.5 million.
Our net debt is currently at AUD 75 million, although this is slightly elevated due to the timing of some payments, particularly in relation to our move to the North Sydney office, and we expect this to moderate to 1x in 2024. Despite the challenges, the cash-generative nature of our business means a fully franked dividend of AUD 0.036 per share is being declared for the half, bringing total dividends for the year to AUD 0.071, a 75% payout. Our focus on building an integrated business leveraging the strength of our metro, regional, and digital audio assets saw us perform very well in key audience metrics. We continue to be the number one metro radio network, growing broadcast radio audiences by 4% to over 6 million. Key to this is the success of our breakfast shows, which dominate and grew 8% to over 3 million.
We now reach nearly 2 million people in regional markets. Our iHeart registrations grew 10% to 2.6 million, which helped grow our streaming hours also by 10%. And we remain the number one podcast publisher with 6.8 million listeners, + 27% growth for the year. When faced with challenging advertising conditions, it is worth taking a look at the radio market and examining the underlying factors driving the result. The table on the right shows that the top five radio spenders who account for about 43% of radio revenue according to SMI indicates that three of the five categories experienced growth in 2023. Government and political spend was down 40% or AUD 30 million and was the ultimate reason for ARN's decline in radio revenues. The drop for us was approximately AUD 7 million, and but for this, our revenue would have been close to parity for 2022.
So radio still remains a very important part of the marketing mix, and as a medium, audio is not structurally challenged. Radio's role is very well understood by agencies and clients in the delivery of reach and frequency, brand building, and most importantly, campaign effectiveness. The share of total advertising remains consistent at 78%. As the quote on slide four says, it drives a disproportionately large impact for a relatively modest investment. Important messaging in this current advertising cycle. Despite the economic challenges, our business continues to experience audience success as we grew across our radio, digital streaming, and podcasting, creating great content from world-class talent and distributing this content everywhere audiences seek it. We recorded our best ratings results and our highest-ever cumulative audience. ARN continues to lead in the key metropolitan markets with number one FM stations in Sydney and Melbourne.
In Melbourne, Gold 104.3 is number one FM for 2023 in breakfast, morning, afternoon, and drive, led by the Christian O'Connell Show, who has been number one FM for almost every survey since 2020. Podcast listening has now reached mass appeal. 43% of the population now listen to a podcast and our highest annual audience achieved to date. Listeners continue to demonstrate an appetite to stream and listen to live radio on digital platforms, and we saw an 11% increase to stream over 115 million hours of content. As Australia's leading broadcast and on-demand audio company, we now connect with over 8.4 million people each week across every state and territory in Australia. ARN also benefits from our unique long-term partnership with iHeartMedia to license their digital audio platform in Australia.
This low-CapEx partnership model gives us access to technology stack without the sizeable build, maintenance, and product roadmap development costs. It also gives us unrivaled slate of premium podcast content, international radio stations, and an exhaustive library of curated playlists, plus cutting-edge commercialization, targeting, and the AI technology. Extending our product offering, growing our audiences on the iHeart brand, together with expansion of a commercial team, will allow for increased depth of content and engagement across the market to work with sectors of the ad market we currently don't engage with and expand revenue opportunities. Rightly, some investors ask us why we invest in digital audio and when will it be possible. Well, as we have seen, overall listening is growing as is digital engagement with our talent and brands.
At this point, although we have seen accelerated advertising growth for the past two years, the audience growth is outpacing advertising. Only about 45% of agencies use digital audio regularly, and the gap between agency consumption at 74% and the commercial dollars at 1% is wide and an area we are focusing on. The tipping point is when we move out of the radio sector of the market and tap into the digital sector, where two years ago, we had no relationship with that segment of the market. When you consider that the top 500 spenders on social, for instance, 170 of them spend zero on radio yet still spend AUD 500 million. The opportunity is to build a business that can play in this space.
It'll take greater scale of audience, enhanced digital sales and transaction capability, dedicated sales teams, and we are looking at our options in this space. Over the past 12-18 months, we have invested a lot of time and energy to setting our commercial teams up with the right structure, training, product suite to deliver comprehensive commercial solutions for clients. In particular, the ability of our sales people to provide the right solution to the right clients with the right commercial response is something we have focused on. On top of how well our sales teams are regarded in market, we are pleased that our investment in sales capability resulted in outperformance in H2, as illustrated in the chart at the bottom of slide six, across metro, regional, and digital. We are gaining share in all three areas, and that trend has continued into 2024.
