Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Corporate Travel Management Limited half year results. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Jamie Pherous, Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to be coming to you from the USA, where I've been living since Christmas, which I'm sure we'll touch on later in this presentation. I'm also pleased to present our first half results and update of current activity. I think if we can move straight to slide four, please. Firstly, the CTM highlights. I think it's clear to everyone that this half was dominated by, firstly, the Delta strain and then the Omicron strain, which impacted through November and December and held back our recovery momentum. Despite this, we think we've delivered a strong first half result. As we go through the first half highlights, firstly, you'll see that underlying EBITDA of AUD 18.2 million was delivered versus AUD 15.2 million loss in the prior corresponding period.
Again, pleased to say that all regions except Asia recorded positive underlying EBITDA. I do wanna pay special attention to two regional standouts. Firstly, North America, where I'm currently stationed. The region recorded revenue higher than CTM standalone pre-COVID. In fact, 32% higher revenue. This is a testament to CTM's acquisition execution through COVID, and as you will see later, supports our expectation for an early return to pre-COVID profits in this region. Of course, Europe. Europe delivered a record EBITDA result of AUD 20.9 million for the half, which really is an incredible achievement in this environment. It's actually worth repeating, a record profit in a COVID environment for a corporate agency. Secondly, CTM continues to win market share. Why? Well, it's our value proposition. A proprietary technology with expert service is just so relevant in this environment.
We are building a global reputation for being able to do things that are outside the box. The proof of this is evidenced in our revenue recovery rates, which we will talk to shortly. Thirdly, it's our strong balance sheet all the way through COVID. Our financial position is one of the best, if not the very best, in corporate travel across the entire globe. We have no debt, over AUD 100 million in cash, allowing us to invest in customer solutions and internal automation without any financial constraint. This is a big competitive advantage for the business. Lastly, it's a timely reminder that we use this financial advantage to make transformational strategic acquisitions, which takes CTM to be the fourth largest TMC in the world.
Upon a full recovery, we are now targeting revenue of AUD 810 million, and importantly, underlying EBITDA of AUD 265 million, which represents 77% higher than our record pre-COVID number of AUD 150 million in EBITDA. As you will see in these upcoming slides, some regions are already above CTM pre-COVID levels in revenue and profits. We think this is early evidence that we're on track for this trajectory. Now if we go to slide five. Revenue and EBITDA overview. This is a very challenging half due to the Delta then Omicron strains, as we've said before. Firstly, to revenue on the left-hand side. As you can see, revenue continues to build, and we've recorded AUD 163 million in the first half, versus AUD 74 million in the prior corresponding period, despite the COVID strains.
This is up 120% on the PCP. Now to profit. Profit also continues to build despite these strains, and we recorded an AUD 18.2 million half versus a AUD 15.2 million loss in the prior corresponding period. It's really important to note how this derived, because looking back, we experienced strong momentum at the end of 4Q 2021. This was before the Delta strain. What we did at that period, we employed quite heavily in three regions to manage this expected continued momentum. Delta, and then later Omicron, halted this recovery. As a result, we had to keep our people for the future growth, but we've been overstaffed throughout the half. It's important to note because this has two big impacts.
One, we're carrying excess cost of AUD 2 million a month ahead of time for what is now looking like an imminent recovery, which I'll talk to shortly. Two, when short-term revenue does recover, we'll see this revenue drop directly to profits. Lastly, we remind you that the second half is traditionally a seasonally stronger half in client activity. Typically, have a 67% skew to the second half in profits. Onto slide six. CTM transformation through acquisition. Our financial position has afforded us the opportunity to make 3 acquisitions through the COVID cycle that have been transformational to CTM. As you can see with those, the first one, of course, was Travel and Transport. The purpose of that was to significantly increase the exposure to the large and fragmented North American market, which we'll talk to specifically shortly.
