I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Nick Pagent, Managing Director and CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. Thank you, everyone, and good morning. Thank you for dialing into our presentation. Welcome to the presentation of the financial results for Autosports Group for the full financial year of 2022. My name's Nick Pagent. I'm the CEO of Autosports Group. Joining me here today is Aaron Murray, the CFO of Autosports Group. This morning, we'll start with a short presentation on Autosports' 2022 financial year highlights, strategic highlights, an update on the automotive market and our recent acquisition of the Auckland City BMW group. Aaron will take us through the detail of the financial results and the trends that underpin them. Following the presentation, we'll open up the call to any questions that you may have.
As we move through the presentation lodged this morning on the ASX and Autosports Group's own investor site, I will, where possible, note the slide number. Starting at slide number three for the financial highlights, I'm pleased to report that Autosports Group has delivered a strong financial result in the 2022 financial year. This result has been underpinned by strong customer demand, improving margins, and the return of service and parts revenue post the COVID-19 restrictions. This combination of new vehicle demand, service and parts revenue growth, and improving gross margins is driving continued momentum into 2023 financial year. In 2022, the statutory net profit after tax was up 29% to AUD 54.6 million.
Revenue was down 5.2%, primarily on delayed new vehicle deliveries, driven by the worldwide semiconductor wiring loom and transport delays. These customer orders continue to fill Autosports Group's order banks. For the 2022 financial year, Autosports Group took 25% more customer new vehicle orders than it was able to deliver. These customer orders, combined with strong underlying demand, will continue to support the new vehicle revenue, especially as supply normalizes through FY 2023 and FY 2024. The group's gross margins grew to 19.9%, up 16% on the prior corresponding period and up from the first half of 2022 financial year. These margins have been driven by the continuation of new vehicle margins and the return of high-margin service and parts revenue post the COVID-19 lockdowns.
The normalized net profit before tax for the group grew as a result to AUD 92.8 million, up 23% on FY 2021. The combination of record operating profits, cash flows, and a positive forward outlook has allowed Autosports Group to raise its full-year dividend to AUD 0.16, up 78% from FY 2021, with a final fully franked dividend of AUD 0.09 per share. If I move to slide four to discuss the strategic highlights of the business, Autosports Group continues to deliver on its strategic objectives, improving our resilience, broadening our platform, driving growth opportunities. FY 2022 was no different in this regard. Business acquisitions continued to drive accretive growth. The John Newell Mazda business settled in July 2021. It's a high-margin business with great brands, and it enhanced our Alexandria hub.
The Suttons Subaru and Kia business was next settled in June 2022, broadening our exposure to the prestige segment, giving us access to the Kia EV platforms and further enhancing our Alexandria hub. In late 2022 financial year that settled in August 2022, we purchased the Auckland City BMW group with two BMW, two MINI, one Rolls-Royce dealership, and I'll speak on this transaction in a little bit more detail in a few slides. A strong underlying market has accelerated our operational outcomes. Demand continues to exceed supply, supporting profits and deepening margin improvements. Service and parts underlying growth rates return to +9%. The runway for the group is widened with the expansion into the New Zealand luxury market. Our property strategy remains on track.
We acquired the strategically important sites underlying our Bundoora BMW business and the Subaru Kia business in Alexandria. It takes our total property portfolio to AUD 98.3 million against the group net debt, excluding floor plan, of AUD 21.7 million. Our strong financial position and outlook supports both our growth strategy and the improved dividend outcomes. We finished the year with AUD 90.8 million in cash, which provides us growth capacity. Operating cash flows of AUD 135 million and strong customer order banks give us forward confidence. This allows growth and the AUD 0.16 dividend fully franked that I announced earlier. Which brings me to the outlook before I take you through some detail of market conditions and our recent BMW acquisition.
For 2023, we see new vehicle demand to continue to exceed supply, with new vehicle supply gradually improving through FY 2023 and FY 2024. Indeed, in July 2022, in the first month of the 2023 financial year, Autosports Group recorded a record July order rate as conditions continue to be strong. Used vehicle demand is expected to remain elevated, with underlying growth rates of between 6% and 9%. Service and parts are also expected to maintain underlying growth rates between 6% and 9%. Gross margins should continue to grow on improving revenue mix and the agency accounting treatments. Profit before tax margins should remain consistent in the next 12 months. Our strong balance sheet position will support further acquisition growth in the 2023 financial year. If I move to slide number seven to talk a little bit about the market.