ARN is a major force in regional media with 47 regional stations across Australia serving as key pillars of the communities they broadcast in. Two years on from acquiring the regional radio network, we have in place an experienced team to deliver integration projects, and I am pleased that this acquisition is now fully complete and integrated with singular inventory, revenue, and finance systems. In 2023, we prioritized strengthening the crucially important connection to community through investing in local teams, local content, and improving infrastructure. Local revenues, which account for about 70% of overall regional revenues, continue to perform exceptionally well, and despite market conditions, have increased revenue by AUD 4 million since we acquired the business, highlighting the resilience of regional markets.
Our goal to deliver revenue synergies of up to AUD 20 million a year within three years of acquisition has been impacted by reduced national agency budgets and considerably lower government spend following the federal election in 2022. As the chart illustrates, excluding the impact of reduced government spend, we have delivered approximately AUD 8 million annual incremental revenues after two years. Yes, this has been offset by a AUD 4 million reduction in government spending, but the share gains we are seeing and the feedback we are getting from clients give us confidence to deliver further incremental revenue in 2024, with the focus being on driving the national agency share. One of the key priorities for the year was the retention of our top-rating breakfast shows in Sydney and Melbourne on extended long-term contracts, which we announced in November.
The Kyle and Jackie O and Christian O'Connell Shows have enjoyed unparalleled success for many years and both have proven ability as world-class broadcasters to build audiences. These extensions reflect our ongoing strategy to invest in and retain the best on-air talent across our network and are designed to create full alignment with ARN Media, with a unique compensation package that rewards ratings and commercial success. We believe these contracts set the foundation for the next chapter in ARN Media's evolution as an audio business, aligning the objectives of our key talent with that of the company and creating a platform for improved shareholder returns over the medium term. All the details are on slide five, which I won't go through now, but I just want to highlight the key ones. Kyle and Jackie O Show were broadcast in Melbourne on KIIS 101.1 in H1 2024.
A total of AUD 7 million worth of shares in ARN Media has been issued to Kyle Sandilands, Jackie O Henderson, and Christian O'Connell and will vest at the end of the contract term. Importantly, the net total increase is limited to approximately AUD 2 million-AUD 3 million per annum, and these fees are not subject to CPI or any further fixed increases over the term of the contracts. We have budgeted for an additional marketing investment of around AUD 3 million-AUD 4 million in 2024 to launch the Kyle and Jackie O Show in Melbourne, which Andrew will talk to later in the presentation. We are fortunate to have Australia's best talent on and off air at ARN, and we believe these re-signings strengthen our ability to engage audiences and de-risk the business from future changes for many years.
We very much look forward to Kyle and Jackie O commencing their broadcast in Melbourne and feel the time is right now for a number of reasons. Melbourne, at AUD 220 million, is a more valuable radio advertising market than Sydney, and combined, the two of them represent 62% of the metro radio market. Historically, KIIS 101.1 hasn't performed as well as KIIS 106.5 in Sydney from an audience perspective, with Sydney having more than double its audience and a breakfast show ranking of 1 versus 6. This naturally impacts commercial share, and as the graph on the bottom right shows, commercial share follows audience, with our modeling demonstrating a potential share 10 share point opportunity with audience and ranking improvement. A lot of preparation is already going on within the show.
We've commenced marketing and on-air promotion, and we are confident of its success based on some of the proof points we already have. For instance, the success of the syndicated Kyle and Jackie O Hour of Power show in Melbourne, the fact that the Kyle and Jackie O broadcast is the number one catch-up podcast in the country with over 2 million downloads a month, of which over 10% come from Melbourne, and finally, the incentives for Kyle and Jackie O to succeed commercially provides further focus for everyone. Andrew.