Secondly, with Tramada Systems, also around the same time period, early in COVID. That gave us an opportunity to leverage the ANZ industry-standard software across the world, not only for ourselves but also on a SaaS model, which we're using now. Lastly, and most recently, the Helloworld corporate acquisition for AUD 175 million. We expect this to close in the Q3 of 2022, subject to regulatory approvals and contractual requirements. On Helloworld, as we've said before, FY 2019 pro forma EBITDA of AUD 22 million, and we expect a further AUD 8 million of synergies upon a full recovery. Again, like all our acquisitions, Helloworld has a very strong strategic rationale. It builds on our CTM's core capability. It adds attractive new verticals, particularly entertainment comps and events, where at CTM, these parts of our business are running well above 100% of pre-COVID.
We think the timing of entering this thematic is very sound. Of course, we've got a very complementary client base coming in Australia and New Zealand, and we've talked about the material synergies identified. If we take our eye to the right-hand side now, to the chart there, you will see that it gives you a guide to how revenue looks by region upon a full recovery. The left-hand side shows you what CTM looked like pre-COVID in the mix between the four regions. As you can move forward with the 76% growth in revenue, you can see the big area now is North America. It's now by far the largest region. With Helloworld closing sometime in this quarter, ANZ also grows significantly.
The key point, the end result, is revenue is expected to grow 76% from AUD 459 million pre-COVID to AUD 810 million on a full recovery. Now, no other travel company can make this claim because no other travel company has been making transformational acquisitions to get themselves in this position. Now if we go onto slide seven, our regional performance. Now before we get into the next five slides, we have added a pre-COVID comparative period to the far right-hand side column on the next slides, as well as comparing our 1H 2022 results to 1H 2021. Why have we done this for? Well, firstly, pre-COVID. If we can go to the next slide too, onto slide eight. Pre-COVID is the period July to December 2019.
This period is before COVID began and also before the T&T acquisition, and is the most relevant period, the most relevant comparison to assess our recovery trajectory. This comparison will demonstrate a number of key points as we go through the next few slides. Firstly, it highlights the impact that acquisitions are already making to the business, reinforcing our recovery trajectory to AUD 265 million underlying EBITDA. Secondly, it demonstrates just how quickly we expect to return to pre-pandemic revenue and following that, profitability. Now that we're on slide eight, the group overview, with pre-COVID comparison in mind, you can see revenue is up 120% on the prior corresponding half, but also we're only 27% behind pre-COVID CTM. I think that's really important to note because of the acquisitions.
Importantly, we are investing for the future at CTM. We'll talk about technology shortly, but our group overhead is also back to pre-COVID levels to ensure we support a sustainable recovery in the business. However, we don't expect this to grow significantly further despite substantial acquisitions and the size, because of the scale we've developed in the business. If we come across to the current update in terms of outlook, we know Omicron reduced travel through November and January. However, there are rapid recovery signs in February, led by our largest regions of North America and U.K., as travel impediments are totally withdrawn, and we'll talk about this in coming slides.
As a result, we are well-positioned to leverage activity recovery through our over-investment in staff capacity, but also, as you'll see on the next few slides, the very quick integration speed we've been able to achieve in North America, which we're really pleased. Let's go on the next slide, if we can, onto North America. As you will see on this slide, revenue is up 213% on the PCP. Again, when we compare to pre-COVID, CTM revenue is already 32% ahead of pre-COVID standalone CTM. We think this is a testament to our successful M&A strategy and execution. As you will also see, we talked about that excess capacity. A lot of that excess staff capacity was in North America. We need to do that to recover because it's the one with the biggest scale.
Again, I'm pleased to say the same thing I said last half. North America is leading client wins across CTM. It's a really strong sign of support for the service proposition over in North America, particularly our service and technology offering combined in this market. If we go to outlook, as we said, COVID affected us from November to January, but February is very, very different. Over in North America, there are no domestic travel impediments whatsoever. You can get on a plane vaccinated or unvaccinated, you don't need any tests. International impediments are expected to be minimal in the Q4 of 2022. As a result, we're experiencing a rapid recovery. We're double digiting week on week on week for the last three weeks and that's a really great sign.
Just to put a stake in the sand, last week was the first trading day in excess of $10 million in a day. It's been a key milestone and one of our first milestones, and it is materially above any other day since COVID began. Just to show you how fast things are coming back. When we put this together with the accelerating client wins, the integration completion, which we'll talk to on the next slide, with the recovery, you can see that North America will be a key region in the group in both in profit contribution and client wins. Onto slide 10. We, you know, now that North America is approximately half of the global business, we want to bring you up to speed on where we're at.
