Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I'm Gary Weiss, Chairman of Ardent Leisure Group. I'm joined on the call today by Greg Yong, our Chief Executive Officer, and Jose De Sacadura, who is the Chief Financial Officer for Ardent Leisure. The results that we released today obviously reflect the past and the present of Ardent. First, the half-year results reflect the substantial gain on the sale of our former Main Event business, which completed on 30 June 2022. Secondly, most significantly for Ardent moving forward, these results reflect the greatly improved performance of our theme parks and attractions business for the first half of FY 2023.
Notably, as reported, our revenue in this division for the period was the highest in over six years, and correspondingly, EBITDA, excluding specific items of AUD 4.3 million, was positive for the first time since the first half of FY 2017. Greg and Jose will speak to the results, but I just want to specifically draw attention to page 6 of the investor presentation, which provides a useful snapshot of the potential further value of Ardent still to be unlocked. Just turning very quickly to that page, one will see that as at balance date, Ardent was holding AUD 147.7 million of cash, equivalent to AUD 0.307 per share. The company is debt-free and holds its real estate unencumbered.
The next dot points highlight the future potential value to be unlocked in terms of the potential to get back to historical carrying values for our theme park assets. Noting as well the value of deferred tax assets on the balance sheet and, or more relevantly, the exclusion of AUD 127.6 million of tax losses and AUD 48.4 million of deductible temporary differences with a combined potential tax benefit of AUD 52.8 million. We have not recognized the deferred tax asset within the group. Finally, to note as well the contingent consideration potentially still to come from Dave & Buster's. With those introductory comments, I'll now pass over to Jose.
Thank you, Gary Weiss. Good morning and welcome to everyone joining us today. Over the next few slides, I'll provide a brief overview of the group's results for the half-year, starting with slide 3. The first half of FY 2023 has been another significant period for Ardent Leisure. At the beginning of the year, the group completed the sale of Main Event, as Gary Weiss mentioned, recording a gain on disposal of almost AUD 650 million. During the period, the group also saw a solid rebound in the trading performance and return to profitability of its Ardent Theme Parks and Attractions business. Together, these have led to the group reporting statutory results, which are materially improved compared to the prior corresponding period.
Consolidated net profit after tax for the group was AUD 669.5 million, up significantly on the loss of AUD 36.8 million reported in the prior period. Net profit from continuing operations was AUD 20 million, a stark turnaround compared to the first half loss of AUD 20.2 million reported last year. Note, however, that these results were impacted by certain one-off significant items, which I'll cover shortly. Excluding all significant items, the group's revenue of AUD 43.7 million increased by AUD 25.2 million or 136.5%. An EBITDA of AUD 0.3 million was up AUD 16.7 million compared to a AUD 16.4 million loss reported in the prior period. Pleasingly, the theme parks business has recorded its highest first half revenue since first half 2016.
This significant improvement has been mostly driven by increased visitation, up 67.4% on prior period, and material improvements in per capita yields. The total value of tickets sold, which ignores the timing of revenue recognition under accounting standards, was up 84.3% compared to prior period. The strong revenue performance, combined with ongoing focus on operational efficiency, resulted in the theme parks business recording a first half EBITDA, excluding specific items, of AUD 4.3 million. This is an improvement of almost 135% versus prior period, 347% compared to first half FY 2020 pre-COVID levels, and is the first positive half year EBITDA result for the business in 6 years. On slide 4, we provide a little more color on the first half result for FY 2023.
As noted, the theme parks and attractions business has shown a pleasing recovery in performance during the period. Operating revenue of AUD 43.7 million more than doubled compared to first half FY 2022 revenue of AUD 18.5 million. As I mentioned, this growth was driven by increased ticket sales, visitation, and yield, as well as the business lapping the COVID-led closure of Queensland borders in the first half of last year. Statutory EBITDA for the theme parks business of AUD 3.3 million was up 128% on prior period. The significant uplift reflects the high flow through of incremental revenue to the bottom line due to greater leverage of our fixed cost base and our continuing strong focus on operational efficiency and cost discipline. Economic conditions have brought cost pressures in some areas, though. The business has weathered these well.
Despite these pressures, the group has managed to achieve a slight reduction in its corporate costs as it realizes offsetting cost savings following the sale of Main Event. This remains an area of ongoing focus for the group, further detail will be provided later in this presentation. At a consolidated level, the group has reported statutory EBITDA from continuing operations of AUD 32.2 million, up AUD 48.1 million on prior period. As I mentioned previously, excluding specific items, improved from a loss of AUD 16.4 million in the prior period to a profit of AUD 0.3 million in this half. If we ignore the prior period contributions from other now disposed businesses, this represents the best first half EBITDA results since first half 2017.
Further segmentation of the results between continuing and discontinued operations can be found at Appendix One of the presentation. Turning to slide 5. As indicated earlier, the group's result this year has been impacted by a number of one-off specific items. Here we provide further detail regarding these items. As a reminder, a further breakdown by segment is provided in Appendix Two of this presentation. I'll now call out a couple of the more material line items. Firstly, the EBITDA result includes an unrealized derivative gain of $32.9 million relating to forward foreign exchange contracts, which were used to hedge the group's exposure on the Main Event sale proceeds.
These FX contracts were put in place in FY 2022. Due to a weakening of the Australian dollar against the US dollar, the fair value of these hedges resulted in an unrealized loss being recognized in the FY 2022 accounts. The current period gain reflects a reversal of those losses previously recorded in FY 2022. In addition, the net results of the group include the gain of AUD six hundred and forty-nine and a half million from the sale of Main Event, as previously stated. Further details in relation to this gain are disclosed in Note 17 to the half year financial statements. Please note that this amount of the gain does not include AUD 7.3 million of sale costs, which were previously accrued and expensed in the prior year.