If I start with the chart on the right side of the page, this chart shows the total market registrations. Ordinarily, this chart would be a proxy for underlying demand. Today, the chart is a proxy for supply. As you can see, supply is okay. It's consistent and broadly in line with the one million new vehicle car market. This supply is enough for us to deliver the outlook we've outlined today. The new vehicle market was 5.2% down during the last six months, with Autosports Group's operating segments faring worse on more heavily impacted supply constraints. The luxury market was down 7.2% during the period. More interesting, however, for us is the chart on the left-hand side of the page, which shows Autosports Group's underlying demand.
It is this chart that shows why we're confident that supply constraints exceed any future impact on consumer demand. Quite simply, underlying demand, as measured by our customer new vehicle orders, is running and still running through July and August, 25% higher than our available supply. As a consequence, our customer order bank continues to grow. Over the last six months, our customer order bank has grown 66%. This growth is off the 102% growth that we spoke about in the February half year report for the 2021 calendar year. The order bank is also skewed to high-value specialist vehicles with high gross margin potential. For example, our super luxury brands, encompassing Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin, Bentley, Lamborghini, McLaren, and Maserati, have an order bank that exceeded 300 cars as of June 2022.
This combination of demand and customer order bank reduces our forward risk to any new vehicle revenue and margin pressures that may come through FY 2023 and 2024. If I move now to slide eight to talk about the acquisition of Auckland City BMW. The acquisition of Auckland City BMW brings Autosports a strategically aligned business of significant scale. Great brands, great locations, stable markets. The business brings a dominant market position in New Zealand, a well-established management team, the opportunity to pursue future growth by acquisition in a new market, and it also brings another deep customer order bank into the Autosports Group. Finally, it leaves us our runway in Australia still open for further growth opportunities. Simply on a strategic basis, this was a no-brainer of an acquisition.
Through to slide nine, on a financial and operational basis, the opportunity to acquire Auckland City BMW was also a no-brainer. The business covers 37% of BMW's volume in New Zealand through the calendar year of 2021. 50% of the MINI volume on that same basis, and of course, is the only Rolls-Royce dealer in New Zealand. The business has revenues of approximately NZD 160 million. It has high margins. These margins are in excess of the Deloitte New Zealand averages. The New Zealand luxury market as well continues to produce margins that are in excess of the Australian market. This acquisition will further support Autosports Group's overall margin growth. It follows our path of acquiring high margin and high margin potential businesses.
The business was well-priced at NZD 55 million in goodwill, with approximately NZD 13.9 million in assets. We funded the business with a new NZD 13.5 million dollar debt facility from BMW Finance. The acquisition will be immediately EPS accretive, and it maintains our corporate debt lower than 1x EBITDA, leaving us well-placed for further acquisition growth. To recap the financial summary for FY 2022 on slide 11, the normalized net profit before tax for the group grew 23% to AUD 92.8 million. Gross margins grew to 19.9%. Operational expenses were well-controlled with like-for-like operating expenses only up 1.6%, driving further operating leverage for the business. Net cash generated from operating activities was AUD 135 million. Final dividend of AUD 0.09 . Full year dividend, AUD 0.16 .
Slide 12 goes through the normalized financial results. Just to pick a couple of highlights out here, the 2022 financial year normalized result demonstrates the value of Autosports Group's diverse revenue streams. This resilience is underscored by the strong rebound in service revenue at +9.3% and parts revenue at +8.5%. These high margin income streams were interrupted in the 2020 and 2021 financial years, and indeed through quarter one of the 2022 financial year, by COVID-19 related lockdowns. As we've seen, strong underlying demand continued, continues and continued investment in enhanced supply, in enhanced capacity in service and parts should see these back-end revenue streams continue to grow through FY 2023 and FY 2024.
New vehicle revenue we've touched on was minus 10%, driven primarily by supply shortages and delivery delays. However, AUD 50 million of the reduction in revenue was driven by the accounting impact of the agency model. Aaron will touch on this later and go through the accounting treatments for agency. Operational expenses, as I said, well controlled, up AUD 16.2 million for the whole business. AUD 12.3 million of that coming from acquisition-led expense growth. AUD 10.7 million came as a rollover from the FY 2023 JobKeeper amount, which was AUD 10.7 million. If I move to slide 13, we and touch on the statutory result for a second. Net profit after tax was up 28.7% to AUD 54.6 million. The impact of our acquisition amortization from listing is quickly reducing.