Because now we're expecting an early return to pre-pandemic profitability through three key drivers, and it might be quicker than we all thought. Firstly, it's all about our increased penetration of the CTM tech suite, and specifically the Lightning Booking tool. As we have seen recently in Europe and previously in the ANZ regions, we know at CTM exactly what a high uptake of proprietary technology does to the business. It frees up time for our experts to service complex bookings, which is our strength and will be a strength in this environment. It also results in better scalability, efficiency, and in turn, profitability and profitability margins. Importantly, we're pleased to say that Lightning is getting solid traction in North America. We are signing up blue-chip U.S. and global clients that are being won and implemented on Lightning. Customers are telling us it's easy and logical to use.
We continue to build features specific to the U.S. market. That's very pleasing. Second, secondly, is the integration benefits we're extracting over here. As you're all aware, we made the T&T acquisition very early in the cycle. Some, in hindsight, thought it was quite bold when we had to absorb losses. We told the market very clearly that while we expected to absorb some short-term losses by acquiring early in the cycle, we thought the benefit was the ability to integrate significantly faster versus when a business is running at full steam. Well, we're really pleased to say that's working out really well. We now can advise you that all clients in North America will be operating on one system by June 30. This brings significant benefits beyond our initial expectations, which we've spoken to the market on a full recovery.
It also allows the things that we know will be important given a potential constraint on resources as we get closer to full recovery. We know that one system will unlock further automation in proprietary agent tools and booking efficiency improvements, which we've seen in other markets. This in turn will create more time and better productivity, allowing our travel advisors to be truly consultative to our customers and be more valuable to our clients in the recovery. This is playing to CTM's strength in the value proposition. Lastly, to the market share gains driven by a superior value proposition over here. As we said before, we're exploiting the financial advantage we have to continue to invest in enhancing not just client, but as you'll see in coming slides, in tech agency solutions we've been toiling with through COVID.
I'm very proud to say that client wins are running at the highest levels in North American history, and we expect it to actually accelerate when we look at our pipeline. Also, now that we really have scale on both sides of the Atlantic, the time was to really leverage up and step up our global segment. Late in last quarter, we built a dedicated team to focus on global clients, the global client segment specifically. I'm pleased to say we won three global clients with over $80 million in annual TTV in that last quarter attributed to this specialist team, just to that team alone. Again, it's another lever of growth for this region. If we go onto the next slide now onto Europe.
As you can see with Europe, revenue's up 229% to AUD 43.8 million. When we compare it to pre-COVID, it is just 8% down on pre-COVID, which is an amazing result. Again, a record first half EBITDA of AUD 20.9 million on a lower revenue bodes really well for the trajectory for the rest of the business and highlights all the automation gains we've made in CTM since 2019, which is they're seeing it because I've got the scale. It should be clearly obvious to everyone by the recovery rate that we have won a lot of business and projects, and we've delivered such a stunning result when things are closed.
Importantly, in that first half result, U.K. domestic, which is clearly our largest and most efficient segment, was not a material contributor in 1H given the U.K. lockdown throughout the half. We come to outlook very much like the U.S. While Omicron reduced activity November to January, U.K. domestic travel is recovering quickly, and it's a large incremental contributor. It again growing at double digits week on week on week for the last three weeks. Of course, U.K. is leading the way in eliminating all travel impediments. As you know, you don't have to get tests now to go from U.S. to the U.K. You still need a test to come back. This is pretty material because we know impediments are the strongest indicator towards a swift recovery.
We've seen it before in other markets, and we've seen it in other pandemics in Asia prior to COVID. I also want to point that overnight France no longer require PCR tests to enter or leave France. Again, another material impediment removed to Europe's performance. Lastly, of course, we talk, you know, we don't talk about customers, but we know it's public, so I think we have to talk about it. The U.K. government contract extension to 2025. This really underpins the long-term strength of this region moving forward. It's also important to note that previously we had this contract, we were on a panel of three providers servicing the government. Now we are the only provider on this contract. That tells you that there's a lot of growth in this contract alone.