As Gary mentioned, nor does it include recognition of Ardent's share of up to $14.5 million of continuing consideration, which is receivable by Ardent upon utilization of Main Event tax losses by Dave & Buster's in the future. Moving now to slide 6. As Gary mentioned here, we provide a summary of the group's position following the sale of Main Event. As previously disclosed, this transaction enabled the group to fully repay its debt, return AUD 455.7 million to shareholders, and retain approximately AUD 150 million of cash to fund the continuing business.
Following the sale, the group is now much simplified but considerably strengthened, and is well capitalized to fund the ongoing growth and recovery of its theme parks business, which includes a pipeline of exciting new rides and attractions, which Greg will talk to shortly. At 27th of December, the group holds AUD 148 million of cash, is debt-free, and owns fully unencumbered real estate assets. Consolidated net assets of approximately AUD 259 million are materially higher than the AUD 63 million reported at the end of FY 2022. Notwithstanding this, the group is well placed to unlock considerable further value in the future. Here are some as examples as mentioned by Gary. Firstly, the group's accounts record Dreamworld and SkyPoint assets at their historic cost, net of accumulated depreciation and impairments.
Back in June 2016, the fair value of these assets was approximately AUD 275 million, well above the current carrying value today of AUD 124 and a half million. With sustained improvements and growth in the business, the potential to unlock value in these assets is clearly quite significant. Secondly, the accounts continue to exclude recognition of deferred tax assets, as Gary mentioned. Although not in the balance sheet, the losses to which these, the deferred tax assets, relate remain available to the group in future periods when Ardent returns to a positive taxable position and are therefore considerable value to the group. Finally, as previously mentioned, the group has yet to recognize its share of up to $14 and a half million U.S. dollars of continuing consideration from the sale of Main Event.
As you can see, the future realization of value for the items mentioned has potential to materially increase the group's net assets well beyond what's what you can see in the balance sheet and to unlock significant further value for shareholders in the future. I'll now hand over to Greg, who will walk you through the performance of the theme parks and attractions business.
Thanks, Jose, and good morning to everyone. I'll take you to slide 8. As we outlined in previous updates, we started to see a meaningful shift in performance back in the second half of FY 2022. I'm pleased to report that this momentum has not only persisted, but it has accelerated through the last half. We've spoken at length about our attitude towards cost discipline and the importance we place on effective management of expenses, noting that there are priorities in safety and engineering which we just will not compromise on. These results reflect that stance, and whilst costs have risen as a result of the increased business activity, this increase is negligible compared to the increases we've seen in revenue, thereby creating a much stronger operating leverage situation than we were seeing under our pre-pandemic cost base.
We've also said that as we see progress in our strategic initiatives, we expect to see revenue upside as a result. This is starting to take shape with increases in revenue of over 130% on the prior comparative period, and moreover, the best first half revenue result we've seen in six years. The confluence of these inputs has resulted in our first positive EBITDA half since FY 2017, and I cannot overstate how meaningful a milestone this is. At the same time, there is much more to be done, and we will not be satisfied until we see performance trending up to, and ultimately in excess of, our historical highs.
On slide 9, we've provided some further detail on the half and an insight into how we are tracking on a year-to-date basis as at the end of January, noting again that the interim performance is unaudited. For the first half, we've seen very pleasing revenue performance as a result of both robust volume and ongoing improvements in ticketing yields. This was further bolstered by the sustained trends with work that we've been seeing in our in-park spending. Dreamworld food and retail revenue per capitas were up another 40% on the prior year, and we're now at a point where it's the highest spend that we've ever seen on record. We previously outlined the drivers of this performance. Things like our Night Market business, our focus on food quality and innovation, as well as our efforts in retail, particularly with regard to online.
With regard to January, it proved to be a very strong month on the back of an auspicious response to our in-park activations and some reasonably good weather. While we won't be reporting granular monthly results, I can say that we're very pleased with the month. The ticket sales and operating revenue remaining high and unaudited year to date EBITDAR at the highest level we've seen since January 2016. This is particularly encouraging given the opening of several new attractions at our competitor over the holiday season. Turning to slide 10. In November, we announced a pipeline of new investment totaling over AUD 50 million. This includes the complete refurbishment of our kids' offering, an extension of our iconic Ocean Parade precincts, and a new wave swinger attraction, which will bring excitement and kinetic energy to the front of the park.
The wave swinger, which will be known as The Dreamworld Flyer, will also operate on a pay-per-play basis for non-annual pass members during our Night Market. With thousands of lights and a beautiful accompanying fountain display, we know that this will make an iconic addition to the park. Each of these initiatives have been designed not only to generate new admissions, but also to assist our efforts to operate at a much more sustainable cost base into the future. The rebranding and the consolidation of our kids' areas to focus in one space on parochial Australian brands such as The Wiggles and ABC Kids, as well as our very own Kenny and Belinda. It's not only compelling for guests, but it is a much more affordable suite of licenses than what we've held previously.
These works are very focused on reducing the OpEx burden for future years. This comes in many forms, from rigorous selection of painting systems on large rides to reduce the need for more frequent repaints, robust flooring surfaces throughout the area which will negate the need for constant maintenance. To thinking deeply about how we think about our landscape and our irrigation in order to increase efficiency for our horticultural team. Doesn't sound like an important consideration, but it is when you think about managing a site of over 50 hectares. We also announced some major changes to the middle of the park, which you can see on slide 11. This involves transforming the former ABC Kids precinct into a new area called Rivertown, which is a nostalgic nod to a land that we had in the park back when we first opened it 40 years ago.