Thanks, Ciaran. Good morning, everyone. You'll notice the financial summary slides are presented in a consistent manner with the half-year results and additional information in the appendices. Here we show the statutory reported results for the period with a loss of AUD 9.8 million owing to a non-cash impairment of ARN intangible assets partly offset by a gain on disposal of the group's investment in Soprano. Impacts of Soprano disposal and exited contracts for Cody Outdoor have been normalized to allow comparability in the far-right column.
Group advertising revenues were back AUD 10.6 million or 1% pro forma, with second-half trading slightly improved on the first. The result was obviously impacted by a range of well-understood macro factors. Costs were up AUD 4.1 million or 2% pro forma, and we covered in more detail later. Impacting the statutory result is a AUD 72.6 million non-cash impairment charge on historical ARN intangible assets, predominantly radio licenses.
As an integrated group, we assess the recoverability of intangible assets relative to the entire cash flow of the entire ARN business, not as standalone metro or regional operations. The charge is a direct consequence of the trading environment and reflects current depressed trading multiples of ARN and our peer companies. We declared a final fully franked dividend of AUD 0.036 per share, bringing the total 2023 dividends to AUD 0.071 per share, equating to a yield post-franking benefit of over 10%. Here we set out performance for the ARN group, breaking out metro, regional, and digital with total revenues back 2%. Despite a soft market, performance across all sources of revenue improved in the second half. Metro revenues finished back 5%, marginally ahead of markets. National regional revenues, which account for approximately 30% of regional revenues, were back 6%, materially impacted by government spend.
Local regional revenues, the remaining 70%, were up 1% on already strong comparatives. Excluding changes in government spend, metro revenues were back 3%, and regional were flat. On the cost front, revenue-related cost growth reflects investment in premium digital content, while combined, people and operating costs were managed to flat year-over-year in line with guidance provided in the first half. Digital audio revenues grew 36% to AUD 19.8 million, and EBITDA losses narrowed in the period. A series of actions taken following a comprehensive review of our digital audio offering completed in the first quarter of last year has delivered consistent revenue growth since May 2023, and this trajectory is continuing into the first quarter of 2024. Total digital costs grew 7% in the period, reflecting investment in premium content, offset by lower operating costs, specifically marketing, in line with our overall cost guidance.
Digital losses for the second half narrowed by 31% to AUD 3.6 million, and we are now very confident of achieving a break-even run rate, both EBITDA and cash flow, in early Q4 of this year or possibly sooner. The low-CapEx nature of our digital business model means that we will be cash flow break-even when we are EBITDA break-even, an important distinguishing factor under our long-term partnership with iHeartMedia. In mid-2023, we commenced an internal review of the ARN operating model, and we are now well progressed in the implementation phase of a program to simplify and standardize radio operations, the objectives being to maximize operating margins through the current economic cycle and to enable continued investment in line with our strategy.
Under the program, annualized permanent cost savings of AUD 10 million or 5.5% of the addressable cost base have been identified, with AUD 6.5 million P&L impact in 2024 and the remainder in 2025. In some detail, we've included a bridge of targeted total people and operating costs break by 2024, incorporating the selective reinvestment of certain costs saved in 2023, one-off marketing costs for launch of the new Melbourne breakfast show, a level of CPI growth, and the expected current year savings from the cost out program. In total, we are expecting year-on-year people and operating costs to increase by circa 2%-4%. As has been the case in the recent past, should trading conditions deteriorate, we'll move early to manage available cost levers.
Following a period of contract rationalization and business contraction, we're very pleased to confirm today that Cody has finalized an agreement through a competitive tender process to operate as the advertising partner for Hong Kong Tramways under the tram body contract. For those familiar with Hong Kong Island, you'll be well aware of the iconic trams that circulate the densely populated key business and residential districts. This long-term contract is a major milestone in reestablishing Cody as a key player in the Hong Kong market, building market share and business valuation. It's a significant contract, expected to generate annualized revenues of over AUD 30 million. However, owing to the impact of lease accounting, annualized contract EBITDA is expected to be above AUD 25 million, while net profit before tax attributable to the contract will most likely be under AUD 5 million per annum.