Earnings per share were up 27.3% and up 95% since our listing in 2016. Dividend per share was up 77.8%, and since our listing was up, is up 248%. I'd like now to hand over to Aaron to share some more detail on our 2022 financial result and the trends in revenue, margin, operating leverage, cash flow and balance sheet. Thanks, Aaron.
Thanks, Nick, and good morning to everybody on the call. If we move to slide 15, I will talk through the impact the agency model has on our accounting treatments. We're not making a comment on agency profitability as we haven't had enough time to assess the exact impact of the changes. We have been operating under the agency agreement with Mercedes-Benz for six months, and the FY 2022 result has a crossover with pre-ordered franchise sales during the period. What we do wanna do is make it clear the change in accounting treatments because it will have an impact on revenue recognition and margins. Firstly, it's important to understand that only new vehicle revenue is impacted for dealerships operating under the agency model. Under the agency model, the agent selling the new vehicle is paid a commission.
The commission is paid by the OEM and is a percentage of the new vehicle value. The commission has no cost of sale and is recognized as 100% gross profit. In our financial statements, this agency commission is now recognized as other revenue combined with our finance and insurance, aftermarket, and other sundry income. A direct result of this will see an increase in our gross profit margin and an increase in our OpEx margins. The new vehicle inventory is all owned by the OEM, which therefore removes our interest costs associated with new vehicle floor plan. If we move to slide 16, our revenue drivers. While ASG's revenue declined on PCP, there is a strong underlying market with our customers' new vehicle orders growing 300% since June 2021. Our new vehicle revenue decline of AUD 133 million is purely a result of supply constraints during the period.
Other areas of revenue declines came via the AUD 50 million impact of agency and AUD 16.4 million in business closures. We achieved revenue growth on PCP of AUD 14.8 million in our Used Vehicles and after-sales departments, which were hampered by lockdowns in H1 2022. ASG's continued acquisition strategy resulted in an additional AUD 84.7 million of revenue on PCP during the period. In FY 2023, our revenue will benefit by the full-year trading of Subaru and Kia and 11 months of trading at our new Auckland sites. These new sites will more than offset the adjustment of agency revenue recognition. We move to Slide 17, Gross Profit Margin Overview. ASG is a maturing business that has had prolonged margin expansions, moving from 14.5% in FY 2016 to 19.9% in FY 2022.
Gross margin has been supported by historical acquisitions of assets that presented high margin opportunities, our maturing greenfield sites, and a favorable new and used vehicle market conditions. GP margin continued to improve in every revenue stream through FY 2022. The strong depth of our customer new vehicle orders will prolong current margin conditions. Move to Slide 18, Unlocking Improved Operating Leverage. Historically, ASG has implemented disciplined expense reduction strategies through focused site rationalization by property acquisition and dealership consolidations to reduce occupancy costs. We've employed significant focus on driving the group's existing scale benefits and synergies through our acquired businesses. As a result of these strategies, we have seen OpEx decline on PCP of AUD 1.3 million in like-for-like occupancy costs and AUD 4.6 million in like-for-like other expenses.
ASG's FY 2022 operating expense has increased by AUD 16 million on PCP, with AUD 14 million of the increase coming through acquisitions and AUD 4 million in like-for-like increases and offset by a reduction of AUD 2 million in closed businesses. A like-for-like increase of AUD 4 million is a direct result of the absence of the JobKeeper subsidy in FY 2022, offset by the savings made in occupancy costs and other expenses. If you move to Slide 19, Margin Overview. Historical EBITDA and PBT margins have been impacted by acquisitions that were running at higher OpEx margin than the wider groups. The OpEx improvements in acquired sites and the strategies implemented in improving our OpEx has driven improvements in the group's EBITDA and PBT margins. In FY 2022, EBITDA and PBT margins have continued to improve to 6% and 4.9%, respectively.
Margins have been impacted positively by favorable market conditions, improved site utilization, improved property portfolio, lowering occupancy costs, and strong capital management, reducing interest. Move to slide 20, Cash Flows. ASG opened FY 2022 with strong cash reserves of AUD 96.8 million and generated a strong AUD 135 million of operating cash for FY 2022. Through FY 2022, ASG drew down AUD 40.7 million of debt, largely to fund property acquisitions. We had an aggressive corporate debt paydown of AUD 29 million, PP&E expenditure of AUD 67.9 million, of which AUD 43.3 million was on real estate. AUD 15.3 million on improved showroom and workshop facilities and AUD 8.7 million of maintenance CapEx.