Rivertown will include a reimagined Vintage Cars attraction, one of our family favorites, and it will become even more popular when put in prime real estate with more ride vehicles and a whole new narrative. We're also launching an incredible new family coaster, which will be called Jungle Rush. The vision for this attraction, simply put, is that we wanna see Grandma or Grandpa riding with their grandkids. We're aiming for a very broad ridership and an experience that families will be able to share together. The ride has several world first and will be the most immersive thematic execution in the history of the parks. It'll signify the largest single attraction investment in our history, and we just can't wait for guests to get out here and enjoy these new experiences.
We also announced some significant changes to Tiger Island, which allows us to continue to share the plight of these majestic creatures, but in a way that meets contemporary expectations and also affords us materially lower risks than what we currently see under the program. Lastly, we announced that we are installing over 2,000 solar panels in our parks, which will generate over around 1.3 million kilowatt hours or almost 30% of our current power needs. This will be the largest solar array in any theme park in Australia, and we are very proud to be taking this step both to reduce our environmental footprint and moreover to protect against our energy cost inflation into the future.
On slide 12, a brief update on our recent summer holiday activation, which is all about bringing the joy and the wonder of the circus to Dreamworld. I've got to say the event was very well received with NPS scores even higher than the highs that we saw last year, to the point where we had to extend the event for a further week in order to meet demand. We're now at a point where we're delivering as many, if not more significant activations than any single site in the industry globally. I can tell you from my own experience that this is no easy feat. Not only do we need to ensure that these events meet our hurdles around safety and financial returns, but they must be compelling. Otherwise, there's just no value derived from doing them.
Simply put, there's no benefit in doing great events if they're unaffordable, and there's no point doing affordable events if they're not great. We've been developing this capacity in the organization to be able to seamlessly deliver this content, and it is now customer practice for our team. Strategically, it gives us another lever to drive ticketing acquisition and pass retention in peak periods and allows us to compete even when up against major attraction openings where we might otherwise see shifts in share to our competitors. I think if you look at the December and January results, we've clearly proved this thesis out. On slide 13, we've provided an update as to what we refer to as the Dreamworld difference, which is code for us, for our relentless focus on improving the guest experience.
Over the last 24 months, we've seen a 65 point increase in Net Promoter Scores. I've not seen an increase of this quantum anywhere in the industry. Given such a material change, we do expect it will moderate over time. However, our goal is to continually improve this regardless. There is a clear nexus between guest satisfaction and financial performance. We believe that it is no accident that as our experience has markedly improved, so too have our financials. Any of you that have studied NPS would know that how the data is captured can have a meaningful impact on the results. While it's a popular measurement, it does have its limitrtions.
To that end, we also measure guest experience via the Global Review Index, which is essentially an aggregation of sentiment that is collected from external review websites such as Google and Tripadvisor. Ardent Parks and Attractions were ranked as the best experiences for both the half and for more, more recently, the December and January holiday period on the Gold Coast. We're incredibly proud of each and every team member of our team for the care and attention they pay to our guests. Importantly, this is a whole of business mission. For example, if I think about our engineering team, they are actually the linchpin of providing a fantastic guest experience. Without well-maintained and reliable attractions, they continue to just live up maximum throughput in peak periods. We just wouldn't see these kind of results.
Similarly, our IT and our marketing teams have been very focused on providing a frictionless ticketing experience, and we've seen this borne out in favorable commentary from our guests. Yes, when you come to our parks, those interactions are critical. We call them moments of truth. The work and attention that goes into setting those interactions up can't be overstated. To me, these results actually reflect how exceptional execution has been across all facets of the organization, not purely because we have very friendly frontline team members. On slide 14 and in summary, a profitable first half for the first time in many years is a significant achievement, and it's important to take a moment and reflect on that given the challenges that we've all been through.
It's a true testament to the resilience of our stakeholders engaged in the organization and not the least of which are our shareholders. I want to reassure you that this does not mean that one iota of complacency has crept into this culture. We know that this business has been very successful in the past, and we can see from recent results that the potential is clearly there to return to those levels of performance and beyond. For that to happen, we need all of our strategic enablers in play. We have an indisputably solid balance sheet with no debt and strong cash holdings along with fully owned land. That land and asset is carried at well below historical values.
Coupled with this are meaningful items not reflected in the balance sheet, but have significant economic upside in deferred tax assets, and receivables yet to be realized from the Main Event divestment. International visitation is still minute compared to what we have seen pre-pandemic, where we enjoyed visitation of between 15% and 20% of total attendance. Over time, we see no reason why that won't return. I also want to address the macroeconomic situation directly. None of us know when the cycle of interest rate increases will end, and it's prudent for us to contemplate the impacts that could happen on this business. It does appear that there's light at the end of the tunnel, and we believe that any associated impacts are simply episodic and not emblematic of the industry in which we compete.
In fact, the macro trend away from people buying material items and moving towards e-experiences was established well before COVID, and in our view, the pandemic only galvanized that sentiment. Out of home entertainment is uniquely positioned to capitalize on that situation. The announcements we've made around future attractions are designed to drive visitation and revenue over the course of the next several years, and we believe our selections provide the right mix of compelling products that will sell tickets, add capacity, and will create ongoing OpEx efficiency over that time. We also continue to work on initiatives to unlock the value from our land holdings, and whilst I have no update on that today, we are running through the requisite processes with both government departments and consultants in order to facilitate these plans.
We feel incredibly positive about the future of Ardent and the substantial upside still to come and our ability to create value for all of our stakeholders. The last piece of the puzzle is clearly our people, and I could not be more pleased with the truly world-class team we have in place and my confidence in their ability to realize our vision. With that, I'll turn things back over to Jose. Thank you.