A pro forma view of the current Cody business, removing the partial impact of exited contracts, is included to assist with modeling. ARN remains a highly cash-generative business. However, cash metrics in the period were impacted by the now near-complete Sydney office relocation, for which we incurred AUD 11.5 million in 2023. Investing cash flows include the proceeds on disposal of Soprano Design, offset by our investment in Southern Cross. Annualized recurring CapEx requirements for network going forward are expected to remain unchanged at between AUD 8 million-AUD 10 million per annum. We have again set out the financial impacts of our head office move to assist with modeling. And finally, after 25 years in the current Sydney premises, we're excited about the head office and studio move to North Sydney, being closer to key agencies and clients and for our people providing significantly improved amenities and access to transport.
The balance sheet remains sound, with net debt of AUD 75.1 million and slightly elevated leverage owing to necessary CapEx investment for the Sydney office relocation. With tenor and access to AUD 100 million of undrawn limits remain on the group facility, you'll note an increase in right-of-use assets and lease liabilities on recognition of the new Sydney office lease and the impact of the previously noted impairment on intangible assets and deferred taxes. Today, we announced a fully franked final dividend of AUD 0.036 per share, bringing the full-year dividend to AUD 0.071 per share, a yield in excess of 10% after the franking credit benefit. Finally, we've kept the buyback on hold while the potential SCA transaction progresses, Ciaran.
Thanks, Andrew. You've seen today the different strands to our business that we are operating as we build foundations for an audio-centric entertainment business.
So how does all this come together? We're making investments in key talent across the country to create great content and attract mass audiences. We are then distributing that content everywhere our listeners want to listen to it, from location to platform to device, to ensure it's accessible and easy and free to listen to. Finally, we are building specialist skills plus technical capability to meet the commercial market on its terms and unlock revenue through all buying channels, with an ever-increasing focus on programmatic trading, addressable and contextual targeting, with integrated content and influencer talent alignment as we aim to capture the lion's share of the radio market and target the digital advertising segment. Before we move to the next section, I think it's important to highlight some of the headwinds and tailwinds we're facing into as the start of 2024.
Obviously, the macro environment is uncertain on many fronts, and we continue to watch closely the impacts on overall consumer sentiment. Closely linked to this is CPI and the pressure on cost inflation on our business, particularly our ability to retain key people and meet wage demands. And while our teams are doing all they can to drive revenue opportunities, the advertising market is subject to these external factors and remains short, with limited visibility and pressure on pricing. That being said, we have a number of initiatives underway to help drive improved performance and commercial return and ultimately improve shareholder value.
These include the Kyle and Jackie O opportunity in Melbourne already discussed, the further realization of regional revenue synergies, achieving digital audio cash flow break-even in H2 2024, and looking at ways to unlock new sources of sustained revenue growth, the commencement of the Hong Kong tram contract in May to rebuild market share and business valuation, and finally, the proposed SCA transaction, which we believe is a compelling value creation opportunity for both SCA and ARN shareholders. Respecting that there's a process underway and an NDA all parties have entered into, I do think it's appropriate to provide an update on the status of the indicative proposal we put to SCA. On the 18th of October, 2023, ARN and Anchorage Capital Partners made a non-binding indicative proposal to acquire 100% of the fully diluted share capital of Southern Cross Media Group Limited.
Consideration comprised of 0.753 ARN shares and AUD 0.296 per fully diluted SCA share, with the potential for eligible SCA shareholders to access additional value from franking credits. At the time of the approach, the indicative proposal represented a premium of 29% to SCA undisturbed share price and 46% including franking credits. Regarding the status of the engagement, the consortium has proactively sought to engage constructively with SCA to progress the indicative proposal in the four months since it was first made. On the 19th of December, 2023, ARN announced that the consortium had reconfirmed the indicative proposal and was undertaking further due diligence subject to receipt of necessary information from SCA. The consortium again reconfirmed the indicative proposal on the 5th of February, 2024, based on partial access to necessary due diligence information from SCA.
As part of this most recent reconfirmation, the consortium also provided SCA with an update on its detailed work, confirmed the commercial rationale for the proposed transaction, its practical executability, and the value creation opportunity it represents for SCA and ARN shareholders. So actions from here required to deliver a binding transaction include, subject to the timely receipt of complete information required to finalize due diligence, the consortium would be in a position to execute a binding transaction by late March, 2024. This includes immediately commencing work to finalize mutual due diligence, including customary confirmatory financial, legal, and tax review. It also includes further engagement with SCA to agree to necessary transaction documentation as set out in the indicative proposal.