We're very pleased with Europe, how it's setting up, for the future. If we come now to Australia, New Zealand, slide 12. Again, as you know, living in Australia, New Zealand's been a really tough place to operate and travel, but we think it's been a really resilient performance. To actually eke out a profit, given ANZ was essentially in lockdown throughout the entire first half with little government assistance either, by the way, little to none for us, is a really resilient outcome. To knock out 34% revenue recovery versus pre-COVID, despite all these border closures, just tells you how resilient this business is because of our essential travel client base.
Of course, just like America, we're carrying some excess staff because we saw the momentum, and we've seen it a number of times when things come back, particularly the Golden Triangle. It comes back very swiftly. When we come to the outlook, we all know it's very clear now that thank goodness international and domestic travel impediments are finally being removed, and they're being removed very quickly. Just to remind you, we are highly leveraged to activity recovery, given, like Europe, our high online domestic mix with our excess workforce capacity. That bodes really very well. We just want to note that TTV is building week on week like North America and Europe, but it's just a week or two behind. For example, TTV as of last week rebounded to 55% of pre-COVID, right?
When the half was running at you know, 34%. Now, I want to remind you, we've seen this rebound before in times when things were open in ANZ, and we expect it to occur at similar rates and speed. This time will be different because international is now open for business. If we go over to slide 13, Asia. Asia is still a tough trading environment for us. Clearly, we remain challenged due to the reliance on international travel. Asia, again, is a good read of what normal travel looks like for everyone else. However, revenue and other income was at 14% of pre-COVID levels, and this is subject to two things really. The government support pretty much stopped after last year, and that's despite the worsening lockdown conditions.
Again, as you can appreciate, there's really strong cost control given the operating environment. We are carrying a lot of staff, and we're doing it for a number of good reasons when we come to the outlook. Clearly, we expect to be marginally loss-making until travel reopens. Here's the key point. We continue to win business. We continue to move as many people as we can onto Lightning. Competitor closures are accelerating, which means our market share is increasing, which means we're really well-positioned when things do turn to be a much bigger player in that market. Of course, we said before, the cost controls are going to remain in place until these restrictions ease. Now if we go onto slide 14, if we can, technology and sustainability.
We might move straight to slide 15 if we can. We want to talk here how we're enhancing the client experience in a very complex environment. As we have said numerous times before, we think at CTM it's a key competitive advantage having our own proprietary technology, and we want to remind you why. It's clear through COVID that we can adapt rapidly and build to a changed environment for our customers much faster than relying on a number of third parties. This creates automation and material productivity gains for our work, our workforce as well. Given it's widely assumed that there may be inflation pressures and a difficulty in returning to a full pre-COVID size workforce, particularly towards the end of the full recovery, we know this competitive advantage will benefit CTM and its customers through the recovery cycle.
I want to share the three key focuses through calendar year 2022. Firstly, it's about the global segment. We know the prize is huge. We've got scale on both sides of the Atlantic. In the past, you could only really use three global travel providers that have call centers, and here we are, a nimble company with expert service, with our own technology that users like. It's really about the global focus, and that's making sure that we can have a portal, a global portal to improve visibility of staff from all over the world using us, and of course, a global view of travel spend. These are the bare minimums. As we go through this roadshow cycle, Kevin's with me as well. We'll talk deeper about what we're doing in this area.
When you combine that with our high service culture, it creates a very powerful value proposition versus the call center models for global clients. We see this as a major segment that we want to build upon in the coming 12 months. Secondly, it's always about enhancing user experience. We're now using machine learning to improve client productivity on Lightning OBT to make things more logical and faster. We're also focused on delivering the most relevant content to customers to reduce their time to book and enhance their user experience of using CTM. Thirdly, and most importantly, is personalization automation on the inside of the business. We've been toiling away at this for 18 months, and CTM Advisor is our proprietary automation tool. It's fantastic because it enables a deeper client understanding and a more effective servicing in a complex environment.
By that, it's really important to sort of share what we're doing with this. It really allows us to bring the online experience the customer has with the agent experience and bringing them closer together. Those benefits then make it just faster and a much more intuitive service experience, whether you're on or offline. Considering all the change and things are happening, we think this is gonna give us not just a major competitive advantage in service, but again, drive productivity and efficiency gains, which are gonna be critical on a recovery phase. Now if we go onto the next slide, if we can, slide sixteen. We know right now that proprietary technology, we've said before, is pretty important.