Thanks, Greg. I'll now touch on some details regarding the group's capital management and corporate costs before opening up the lines for Q&A. On slide 16, we present a summary of the group's net debts and cash flows for the period. As you can see, the group moved from a net debt position of AUD 153 million in June last year to a net cash position of AUD 148 million in December. This reflects the receipt of Main Event sale proceeds, net of cash disposed of AUD 583 and a half million dollars, as well as the elimination of AUD 197.6 million dollars of U.S. debt as part of that transaction.
The cash flow also includes payment to shareholders of AUD 455.7 million and payments of amounts outstanding to the Australian Taxation Office of AUD 11 million in July 2022. Operating cash outflows of AUD 7.8 million reflect the consolidated EBITDA performance during the period, combined with an increase in working capital due to higher trading volumes, seasonality factors, and the timing of annual insurance premiums, which were prepaid in the first half of the year. Capital expenditure payments of AUD 8.2 million were also made during the period relating to scheduled maintenance CapEx, as well as some preliminary development CapEx in respect of the new Jungle Rush coaster, Wave Swinger attraction, and the planned redesign and enhancement of the kids' area at Dreamworld. Slide 17 provides a high-level overview of Ardent's corporate costs, including the main components of these costs.
As the chart demonstrates, the group has achieved meaningful reductions overall in its corporate overheads over the last 6 years. However, as noted in our August results presentation, we've also seen a significant ramp-up in insurance costs during this time, which had grown more than tenfold to over half of the group's corporate costs in FY 2022. Following the Main Event sale, we've seen a slight reset in premiums, and this has resulted in a $0.8 million annualized reduction in insurance costs for FY 2023. However, these costs still make up around 47% of total corporate cost base. Director and employee costs, which make up around a third of corporate costs, continue to be prudently managed and are close to the lowest they've ever been for the group.
However, the current inflationary environment has created cost pressures in some of the other areas, many of which form a necessary part of being an ASX-listed group. Management are working hard to find offsetting savings and remain committed to carefully managing these costs and continuing to drive efficiencies wherever possible. This concludes the main part of our presentation. I will now open up the lines for any questions.
The first question today comes from April Lowis with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Hi, Gary, Greg, and Jose. Thanks for taking my question. I just had a question on the January trading period. It sounds like the strength has continued into January, but the numbers on slide 9 might imply a little bit of a slowdown in January. When looking at the January year to date versus the PCP, is that or is that just because maybe the PCP of January is a little bit stronger than the 6 months before? Just wondering whether in January and February so far, are the prices and yields still holding up?
Good day, April. Thanks for the question. It's Greg here. Look, I think you've alluded to it exactly right, is that if you look at the numbers on a prima facie basis, I think you can say, "Well, look, you know, there appears to be a slight decline," and I'd say slight in terms of ticket sales or operating revenue. I think you've got it about % right in that the first half really, the performance that we were seeing against the PCP was obviously, you know, not necessarily overstated, but also somewhat inflated as a result of us competing really against an economic environment which was hampered by shutdowns and so on. January last year really represented us coming out of that environment.
Early January had, you know, some challenges still with Omicron and so on, but really we saw a lot of strong demand through the second half of January last year. As I mentioned earlier in the prepared remarks, that's where we really started to see some acceleration in performance. To give you a feel for how we think of things on the ground, January was really busy. Absolutely flat out, and we didn't really deceive to see any material decline in terms of business activity. I think if you bear it out in the numbers, yes, there's a marginal change there, but I think it's more reflective of what we were seeing in the first half versus a counter change in the second half around, you know, just the comparison of trading performance.
In terms of yields and sales, look, we're very happy with how that's all going, and no changes to our stance on that. As we've outlined to the market previously, you know, we see real opportunity here to continue to grow the business. There's a number of different levers that we intend to pull on that, but we certainly, are all about rational competition here in the Gold Coast and, you know, nothing in that view of ours has changed in any way.
That's great. Thank you very much. One more question from me, just on the corporate overhead. There was obviously a big reduction over the last few years. I just wanted to check that Main Event has fully washed through, or could these corporate costs go down a little bit further, noting that obviously there was a big chunk from insurance?
Look, I'll have a quick go at that and then Jose will maybe add some extra color if you like. The Main Event has largely now almost all washed through, but I would say for the first half, there were still some elements of the consolidation work. Even to this day, if you just contemplate what you see in the reporting here, that we're still obviously doing work on Main Event and factoring that into our reporting to the market. Again, Main Event largely is washed out, but we are still doing work on that, and that still is an element of our reporting processes.
Even things like if you just think about the receivables that we're working through with them and other things like that, there's still elements of it there. In terms of what we see for corporate costs, and as Jose outlined earlier, we're not about giving guidance in terms of cost, particularly in what is a difficult inflationary environment. I think moreover, because insurance is just such a significant part of the corporate cost base. We do see opportunities still to further get efficiency out of there. It's a conversation that we have in the organization on a regular basis, and we do see opportunity there to still garner efficiencies.
We're not of the view that we can give you any guidance as to how that looks at this point in time. Jose, is there anything you wanted to add to that?
No, I don't think there is. You mentioned the current inflationary environment and obviously that's a bit of an offsetting effect. Some of the savings that we're realizing in some areas are being soaked up with other costs going up to some extent too. That does sort of mask it a little bit. I think you've summed it up pretty well, Greg.
Great. Thank you so much.
The next question comes from Brian Han with Morningstar. Please go ahead.
Greg, I understand that there are always moving parts and unusual events every half period, but would you consider that December half we just had as a relatively normal trading period on visitation and revenue front? If so, can you remind us what the typical revenue seasonality is for the business?
Yep. Good day, Brian. Good to hear from you. Look, I don't know what normal is anymore given the last few years, so it's hard to really give you any perception on that. Obviously, that's somewhat more difficult at Ardent given our history since 2016. I can say to you that through the half we were very happy with, you know, a few things going in our favor for sure. You know, weather, as you know, is a significant driver of our financial performance and we had a good time of weather over the half and we executed really well over the half, you know, on all of our strategic initiatives. To be frank, we had some concerns obviously given our competitors opening some very significant capital.