Crucially, the consortium remains committed to delivering a clear, compelling, and certain transaction for SCA shareholders in a timely and efficient manner, unlocking material value for both ARN and SCA shareholders. This includes creating Australia's leading domestic audio business, with 10 metro stations, 88 regional stations, and a 50% interest in a digital audio joint venture consisting of substantially all of SCA's and ARN's digital audio assets. The strategically focused metro network will be anchored by the KIIS and Triple M brands in all five metro markets with world-class breakfast talent. It will create a larger, more profitable regional footprint across Australia with proven strategies to grow local audience revenues, and it will accelerate a more profitable and scaled digital audio business that is independent, well-capitalized, and better equipped to compete with international media platforms.
Finally, looking at the trading outlook, January metro regional and digital revenues were all up on prior comparative period and delivered market share gains. Q1 total revenue is pacing 1% ahead of the prior comparative period, with radio revenues pacing circa 2% down, offset by digital audio revenues pacing circa 35% up. Full-year cost guidance is expected to deliver AUD 6.5 million of the AUD 10 million two-year permanent cost out program weighted to H2. In 2024, we are targeting total people and operating cost growth of 2%-4%, with short-term leaves available should market conditions deteriorate. Thank you, and I'll now hand over for Q&A.
As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from a line of Entcho Raykovski with E&P.
Morning, Ciaran. Morning, Andy. I've got two questions. The first one on the outlook and one on the Southern Cross proposal. Just when I look at the outlook in the ad market, some other media operators have pointed to a significant slowdown in November and December. I'm just interested in whether that's something that you saw within your bookings. And then if I look at what you've said into January and Q1, your January bookings look reasonably good, but then maybe some slowdown for the remainder of 1 Q. Can you perhaps explain what dynamic is driving that? Should we maybe not be focusing too much on a single month? Maybe a few questions in there, but if you could elaborate, it would be great.
Hi, Entcho. I think you answered your question, but the last one there, but not focusing too much on one month. You're right. There was a slowdown that we experienced towards November, December last year, with the market sort of coming under pressure, obviously, and all mediums experienced that. Yes, January has started up on last year. I think what we look at for the quarter would be pacing sort of 1% ahead with the digital growth offsetting maybe the slight radio decline. I think what we're seeing is that it's still short, limited visibility, but we tend not to look beyond six months in terms six weeks, sorry, in terms of these outlooks. But I look at quarter one, and I think we will be ahead for the quarter on last year.
Radio's role is well known, as I called out in the presentation, its ability to drive short-term returns and ROI for advertisers is helped in environments like this. We recently had a conference last week where we had 400 media buyers there talking about the power of radio, talking about its reach and frequency, talking about its brand extension capabilities, and talking about its campaign effectiveness. So all of this are in place for us to respond to briefs in a very short-term manner, in a very timely manner, and that's proving positive with the market at the moment.
And given you're saying this strong growth in Q1, albeit, as you say, limited visibility, do you think you're taking some money from TV? Is the market stabilizing? What's the ad market dynamic that you're seeing?
I think there's two elements there. The first would be we're pleased with how our sales teams are performing. So we have seen share gain across metro, regional, digital in January, and I'd expect that to continue for the quarter. I think the dynamics are in terms of radio, as I said before, there's a genuine appreciation and understanding for radio's role. And all the work that we have done about investment in digital audio, our capability to drive digital audio revenue growth, none of that would have resulted in sort of the outlook that we had. We haven't done it over the last two years. So we are seeing so radio still perform okay, slightly back, but okay, and being offset by digital audio growth, which is the justification for the investments we're made over the last couple of years.
Okay, great. And just one on the proposed transaction. When you made the release, you spoke about double-digit earnings accretion to ARN shareholders if the transaction was to go ahead. Can you talk us through the key synergy assumptions which underpin that accretion? I mean, is it mainly about eliminating some of the digital losses, or are there other things that you see as potential? And I'm just conscious that I mean, you've just reiterated your expectation that digital will be break-even by end of calendar year 2024. So I would have thought if it's just digital, there's probably it doesn't feel like it's that much, but any other factors that you have in mind if you could talk to?