Because we're building it ourselves, we are also leading the way in client sustainability and partnering with our clients to build things. Before I go into this slide, I want to share a few survey feedback that we've recently done. In our most recent global business survey just four to six weeks ago, sustainability came in actually just low on the priorities. It came in fifth for travel programs in 2022. This came after traveler risk, safety, wellbeing, number 1. Service in a complex environment, number 2. Cost, and then fourth was travel compliance in a complex environment. Now, all these priorities actually are areas where CTM is very strong. That is very pleasing to hear that's what clients are focusing upon.
However, sustainability was important to large professional service providers, and this is because they have a very low energy input in their business. However, sustainability is of very low relevance to most other industries where travel is frankly negligible to their carbon footprint. That's important to note. Irrespective, we are leading the way in client solutions with the CTM tech suite and specifically our CTM Climate+ program. You know, CTM now has thousands of customers globally. We've come to the realization that the best way we can make a positive impact on the environment is through our technology in the hands of our clients, and that's what we're doing. As we've said in the past, our leased office developed tech, a technology with and for our clients, and our regional tech hubs allow us to do this.
Clients have been telling us that this is what they want CTM to do. They want us to support their goals as it relates to sustainability with flexible options and settings. They also want to be able to influence travel decisions at the time of booking in Lightning, not after the fact. They can choose travel by aircraft and hotels that are more efficient and effective. They also want to be able to report on results at a granular level to drive change, but also ensure they can fulfill their third-party reporting obligations. Lastly, they want the choice to offset their carbon footprint to support an array of global sustainability projects. Well, I'm pleased to say this can all be managed by the CTM tech suite.
As a result and proof of this, we recently won the Business Travel Awards Europe in {uncertain] suite of technology we've built. Now if we go on to slide 17. Before I do that, I want to hand over to our CFO, Cale Bennett, to talk through a high-level financial summary. Over to you, Cale.
Thanks, Jamie. If we can turn to slide 18, the group profit and loss. CTM has maintained monthly positive underlying EBITDA since we crossed that threshold in early 2021. As Jamie referred to earlier, the Q4 2021 momentum, particularly in North America, gave us cause for optimism in early first half 2022. However, COVID variants in the form of Delta and then Omicron served to make the half a challenging one. Relative to the previous corresponding period, revenue and other income rose 120% to AUD 163 million, and underlying EBITDA recovered from a negative AUD 15.2 million to a positive AUD 18.2 million. I note that we only owned TNT for two months of the first half of 2021 and inherited a loss-making position in that business. We've outlined our D&A expectations for FY 2022.
The impact of owning TNT and also the lower Australian dollar are expected to see D&A up slightly in FY 2022 when compared to FY 2021. Should the Helloworld transaction complete as expected, D&A is expected to increase marginally beyond the numbers noted. Moving on to slide 19. Non-recurring costs in first half 2022 relate primarily to the Helloworld corporate acquisition and the ongoing integration of TNT. We expect the Helloworld corporate acquisition to complete at the end of 3Q 2022, with acquisition costs in line with AUD 5 million disclosed at the time of the transaction. The regulatory approval process is tracking to expectations. Most of the TNT integration costs are now complete. The financial and functional integration will finish at 30 June 2022, when it is expected that the client-facing integration will be complete.
Some back-office work will continue, but that's business as usual. If we can just move on to slide 20, the balance sheet. CTM maintains a very strong balance sheet. We have not utilized our committed funding facility since June 2020, and the company maintains significant cash holdings of AUD 193.2 million, including AUD 75 million raised in the institutional placement conducted prior to Christmas. A further AUD 25 million was raised in January by way of an SPP, which together will satisfy the cash component of the Helloworld corporate acquisition in full. The group's receivables and payables are driven by client activity. The quiet period in December, due to both seasonal impacts and the Omicron variant, have seen receivables fall from 30 June 2021.