We spent AUD 20.2 million on the acquisition of Alexandria Mazda, Suttons Subaru and Kia, and continued strong cash flows allowed a AUD 28.4 million dividend payment. This left ASG with a strong closing cash position of AUD 90.8 million. Capital expenditure plan for FY 2023 includes completion of the BMW Kingsway development and AUD 45 million for the Auckland City BMW group that settled on the first of August 2022. If you move to slide 21, Strong Balance Sheet. ASG's net debt excluding floor plan closed at AUD 21.7 million. A total corporate debt of AUD 112.5 million, with AUD 32.1 million relating to goodwill, PP&E, and insurance premium funding, and the remaining AUD 80.4 million relating to AUD 98.8 million of real estate.
This increase in owned property has resulted in improved profit margins and cash flows. ASG's inventory reduced by AUD 33 million on PCP, driving continued reductions in interest and holding costs through FY 2022. ASG continues to have supportive OEM financiers with 98% of ASG's corporate debt and 100% of bailment finance funded by OEM financiers. ASG's strong closing cash balance and undrawn bailment facilities of AUD 282 million leaves it well-placed to continue its consolidation strategy.
Thanks, Aaron. Just before we open the call up to questions, I'll just recap the results there and the strategic and financial outlook of the business. To review the results. In FY 2022, statutory revenue was down by 5.2% on new vehicle supply constraints. Normalized net profit before tax was up 23.4% to AUD 92.8 million. Gross margins were up to 19.9% on resilient new vehicle margins and improvements in service and parts revenue. Like-for-like normalized operating expenses were tightly managed, just up 1.5%. Net cash, as Aaron noted, was up AUD 135 million. A final fully franked dividend of AUD 0.09 takes the full year dividend to AUD 0.16.
On the strategic outlook, Autosports Group's strategy to drive further growth and shareholder returns is to continue to consolidate the fragmented automotive retail market by acquiring more dealerships in the luxury and prestige segments, but also to expand our dealership footprint to brands with strong electric vehicle capability. To continue acquisitions of key properties in key trading locations to maximize our flexibility, security, and balance sheet strength. We're gonna continue to invest in our organic growth streams. Greenfields locations, such as the Ringwood BMW location, which will open in the 2023 financial year, and increased service and parts capacity to unlock that high margin revenue. We're looking to deliver consistent shareholder returns and dividends in the range of 55%-70% net profit before tax.
To the financial outlook for 2023, new vehicle demand is expected to continue to exceed supply. Used vehicle demand is expected to grow between 6% and 9%. Service and parts is also expected to grow between 6% and 9%. The strong balance sheet position supports further growth via acquisition in 2023. I'd like now to open up the call for any questions that you may have. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now begin our question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star then one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star then two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. The first question will be from James Ferrier from Wilsons. Please go ahead.
Morning, Nick and Aaron. Thanks for your time. First question, can I ask you just one of the points you mentioned there, Nick, on the outlook around Used Vehicles. You mentioned demand expected to grow at 6%-9%. I'm just curious as to how that sort of demand can get filled, with deliveries, in the context of the supply constraints we're seeing on New Vehicles and the implications for trade-ins. Is that a sort of a market comment you're making there, or is that a Autosports Group specific type comment?
Well, James, it's probably more an Autosports specific comment. We have not gone out chasing the used car market. We've gone out making sure that we take the underlying growth that's available to our business, that we grow in a structured way there with high gross profit margin in our used car business. We've been doing that over the last couple of years, and we think that with the trade-ins that we know that are coming through and the demand that we have in used cars, that we'll grow by that 6%-9%. I slightly missed my target in the second half of 2022. We only grew by 5% during that period.
That was probably driven by some tighter supply on the way through than I'd anticipated, in the new vehicle side of the business. Overall, that 6%-9% growth in our business is a comment more on what we see as our underlying growth and what we see as the sustainable growth at the high margins that we're getting now, through the next 12 months.
Yeah, that's helpful. Thanks. To clarify, is that a sort of a more of a wholesale or more of a retail type driver or both?
It'll be retail, James.
Thank you. Just to finish on used cars, what are you seeing in terms of pricing trends, obviously in the context of the segments of the market that Autosports Group is exposed to, but what are you seeing on price trends there?