Yeah, I'm not going to go too much into the detail, Entcho. As you can appreciate, there is a process underway, and we have signed an NDA. But the accretive element of the transaction, we still see, and we've reconfirmed that. I think there's two elements that drive it, yes, the digital audio piece and the initial savings that can be done, but more so the revenue opportunities longer-term that we see. But also, the concept of having more FM licenses within ARN means that we have a greater ability to drive revenue as well. But without going into too much detail, because I don't really want to, to be honest, Entcho, the business case, the transaction is as we see it from a value perspective for both ARN and SCA shareholders.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Our next question will come from the line of Darren Leung with Macquarie. Darren, your line is now open.
Morning, Ciaran. Morning, Andrew. Can you guys hear me?
Yeah.
Yep. Yep.
Yep. Thanks, guys. I had two as well, please. And maybe it's the first line in relation, the key talent. So congratulations on locking them down for another several years. We saw a little bit of drop-off in terms of Survey 7 and 8 towards the back end of last year. So I guess the question is, how sustained do you think these ratings drop-offs are? And was it just sort of part of the negotiation process? Were we expecting it to come back throughout calendar year 2024? That's the first question. And then the second one was just in relation to Seven West Media. Any comments you can talk about in terms of discussions or any merits you can talk about in terms of a combined radio/TV entity? Given your comments around what's happening in terms of the other mediums. Thanks.
Thanks, Darren. Firstly, on ratings, and I always guard against this, we don't sort of look at book on book and judge the performance of the business book on book. There is a trend, and sometimes books go up and sometimes books go down. But I think if you look at the history of Kyle and Jackie O, off the top of my head, they've been number one for 50 hours of 55-hour surveys for the last 10+ years. So their track record of driving audiences is there. And I'm also very cognizant of their ability to drive audiences at the younger end as well. One of the questions we get from time to time is their ability to stay relevant to audiences and regenerate younger audiences coming through. That has been the foundation of their success for the last 10 years. They are very hungry. They're very motivated.
The concept of the contract means that there is upside for them on commercial success as well. So we didn't sort of look at the contract from Survey 7 and 8. This is a long-term gain and plan for the business because we believe that they will stay as relevant for the next 10 years. Similarly, Christian, he has been number one FM breakfast show for, I think, most of the survey since 2020. He's performed phenomenally well since he came into the market from the U.K. back in 2017, I think it was, 2018. His, again, record speaks for himself, and he's equally motivated with a similar type contract to drive a commercial return. So Survey 7 and 8 go up and down. I think you'll find we go up and down this year as with every other radio network.
In terms of Seven West, we haven't spoken to Seven West. In fact, we haven't spoken to them at all. Sort of, obviously, it's partnerships that go on, particularly in breakfast shows with the likes of Kyle doing Idol. But equally, we have similar partnerships with the N etwork 10 and with the Nine Network. But there's been no engagement, no discussions with Seven at all.
That's very clear. Thanks, Ciaran.
As a reminder, that is star one one to ask a question. Our next question will come from the line of Cameron Halkett with Wilsons Advisory.
Hi, Ciaran. Hi, Andrew. Can you hear me okay?
Yep.
Thank you.
Wonderful. Thanks, guys. Just one for me at the moment. Can I just touch on the marketing investment for Kyle and Jackie O going to Melbourne?
The pack today has got AUD 3 million-AUD 4 million, but if I went back to the release in November, it was stated as AUD 2 million. So just wondering the change there and the reason for the step-up. Thanks.
Thanks, Cameron. I can take that. So it has changed little. Yep, we've done the right amount of work now to be comfortable with the level of investment required. We did state in that release that it would be multi-years. It's probably not the same need to have that investment running over multi-years. So there are the differences between the two releases.
Okay. So bigger upfront and then pacing off to probably that AUD 2 million per year per the initial release. Okay. Thanks, guys.
That concludes today's question and answer session. I'd like to turn the call back to Ciaran Davis for closing remarks.
Thanks, everybody. I know it's a busy morning. Thank you for your time, and we look forward to talking to lots of you over the next few days. Thanks a lot.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.