We're really happy to see our performance continue to remain strong despite that. In terms of, you know, was it a normal half? I just can't say to you. Look, I think it is or it isn't. I think we've got a lot more upside as we've. I think we're stressing to all of you is that most organizations are talking about recovering back to pre-COVID numbers. We're obviously well and truly there. We're obviously looking at a much longer runway in that regard in terms of what the upside looks like for Ardent. In terms of seasonality, look, it's about 50/50 in terms of revenue.
You know, there is some, you know, calendar shifts and things like that largely, but I think if you were to look over, you know, previous periods, it sits at around that. I would just caution to say that that's obviously when we think about, you know, activity in the business and that is obviously at times impacted by revenue recognition and things like that.
Oh, fair enough. Thanks for that. If you don't mind, just a couple of questions on costs. You mentioned somewhere that theme parks have a semi-fixed cost structure.
Mm-hmm.
Now, what % of the division's cost base do you think is fixed now post-COVID?
Oh, look, Brian, we don't really, you know, go and support what that percentage may or may not look like. I think what we've talked about on an ongoing basis is that if you think about theme parks, there is obviously a fairly significant degree of fixed costs in the organization. You know, if we've got 10,000 people here today or 1,000 people here today, it costs the same amount for us to feed animals, very much to maintain our rides and attractions, and usually to market and, you know, administer the business.
What we've called out, you know, over a number of halves now is that we've had a very significant look at costs in the organization, particularly in the fixed cost space, really to help, you know, reduce that leverage. If you think about that, what have we done? You know, this is all happening well and truly pre-COVID, we've had a very strong look at the back end of the business. We've had a very strong look at our SG&A costs. Moreover, we've had a very decisive approach around how we've done things around the water park, around how we rationalize attractions, and also just looked at enterprise-wide cost efficiencies.
Things like, you know, how we look at security, how we look at entertainment, trying to really balance that between peak periods and off-peak periods and making sure that we're delivering an experience that's commensurate to attendance.
Right. Perhaps I can ask another way, Greg.
Yeah.
When you say improving the guest experience, what implications does that have on your fixed versus variable split? Does it make it more variable?
It does, because if you think about it, I'll give you an example, we're in February on a Friday today, which is obviously, you know, not as favorable for us as a holiday, school holiday day. We make very, very clear adjustments in terms of how we think about deployment of entertainment, deployment of variable costs in F&B and retail and so on across the board. It gives us more variability, and we've taken away a lot of the fixed cost elements to some of those areas as well. If you think about it this way, we used to spend several million AUD in entertainment over the course of an annual year, and that was really spread out fairly evenly across the entire calendar.
We've gone from a point to where we've had that fixed cost base to now having a very significant change in terms of the fixed cost element of that, which means that in peak times, we add a lot of variable costs to enhance the guest experience. In off-peak times like, you know, February and May and those kind of periods, we can really turn the tap off and really run the business at the commensurate, again, to what you expect to have the experience look like on a quieter day.
Very helpful, Greg. Thank you very much.
No worries.
The next question comes from Allan Franklin with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.
Yeah, morning, all. Thank you for your time. Great to see the update. Just wanted to, I mean, perhaps just a quick follow on that cost discussion, just to sense check something. On the, at the gross profit level, just assuming that I'm cutting the numbers right, but it looks like gross profit level, you're sort of doing sort of 84-ish% gross margin. It's picked up a little bit half on half, and a couple of cost buckets, your sort of repairs and maintenance, advertising promotions and the likes of flattening to a certain level. Obviously within the balance that's, is employee costs, and other costs.
Net-net, I mean, that sort of 84%-85% gross profit, should that be a normal, a normal range to think about now going forward? Then as you have alluded to, you know, there is a level of variable costs within say employees and some of the other buckets. Really is that 84%-85% gross margin the key variable to think about down the P&L?
Yeah, Allan. Look, again, I think we're very hesitant to and we don't give guidance as an organization. I wanted to give you some color to help you think about that, though. Our view very strongly now is that we've done a lot of work around the cost base. Look, you know me and my approach to this, and we're never happy with how we're performing in terms of efficiencies in the business. We look at that, through the initiatives I've talked to you through at length in the past around making strategically different decisions around how we operate our water park to how we think about attractions and so on. Down to, you know, just your simple cultural approaches to cost in the organization.
We don't have cleaners clean our offices, you know. I don't have a PA. We really think about this business like it's our own, that's how we operate. We really see upside in this business going forward, though, in terms of just driving revenue and that being at the whole source of us generating further operating leverage. Whilst I'm not comfortable to give you some guidance around GP and where that sits at the moment, our view is that, and as we've talked about in the past, is that we've seen, you know, to date, and I still perceive that there to be this in the business, is that there still are these economies of scale at Ardent, they will only go away as we grow the revenue base. What does that mean?
You know, if you were to come here again, in an off-peak period, I've got people running rides at a minimum requirement to run rides, and I could double the attendance in those off-peak periods and not really add a lot of variable labor. I think that illustrates the point is that, you know, there will be activity based on cost increases in the organization as revenue increases. As we've-
Yeah.
quote-unquote, it really outpaces what we're seeing in terms of revenue.
No, helpful. Thank you. Maybe just, I mean, jumping into some of the revenue numbers then. I mean, you're very, very pleasantly surprised with the yield and the per capita spend. Could you maybe un-unpack that a little bit? I mean, is there tailwinds coming from some of the events that you said are running? I know you put through price increases partway through.
Yeah
the period. Yeah, it did surprise materially. Just sort of interested in terms of, yeah, mix, price, other sort of additive items that have helped drive that.