Retail prices, so customer prices remain strong. Demand remains strong. On the acquisition side of it, we're seeing a high competition continuing and higher cost of acquisition for used cars if we buy them outside of our group or outside of a trade-in source. We see some risk there if we buy too many cars outside our normal trade-in acquisition source. We can see margins getting compressed if we do that and chase the business too far. Overall, we're continuing to see strong residual values and strong demand at the retail level in used cars.
Okay, great. Last one, more of a clarification around your comment on agency. If I understood you correctly, you're talking about effectively, the annualization of that revenue impact from the shift to agency coming through in the first half-
Yeah.
-of FY 2023.
Yeah.
But-
We are.
In that second half FY 2022 number, the revenue still benefited from delivery of Mercedes vehicles that were in the order book prior to the shift to agency. I guess the question is, will that impact on revenue in first half 2023 be greater than second half 2022?
Short answer is yes. I'll try and give you some color around it, James, the best I can do. We thought in February and we said to the market that we thought the impact on the second half of the year would be AUD 80 million in revenue recognition. It turned out to AUD 50 million 'cause we'd underestimated the impact of the forward orders that we had coming through as you noticed. Through the 2021 calendar year, Mercedes-Benz delivered to Autosports Group AUD 181 million worth of revenue. So we think on an annualized basis, it's somewhere around that as a reduction in revenue for FY 2023.
That's very helpful. Thanks, Nick.
Thank you.
The next question is from Matt Johnston from Jarden. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Maybe if I could just start with just around the property purchases. Could you give any color around what sort of benefit you'd get from lower lease costs going into 2023?
You've seen some of the benefits going through. Most of the benefits coming through in FY 2022 of the purchases that we've made on the way through because we made the Bundoora BMW purchase in about August. Aaron, is that right?
Yeah. August or July.
August last year. We've got nearly a full year cycle, and that's one of the primary reasons that we were able to keep our expenses so controlled through the 2022 financial year. Matt, not a big reduction in forward-looking operating expenses as a result of those two property purchases. But of course, we're looking for further opportunities within that sort of same framework, strategic locations that we want long-term that we think are priced properly for us.
Okay, that's helpful. May I just following on from the previous questions around Used Vehicles. Given, I guess, the outlook that 6%-9%, is that a derivative of like, I guess, what you're seeing and what you will see in deliveries of New Vehicles? You expect more trade-ins given your order book?
Very simply, that will be the case, Matt. As I said earlier to James, we're not chasing the market here hard here. We're getting good quality business with high margin. I know that I'll get some good supply of quality Used Vehicles through the next 12 months based on the tradings I'm getting through on our order bank. From that, we're pretty comfortable to suggest that we'll get between 6%-9% growth in Used Vehicles at proper margins through this period.
Okay, that's helpful. Then maybe final one from me, just in terms of, I guess the costs, the operating costs and the COGS costs, just in terms of, I guess, staff shortages around trades. Can you just give, you know, some color around what's happening there year on year?
Year-on-year, Matt, we're gonna be very stable on our semi-fixed expenses and our fixed expenses. Our occupancy expenses will be fairly flat. We will see growth in our personnel expenses during FY 2023. They will largely come as a result of the difference between quarter one, FY 2022 and quarter one, FY 2023. In FY 2022, we were locked down for 114 days, and we reduced the hours of some of our people in New South Wales and Victoria during that period. We've reduced our personnel expenses. They will go up probably in the region of 10% for the full year 2023 financial year.
That'll be more than offset in the growth in gross that we'll see during the period because we are not locked down in quarter one.
Yeah. I guess that's probably reading between the lines of comment about that, the orders for service and parts looks quite strong.
Service and parts will be strong during the period and it'll be particularly strong when I look at the PCP result in quarter one versus quarter one.
Okay, perfect. Thanks a lot, Nick.
Thank you.
The next question is from Brendan Carrig from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Nick and Aaron. Maybe just to follow on from the Services and Parts question. Just so I'm understanding the underlying growth comment, is the best way to think about it, looking at what you delivered, in the second half of 2022 in the Services and Parts, and then sort of annualizing that number and using that as the base for the 6%-9% growth that you're expecting?
I think it's a pretty good start. You've gotta add the acquisition of Auckland City BMW and a full year of the Subaru and Kia business, Brendan, but you're on the right track.
Okay, that's clear. Just on the new shipments, obviously, you know, very hard to predict over the next 12 months as we've continued to be getting this wrong for the last couple of years. But maybe just in the very near term, Nick, do you have any comments that you can make just around sort of confidence on sort of any larger shipments that have already been started to be sent over? Or just on optimism for receiving some of the deliveries and starting to satisfy that order bank in the current half?