Payables are higher than they would usually have been at period end by approximately AUD 20 million due to a client project reconciliation wash-up that was resolved in the first few days of January. This also impacted the cash holdings and cash flow. During the half, the team have achieved IATA's GoGlobal accreditation, which views CTM's credit on a global basis when determining the need for bank guarantees. Due to the financial strength of the global organization, our guarantees have reduced further and are never expected to return to historic levels, even with a much larger business at full recovery. If we can just move on to slide 21, the cash flow. Working capital was impacted positively by the collection of outstanding receivables due to the strong activity in Q4 2021.
The impact of the AUD 20 million cash held on the balance sheet, due to the client wash-up noted on the previous slide, should be taken into account when calculating our cash conversion for the half. CTM's cash conversion fundamentals have not changed from pre-COVID. At full recovery, we will continue to be strongly cash generative, with airline payment sweep timing impacting at the end of each half. Investment in software will stay relatively stable in second half 2022, with CapEx up slightly due to the impact of a AUD 2.2 million dollar hardware refresh in the North American business that will lead to improved agent productivity. If we can move on to slide 23, I'm now gonna hand back to Jamie to talk to the FY 2022 outlook.
Thank you, Cale. Okay, here we are. Basically given the uncertainty of strains, CTM is not able to offer FY 2022 profit guidance, but we do outline our key expectations. Firstly, we expect COVID to move from pandemic to endemic. This is already the rhetoric in U.K. and the U.S. Look, while all of our investors are sitting on this call in Australia or New Zealand, it might be hard to see this, but the mood in both the U.S. and U.K. is very, very different. People are simply getting on with things at a rapid rate. We expect ANZ to follow suit, not in months, but in weeks. I've now flown on 24 of which are international, and I can tell you airports over here are busy and things seem pretty normal other than flying with a mask. That's the first point.
Let me tell you something else. Travel has been very valuable to our immediate success at CTM as well. You know, we've won material clients because of our willingness to get on a plane. We've resolved many supply issues that were simply not possible to resolve remotely. We're getting much better results in cohesion, teamwork, strategy, and problem-solving by getting our teams together. In fact, in America, we've solved more things in four days, getting together as a wider team than we could have hoped to do in four months on Zoom. As a result, we expect the same response from our clients and a corresponding buildup of EBITDA through 7 March. It's really about our third point. It's really about the Q4 .
We expect a material step up as governments around the world relax impediments of testing and the momentum we are currently experiencing continues to build. As I said before, it was pleasing to see France follow the U.K.'s lead earlier this week with zero testing requirements to travel into and out of France. We expect the U.S. to follow suit shortly, hopefully by the end of February. Whenever we see these impediments relax, we see a swift recovery in corporate activity. We've seen it through this cycle in Australia, New Zealand and China, and we expect to see it again. I also want to remind you that we expect a stronger second half seasonal profit skew. Historically, the second half represents 67% of our full year profits, but we expect it to be higher this year as things loosen up.
We also want to touch on a few medium challenges because as you can see through this presentation, we've done a lot of work. As we've referred to many times through this presentation, we are really laser-sharp focused on measures to improve productivity of staff, to limit the impact of any inflation and potential resource shortages as we get closer and closer to full recovery. We also expect to rebuild staff numbers to activity levels, but with some contingency and fat to ensure we get the balance right between servicing and cost when the recovery is not exactly linear. We think this will be a competitive advantage and help us win, retain clients as we move forward. Lastly, it should now be very clear that the COVID cycle acquisitions are creating a much larger business at CTM. In fact, 77% larger on a full recovery.
We're now targeting an EBITDA of AUD 265 million when it does recover. Further, we don't think the M&A cycle is over. We continue to assess acquisition opportunities that support global strategy to create more levels of organic growth in the long term for this company. Now, if we go to the last slide 24, where we demonstrate what that larger business will look like. As you can see on this slide, what the blue bar chart shows you, firstly in pro forma FY 2019 revenue. The blue chart there, blue bar shows the AUD 459 million, which the company did pre-COVID. Now with T&T and then Helloworld, you can see how we're gonna get that to AUD 810 million when we combine on a pro forma basis. The same goes for the right-hand side with EBITDA.