Yeah, look, I think it's a number of different things, and I think not the least of which is also, look, ticketing yields and things like that are really important. That's a big driver. I just wanna touch again on what I mentioned in the call, was that our in-park spending is up 40% from a per capita basis year-over-year, and last year was up significantly as well. As I've highlighted again in the prepared remarks, our in-parks, per capita spends now are the best that we've seen on record, and we've gone back as far as we can go, and we've never seen in-park spends, as to where they are today.
I think if you look around the markets and you think about other organizations and their delivery of increases in their per capita yields, it's not an uncommon story, and I appreciate that. We can clearly point to a number of initiatives and get our hands around them as things that have driven that increase. Yes, we've had a bit of price inflation, which has certainly helped those spends. Again, things like incremental revenue we're getting out of the Night Market business, things like what we're seeing, you know, from BSpace over and above just pure pricing, and things that we're doing in areas like online retail, like in our LEGO business are big drivers.
From a ticketing yield perspective, look, we've talked about that a lot in terms of us, you know, our pricing being significantly different in terms of how we think about that compared to, you know, back in 2016. Moreover, that's not just about raising prices, but also a lot of work that we've done around the back end and channel management, and putting a lot more focus on our direct to our own channels businesses. Tailwinds, look, there is and I've been really upfront on this, is that international we see as a really significant upside. At the same time, international is dilution to yields.
As we see international come on, I don't think that it'll actually make a material difference in terms of diluting the work that we've done so far, but it is dilutionary. Without international in the mix, you know, our, our yields are higher than they otherwise would be. Again, I think that as we bring international on, we can be a lot more selective about how we think about that. Again, I don't think it'll have the same impact that it used to have. Again, I'd make the point that as we think about international, you know, that is all in my mind incremental revenue. Even if it is, you know, marginally dilutionary, we'll take it. Look, there's a few different things that are driving things.
I think if you think about events, yes, I think we're getting really strong results out of our event business, and we're seeing that across the board. Our events, as I've outlined with the circus event at Christmas, but moreover, our calendar of events now with, you know, the Street Food Festival, with Winterfest, with Spring County Fair, with Happy Halloween, we're just seeing tremendous results out of that from all ends. They are certainly helping. I don't see any, you know, significant concerns around yield going forward. I think we've outlined how we think about strategy around pricing of tickets in the past. Again, we feel very comfortable with how we're doing that at the moment.
Yeah, sure. Thank you. Sorry, just a slightly left of center, but do the events roll into the attendance numbers or the attendance numbers specifically are tickets sold into theme parks?
The event attendances roll into the attendance numbers. If you think about events though, I think in some businesses you would apportion of your annual pass revenue to an event. I can tell you that our annual pass revenue is straight line recognized over the course of a year, we don't take any elements of an event and, you know, associate over value to that and drop it into the P&L. Attendances certainly hit our attendance line, the revenue for those events, if it's not a single price, you know, paid for flight ticket entry, the ticketing revenue value is just apportioned over the course of the year as normal.
Okay, thanks. Sorry, just one other. Any commentary you can make in and around your competitor? Obviously the event they had earlier on in the year, as well as them opening up their new rides. How have you been able to react to that? Certainly on the back of them opening new rides, have you had to be a bit more aggressive to keep sort of audience share and/or attention or not necessarily?
Look, it's not reasonable for me to suggest I don't look at what our competitors are doing, and that's not the least of, you know, our local theme parks. I think about everything on the Gold Coast as being a competitor for our guests' time. Look, as I called out in the remarks, we look at ways that we can obviously counter new openings. Look, guests are fickle, and fickle people will, you know, move their discretionary spend according to where they derive value and new attractions in this game are what does that. We were certainly very mindful about the new product that was opening over there.
We think in general that new product in the industry, particularly on the Gold Coast, is good for the Gold Coast, and we'll all get a share of that. We are out there competing, and we'll give it a red hot go against anyone. I think our numbers show particularly over December and January, that whilst they opened some very significant attractions, we really didn't see any bleed. I think in terms of the incident that you might be alluding to, we've seen no impact on our business at all as a result of that.
Helpful. Thank you.
No worries.
The next question comes from Roger Coleman with Pax Patria. Please go ahead.
Gary, I'm wondering in terms of the CapEx to free cash flow allocation and feeding into net cash position and any potential distributions there, what might be the scenario for the next three years in terms of EBITDA, free cash flow, CapEx, et cetera, and into that cash position?
Roger, I'm not going to be drawn into specifics in providing any form of guidance for the future. Clearly, we've announced the approximately AUD 50 million rollout of new rides and attractions, which we announced in November. We just need to ensure that we can execute on bringing those rides and attractions in on time and on budget. Clearly, we would anticipate that those new features for the park will add to our overall performance mix and drive increased revenue and accordingly, EBITDA.
We'll just continue to monitor, obviously, not only the rollout of those attractions, but any new items that potentially we would look to invest in, keeping a close eye on retaining the strength of the balance sheet, which I think is a very, very strong feature of the excuse me, the Ardent that we present today.
Right. That's question to Greg. Thanks. question to Greg. The business used to be able to carry 2 plus attenders, right? The capacity of multiple staff at Gold Coast and the existing attractions are enough to generate that sort of interest again at current yield, 70 AUD per head.
Yeah. Hi, Roger. good to hear from you. I think you're breaking up a little bit there, so I'm gonna have a go at it. I think the question was, as we see increased attendances and revenues, have we got the attraction capacity to deal with that. Is that largely, I think, what you were asking?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'll just repeat it again. Staff I'm in a clearer spot now.
All right.
You used to do over AUD 2 million to AUD 2.4 million peak.
Mm-hmm.
Have you got capacity to get back at that on the current yield, AUD 70 drop?