Yeah. Brendan, we're gonna have a reasonable quarter two of the financial year, December quarter, of arrivals. They'll be up in some of our key brands, particularly the Volkswagen Group of brands. Volkswagen and Audi will have improved deliveries during that period. They are not all the cars that we've got on order bank. They are skewing production where they can build them within the limits of their semiconductor supply. So a lot of those cars are arriving, which will be available for immediate sale, which is great news for us and will allow us to go and satisfy some demand that we know is there. Yes, quarter four is an opportunity for us if all the cars arrive.
Excellent. Maybe just, obviously, the metrics we're seeing are still very strong from an order book and demand outstripping supply. Have you heard any feedback on the ground around sort of potential softening or at least, you know, your dealers starting to think or to hear feedback to you that consumers are, you know, starting to be a little bit more cautious on the demand side of things?
Pretty simply not in our segments, Brendan. We're very conscious about this, and we look at it every week to two weeks, and we talk about this internally. We're not seeing any changes in order rates, any changes in underlying margins, and our order banks continue to grow at the moment. We're looking at it all the time, and we're hyper-conscious of it, but we're not seeing any evidence that anything's changing at the moment.
Okay. The last quick one from me, just on the Auckland City acquisition. I mean, the multiple is a bit on the fuller side compared to some of the previous acquisitions, so, and no property as part of that. Can you maybe just expand a bit more on the strategy there and are there opportunities in New Zealand or potentially further M&A opportunities in New Zealand? Is there, you know, potential property acquisitions there, and/or, you know, opportunities for synergies or larger synergies to justify the fuller multiple you did pay on that, on the Auckland City acquisition?
Yeah. A couple of things there. Firstly, it is a full-priced acquisition. I don't think it's as full a multiple as the multiple that you think it's quite at. I tried to touch on that a little bit earlier by talking about the higher margins that the New Zealand market has compared to the Australian market overall. We think this is gonna be a great acquisition on a standalone basis. Beyond that, to touch on your second part of the question, we do think that this acquisition provides us a great basis for further expansion in New Zealand if we get the right opportunities.
We did that in our strategy previously, Brendan, when we bought in Queensland for the first time. We bought the Stillwell Motor Group. That was a fantastic business with great market share and great margins. We paid a little bit more in margin for that. We did the same when we bought Doncaster BMW, moving for the first time into the Victorian market. It makes sense for us to get this high-quality management team behind there. That management team can expand and look after more businesses within the New Zealand market if we get the opportunity.
On that basis, it was a no-brainer to go and have this business, which with such structural dominance in the BMW MINI and Rolls-Royce markets in New Zealand, and then getting such a great management team with it and the expansion opportunities behind it, made it certainly what I thought was a well-priced acquisition.
Excellent. Thanks very much.
Thanks, Brendan.
The next question will be from Sarah Mann from Moelis Australia. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Firstly, just a question on M&A. You've clearly got the balance sheet to execute on opportunities that come through. Given conditions are still clearly very supportive, as seen in your results, like, can you give us any feedback around kind of vendor expectations around pricing and how you kind of manage that in negotiations, you know, the consumer environment kind of softens a little bit?
Yep. Sarah, vendor pricing is a similar multiple as it always has been. There's no real change there.
However, it is clear that we are trading during a period where margins and net profit margins have been higher than they have been through the cycle. So at the moment, there can be some disjoint between what I think is the forward maintainable earnings and what a vendor may think is a multiple of their historic earnings. So that gives us some pricing tension. As a result, the acquisitions that we're looking at at the moment are acquisitions which are similar to the Auckland City BMW acquisition. They are acquisitions of what we think are very high quality assets. Assets that rarely come to market unless it is good conditions.
Assets that are not under any stress on the way through, but assets that will, in my view, deliver us good long-term maintainable earnings in the right segments, in the right places. Overall, my view is right at the moment, the assets that we'll be transacting on and the assets that we'll be looking at will be very, very high quality long-term assets. Sarah?
Got it. That makes sense. In terms of the order book, so obviously it's really strong right now and it's elevated, and there's no signs that, you know, the consumer's coming off at all. How do you think about the risk of order cancellation as, I don't know, if the consumer environment gets tougher?
Yep. It is a risk. The things that are making the order book particularly sticky, first of all, everyone needs to understand that when I'm talking about order books, I'm not talking about an expression of interest. I'm talking about a customer contract with a deposit behind it, and a sizable cancellation fee if anyone decides to cancel unilaterally. The second point behind it is we are making these orders in conjunction with our OEM partners, and generally, we are guaranteeing a price. In this inflationary environment, there are some advantages in having your order in the system. That is clear, and that's making sure that people are holding onto these orders at the moment. Those things make us feel pretty good about them.
The third thing that makes us feel pretty good about this order bank is the type of cars which are on order. They're not just your basic transport cars. These are the high specified, high engine, high demand cars. Cars like your Mercedes-Benz AMG product, your Audi RS product, your BMW M product, and as I mentioned earlier in the call, the super luxury product. It's not evenly spread through all of the cars that we sell. It is the halo cars and the high profit cars that we've got in this order bank, and they're not only sticky, pretty easy to replace in orders, but they're well deposited.
All right. That makes sense. A question on F&I. Like with, you know, rates rising, et cetera, just tougher environment in general, like, are you seeing your financiers getting any tougher, or changing kind of the standards around approving loans? If so, is that impacting penetration at all?
I'm hearing anecdotal evidence about that, but I'm not seeing it in our penetration. At last year's finance result was in line with our new car sales result. It was slightly down on last year, but that was in line with our new car deliveries. We're seeing our forward finance approvals coming through at reasonable levels, even though I'm hearing anecdotal evidence that people are tightening up their buying conditions from a credit point of view.
Got it. All right. Sorry, last question from me. People have asked you about supply already, but just interested, particularly given your exposure to, you know, the luxury OEMs in Germany, what are you hearing around the impact from kind of rising energy costs over there, and potentially how that might impact production?
Yeah. So far, we asked this question about a week ago of two of our main suppliers, and they're saying that they are not having any problems on the energy supply, certainly in their factories. But they have been putting through some reasonable size price increases over the last 12 months, and we expect to see more inflationary price pressure coming through on those products in the next 12.
Got it. Thanks so much.
Thanks, Sarah.
Thank you. The next question will come from Jack Dunn from Citi. Please go ahead.
Morning, Nick and Aaron, and thanks for your time. Part of my question just has been answered earlier. I was interested in what you're currently seeing with the improving supply conditions and sort of the rate you expect it to improve over FY 2023 and 2024. On that, are there any vehicle types you expect to improve faster?
Yes, we partly answered this one before, Jack.
Yep.
It won't be consistent through all of our brands. I would say the overall car market, as far as I can see, it looks like it'll be a 3%-4% growth market over the next financial year. That's what we're seeing, and that's what we think it's going to be. Within individual brands, we'll see some growth that is in double-digit territory. I think there's an opportunity for brands which were down heavily in the last 12 months, such as the Volkswagen Group brands that I mentioned earlier, Volkswagen and Audi. They have a double-digit growth opportunity on the way through. We're seeing supply arrive for those brands, particularly in the December quarter.
I'm looking forward to them coming through 'cause Volkswagen has been particularly supply constrained and so has Audi over the last 12 months. The type of cars we're seeing coming through for those sorts of brands are cars that we've missed badly. They are small to medium-size SUVs in the Volkswagen camp. They're cars like the T-Cross and the T-Roc. In Audi, they're cars like the Q3 and the Q5 coming through. Really good selling cars for us and cars that there is plenty of market demand for. Overall, my view is 4%-5% up in the total new car market over the next 24 months.
All right. Perfect. Thank you. Very clear. Just on the order book, so do you expect by FY 2024 for that order book to sort of normalize to sort of pre-COVID levels? Or what do you sort of expect from there?
I think supply will normalize, start to normalize by 2024. I think the whole of 2023 and the start of 2024 will still have a structural undersupply going through the marketplace. I think by 2024, we'll start to see a normalized supply with demand and supply equalizing. I'm not sure, Jack, if that means the order bank runs down. You and I will both see it. If we see a 20%-30% spike in new car revenue running through the business, we'll know that supply is returning.
All right. Perfect. Thanks. Cheers.
The next question is from Tim Piper from UBS. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Nick and Aaron. A couple of quick ones. Just firstly, sort of you've discussed demand and supply at length, so we'll leave that. Just on the gross margins of the business, 50/50 are really solid uplift and, strong outcome in margins in general. Is it possible just in that 50/50 trend of, you know, plus 180 basis points or so in the GM to give us a rough mix in the breakdown impact between, you know, the agency then versus sort of OEM mix then versus acquisition impact, just to get a sense on the trend there?