Yeah. Roger, I feel very comfortable at that. Let me just take you through why. The first part of it is that as we've been doing a lot of work around reconstituting the attendance at the attraction line up here, you know, we've said very clearly that we wanted to resolve some legacy issues around the attraction mix, and we've done that. That wasn't easy to do. That was, you know, taking a bit of medicine, but I think it was appropriate. As we've added new attractions, one of the most important things on our minds is making sure that as we add new attractions and we retire older attractions, that we add capacity for the future.
That line in these results, I'm really happy with how we're going, but I'm not happy with where we are today. I think there's tremendous upside still to come. I'm thinking about that. I'm all about thinking about where are we at when we're 2 million + attendances, and I wanna have this business well positioned to deal with that. As I add new attractions, the attractions that I'm adding and, you know, conversely to ones I'm taking away are all about adding additional capacity. If you add a...
If you think about the wave swinger at the front of the park, and what that's gonna do for us in terms of new capacity, if you think about the new Kids Area and some of the new attractions we're bringing on there, we're retiring older devices. We're not about just that incrementally adding attractions and adding, you know, cost-based challenges into the business. As we sunset older attractions and bring new things on, one, we get an OpEx benefit because, you know, the maintenance of older attractions is much more.
Yeah.
Moreover.
Understood.
have the capacity to deal with them.
Understood.
The only other thing, Roger, I'd say, too, is it's a really big park. So there's a lot to do. One of our key differentiators between us and others, is that we've got all the things that you can do in one place. So, you know, over the course of the day, it's not about just going on rides or just seeing animals, but you can do all those things as well as a water park all in one space. So, we're more than comfortable, that we've got the capacity in the business, to get back to those attendances and more.
Yeah. Yeah. Just a quick follow on. About 106 % was an increase in revenue last subject, the extent of volume. I mean, just going into February, last February, the massive season unheard of. I mean, it must be fantastic for your figures.
Sorry, Roger, you're still breaking up a bit. Look, I think.
Yeah.
I think if you're saying how was February, again, we don't give guidance on that. We're, we've been, you know. I think there's enough for us to say, "Look, we wanna give the market an insight as to how we've been going post-balance date.
Yeah.
We're in the same position now. We're just not able to give any guidance on that from a granular month-to-month result. I think we've outlined our plans and what we see in the business and our plans for the future, and we feel very comfortable with that, about that.
That's it. All said.
Thanks, mate.
The next question comes from David Kingston with K Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Look, thank you. Hi, guys. Look, overall, like the shareholder value of this company has been very disappointing. Gary, I think you initially bought in in 2017 after the tragedy at about roughly about AUD 2 a share, and we're currently at a AUD 0.95 return and AUD 0.70 share price.
You know, quite a lot of years later, you know, shareholders are down. Look, guys, I'm disappointed with the EBITDA for the last 6 months. You may well celebrate that you're finally positive, you know, it's common knowledge that your competitors have had a record last 6 months and you're barely turning an EBITDA profit, which of course is a loss after corporate expenses. Look, I think every shareholder will be very disappointed if you don't get back to the AUD 40 million EBITDA you used to do, guys. You can't keep blaming the tragedy. That's a long, long time ago. The number was there around about AUD 40 million, and if you can't get there, it's very disappointing. Look, the rating you're on is very poor, guys. AUD 320 million market cap.
Let's say you're allocating AUD 50 million for the rides, Gary. That's AUD 100 million net cash. You know, AUD 220 million EV. Clearly your real world value, if you were to sell the assets, would be, you know, a long, long way north of that, which would give shareholders a value way over AUD 1 a share. Look, overall, I think with good sale in America, overall disappointing shareholder value, I think it's really important you slash your corporate overheads. I presume, Gary, you're gonna be changing the board. A lot of people who are there because you had the American business, they'll be going. I just think you've gotta really cut a sound pretty hard. I think you've gotta look at potentially returning the AUD 100 million surplus cash to the shareholders.
I think, guys, you've just gotta prove that you can deliver shareholder value because it's been a disappointing experience. Thank you.
Yeah. Well, thank you, David. I appreciate the Monday morning quarterbacking commentary on the history of Ardent. A lot I could say. Now is not the appropriate time to address some of the comments that you've made. Small events like a 1 in a 100 year pandemic have clearly interrupted lots of things that impacted on Ardent and its various businesses. We're very conscious of the value that we have. We try and highlight it. This is an evolving recovery. As you would appreciate, it takes a long time to turn around businesses that have been not properly invested in for a considerable period of time. I think we're making excellent progress.
We've got an excellent team and a very strong balance sheet with a lot of latent value to unlock.
Thanks, Gary. All I'd say is your competitors are obviously shooting the lights out, I think, that ends with the bunch of COVID issue. Are you gonna be prepared to return some of the excess capital, Gary?
I don't think you need to be unduly concerned about the board's focus on shareholder value, David. Particularly recognizing that our group and associates are one of the largest shareholders. It's not for me to comment on competitors. I would simply observe that if you have a look at guest satisfaction scores and so on, which Greg has spoken to, we materially outcompete our competitors. Our ratings for our attractions are materially higher. Ultimately, this gets reflected, we believe in appropriate financial outcomes. This is not at all dissimilar to the journey that we undertook at Main Event, where we had very poor performance until we changed the management there. Negative like-for-like sales growth, very disappointing guest experience scores.
As you have clearly t raversed the history, you will have seen that the green shoots in terms of the turnaround in guest experience scores and in attendance numbers preceded the very substantial pickup in business, particularly following the reopening during COVID, which resulted in, thank you for accepting that, the sale that we completed in June last year was very satisfactory. In terms, if I could just for the record, simply note that in the 4 years since we've been involved in Ardent, the EBITDA at Main Event doubled over that period. That was against the backdrop of inheriting a business which had recorded 3 years of declining traffic growth to its centers
As I said, you need to appreciate, as I'm sure you do, that you cannot turn these businesses around on a dime.
Why wouldn't you hand AUD 100 million in surplus back, Gary, and then you'd still be ungeared?
Thanks, David. As I told you before, we're very conscious of shareholder value. We have worked long and hard to get Ardent into a position of having a strong balance sheet. We will continue to do that.
Okay, thank you.
The next question comes from Roger Coleman with Pax Patria. Please go ahead.
Grant, Gary, just a bit of CapEx. I've got a couple of mates up there, and, there's major traffic jams there on days, major ones. Within that AUD 15 CapEx, you scoped how is gonna cost us a fee to your site. There's also a few, Gary, of like the Ukrainian independence that come after that . You may take 5 ton.
Sorry, Roger. I'm struggling to... You're breaking up. I'm struggling to.
Yeah, yeah.
Hear your question.
If there's the problem in access to your site, the AUD 50 million CapEx spend, how much is the scope study going to cost to get a pro-access there?
Sorry. I.
Big Sam's gonna play so often.
Um, I, I, I s-
Yeah.
Greg, maybe you can un-understand Roger's question.
Sorry, Roger. I can't really get any of that, unfortunately.
Well, great. Bad line. Is that better? Is that...
Yeah.
All right. This AUD 10 CapEx doesn't include better access. There's public transit to get to your site. Has any scoping study on how much it's gonna cost and whether you can get the Queensland Government to pay for 100% of it?
Roger, Greg is, I think, if I can actually understand what you're saying. Greg has touched on the fact that, you know, work continues to look at the potential to maximize the value of our land. We haven't commented further on that aspect at this stage.
Right. Right. Okay. Maybe I'll take that offline when I get a clear signal from Telstra. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Nicholas McGarrigle with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking questions. I think Roger and David, have asked all my questions. I might just ask one around the residual proceeds from Main Event. On the balance sheet, where are they sitting, is there any contingent potential further consideration that's not sitting on the balance sheet that we can think about?
Thanks, Nick. Jose, do you wanna answer that one?
Sure. As I mentioned earlier in the presentation, there is contingent consideration that Ardent can basically receive as and when Main Event uses certain tax losses in the future. The amount of that is up to fourteen and a half million US dollars. Our share of that would be circa $10 million. That's not on the balance sheet. That is, you know, represents upside, you know, as and when we receive that. But other than that-
Can you talk through rate yet?
I was gonna say, other than that, all the other main sort of proceeds, working capital adjustment, et cetera, that's all been received already. That's reflected in the cash balance that we have.
Yeah. Great. In terms of, in terms of the pricing that you're seeing, I noticed obviously November last year that pricing had moved up from your competitor, then you guys followed suit pretty quickly thereafter. Can you just give us an update on single day as well as annual pass pricing, where the differential is and if you see any more room to move that further?
Yeah, we absolutely do. Just to highlight how we think about the value proposition. If we think about single day, my view is strongly that our experience on a single day basis here at Dreamworld Park is as good, if not better, than what it is at Village Parks on a day-to-day basis. But there's no doubt that if you think about an annual pass that has multiple parks in it compared to our offer, that there is a, you know, a disparate adjustment in value there. Our pricing really contemplates that. Again, if I look at a single day experience, we're at the same price as our competitor.
If I think about annual passes, we're at a price which I think reflects the difference in value there. We do also see upside to continually move that up and close that gap. In the past, I think that the gap between annual pass prices was somewhat negligible, and I see that as an opportunity for us to grow moving forward. We're not, like, quite there yet. Look, upside sort of come in the past. This is single day. I think we're in a good space, and that continues to be our strategy.
Thanks. Maybe just one last one from me. Just as David mentioned, your competitor's doing record attendances. I think you're running at about half the run rate that you might have been doing pre the accident. Can you just talk to some of those factors that will help close that gap? I presume the CapEx program that you're investing over the next couple of years will help, you know, rebuild interest in the local market and a perception of safety, even though safety's improved. I guess the perception of the park and the quality will improve post that CapEx. Just you beyond that.
Yeah. I think you're 100% right, Nick. If, if you think about, you know, park presentation and what that does in terms of people's, you know, associated feelings about safety and other things, we have a really strong view that aesthetics implies safety. You've seen a lot of the work that we've been doing over the last few years, both in the hard park and the water park, around plant integrity work to kind of bring that level up and that's coming from a long way back, as Gary earlier mentioned around just what we perceive to be a lack of investment, you know, in recent and in former years. We're catching that up. We also believe that as we bring new attractions on, that they'll absolutely drive additional attendances and revenues.
We're all about how we're gonna continue to drive revenue. We're certainly very mindful around costs, but this is all about, for us now, getting back to historical revenue performance. I think the other thing that I just wanna touch upon again is that the guest experience for us is absolutely crucial, and I think it's, as long as we keep doing the right thing by guests and looking after their, them, we'll be able to, you know, continue to draw people back in and to come back to the brand and also to revisit the brand as well.
Look, certainly, you know, if you go and have a look at Google reviews, if you go and have a look at the things we've outlined in the presentation today, there's a stark difference in terms of what we're doing today compared to what we're doing, you know, a few years ago. Some of that is activity based, there's no doubt about that. I think if you look at some of the other, more granular levels of comments in there, things around how people treat them in the parks, things about how organized our parks are, things about how, you know, prepared we are for busy peak seasons around attraction availability, around quality of food and things like that. Not to mention, what we're doing in terms of our event business.
We just think that all of those things are all crucial to what we're trying to do here in terms of changing the experience and driving ongoing.
Thanks.
There are no further questions at this time. That concludes our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.