Yeah. I don't have the exact numbers with me, Tim, so I don't wanna mislead you too much there. If I go back a step, I think the new car margin and service and parts is probably 50/50 in the growth of margin during the period, which means the agency impact is the only real change in new car margin between the first half of the year and the second half of the year. In a roundabout way, my sense is that it's 50/50.
Maybe just to ask another way, maybe the AUD 50 million of agency, and obviously there's some other moving parts below the GM line, like finance and what happens to employee headcount, all those things that we're not exactly sure on yet. In terms of the gross profit contribution, like, you know, your front-end margin, let's call it 14, 15% on that AUD 50 million, AUD 7 million of GP, like rough sense on what the GP kind of impact is from the agency switch.
Yeah. We don't have enough information on yet, and there's other things happening in the marketplace that makes it difficult to give too much color on the agency margins.
Just then on the back end, margins, what are you sort of seeing in terms of sort of wage inflation and parts inflation, like 6% or 9%, a really positive outlook at the top line? How do we think about margins on the back end over the next couple of years?
Yeah. Margins we think will be consistent on the way through. As I said earlier in the call, on one of the questions, I expect this year to see underlying employee cost gap to go up around 10%, but that to be more than covered in gross profit growth. I see margins, gross margins rising and net margins staying around the same level.
Okay, great. Thanks. My second question was around M&A, which you kinda touched on from a vendor expectation point of view. Can I just ask you another way? You know, you've also got sort of larger private groups looking to consolidate as well. You know, how much competition is there bidding on some of these groups? Effectively, how you know how competitive is in that process at the moment from a buyer's perspective?
I'm sure there is competition, and I'm sure that sets in the process and sets up some pricing parameters. When I'm dealing with vendors, the main issues that we're talking about are can you settle it, can you settle it quickly, and will the OEMs approve the transaction. That's from the vendor's side. You've got to remember that the OEMs have to approve this on the way through, and as a vendor, you only want to ask an OEM one time. From my side, the issues are, will the OEM approve the transaction from me, and do I think the forward-looking maintainable earnings are right for me. Do I have any synergies in terms of hubs around that area?
Do I have any synergies in my brand knowledge? Do I have any advantages in the way that I can fund it, that makes it right for me on a forward basis? Generally, what we find is that among the better-funded groups, they all have the same sorts of parameters for purchase. On each individual acquisition opportunity, there is a specific reason why one fits another. While there are buyers in the market, that's true, but it's rare that two buyers will be matched evenly with the asset on the way through. There is rarely price tension between two buyers, if that makes sense, Tim.
That makes sense. Look, thanks for taking the questions. Appreciate it.
Thanks, Tim.
Once again, if you have a question, please press star then one. The next question is a follow-up question from James Ferrier from Wilsons. Please go ahead.
Nick and Aaron, thanks. Just two quick follow-ups. On the supply side, just given some of the recent acquisitions into the group, you've got a bit more exposure into the Asian OEMs. Can you add some color there, Nick? Obviously, your earlier comments are a bit more skewed to the European ones. Just what you're thinking around the trajectory of supply improvement out of the Asian OEMs.
Yeah. The Asian OEMs overall that we're involved with, which isn't tons of them. It's Kia, Subaru and Mazda. They were in a pretty good position last year, and I think Mazda looks like it might be a touch tighter this year. Subaru's been working really hard on production on the way through, and I think it's gonna get enough production, but it's gonna be hard work. Kia has done a terrific job in the last 12 months on getting production, but it is very, very tight and competitive for production for them. There's a really tight supply coming for all three of those brands in the next 12 months.
I can't see those ones being 10%, 12%, 10%-15% rises in volume this year.
No, that's helpful. Then the second point of clarification, the comment around used being up 6%-9% in the year ahead, just back to our earlier question. Is that a like-for-like comment, the 6%-9%, or will that include the benefit of recent acquisitions?
It'll include the benefit, and it'll be about 50/50.
Excellent. Thanks, Nick.
All right. Thanks, James.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand the call back to Mr. Pagent for closing remarks.
Thank you all for dialing onto the call. If anyone's got any further questions through the next couple of weeks, please reach out to Aaron or I. In closing, I'd like to thank the Autosports Group staff, our OEMs, and our shareholders for their support during the year in making this year such a successful one. Thank you all.
Thank you, sir. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.