Pre-COVID, we were doing AUD 150 million underlying EBITDA. With T+T and Helloworld just in a pro forma basis, we're gonna do AUD 265 million. Okay. But this is the key point. North America and Europe combined revenues are already exceeding CTM pre-COVID levels. This is terribly reinforcing to us, but also reinforcing that the recovery trajectory targets we're setting up are really doable. I think that's a key point. The other point to make is we have won significant market shares in CY 2019. We expect this to continue. The proof to you is the recovery rates in all the regions we're working in. For us, the AUD 265 million in terms of the target, it's not if, but it's when. I think that's the key point.
Again, thank you for listening. Now I'll hand back to the moderator for, to take any questions if I can.
Thank you. 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 are on a speaker phone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Please limit your questions to two, which will allow us to get through the callers. Your first question comes from Sam Seow at Citi. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my question. Just on the cost base, it looks like it increased to circa AUD 27 million a month. Just want to get a feel of how much capacity, I guess, as a percentage of FY 2019 that can service before you start investing back into the business.
Yeah, I'll take that one. Like I said, AUD 2 million a month is a lot of staff, right, Sam? I think what we're gonna do. Now, I think the challenge in the first half really was. I don't think anyone. We were all blindsided by Delta and Omicron. Now, if it all pans out and as everyone's saying to us that is now at an endemic state. We might get a lot more certainty. We'll just start employing as we go. In the interim, until we get that certainty, we wanna employ ahead because what we don't wanna do is leave our customers short. The trade-off, particularly North America, we've got all these productivity measures really swiftly underway, particularly once we've got all clients on one system by June.
We think by the Q1 of FY 2023, we're gonna be very, very well advanced, which will give us a lot of capacity. Secondly, in markets like Europe and ANZ, we've got such high uptake on our booking tool, we just don't need the people that we would need, say, in North America to be successful. I hope that answers your question.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, would you hazard a guess at the full monthly run rate per month, so we can just kind of take a guess in between of the range?
I mean, I'd like to guess, but look, I have to come back to you. I mean, look, like I said, I hope it's very clear things are ratcheting so rapidly in our largest two regions that we, that things are changing weekly at the moment. I mean, when you start double-digit week on week on week, that's quite incredible. For a business that's taken 26 years to get to this size to start ratcheting at that rate, you can imagine that cost is starting to come in already. Again, as we've said before, we're very comfortable that we're gonna get to AUD 265 million on a recovery of revenue. Now, whether we get that through growth and a bit of structural tail or just comes back, we don't know. As I said before, it's not when.
I mean, certainly, you know, certainly gonna happen, I guess. It's just the timing, we don't know.
All right. Thanks for taking my question. I'll get back in line.
The next question comes from Wei-Weng Chen and RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hi, Jamie. Just a couple of questions from me. Just first one was wondering if you could maybe let us know what happened in December. You guys provided, I guess, in your trading update figures to November. I guess now with the full half results, sorry, we can now back solve, I guess, what December was. It looks like you added just under AUD 30 million of revenue, but only grew EBITDA by about AUD 200,000. Just wondering, was there a sharp uplift in costs there in December, or what exactly happened?
I couldn't quite hear you. I think obviously December was pretty bad with Omicron, but I think it's really more about moving forward now. We've talked about how the incremental revenue will drop to the bottom line. You're gonna get a short-term hit because we've got capacity. I mean, we're looking forward now, rather than looking back. We know that incremental dollar to the bottom line will be a lot higher than our terminal revenue EBITDA margins, and that's what we're trying to manage as we go through the year. Like I said, if it's not obvious, things are coming back pretty quickly in the Northern Hemisphere in our two biggest markets, and we're just trying to manage that. I'm sorry I haven't answered your question.
It was very difficult to hear from over here. Something wasn't quite right with the line.
Sorry. I was just asking about the December result. It seemed like you added about AUD 30 million of revenue, but only about AUD 200,000 of EBITDA. Can you hear this better?
Sorry, Wei-Weng Chen. I'll just jump in there, if Jamie can't hear so well. You know, there wasn't necessarily an uptick in cost. It was really the impact, as Jamie mentioned, of Omicron and just bearing in mind seasonal impact of Christmas as well.
Thanks. My next question was just on the Europe result, sort of circa 48% EBITDA margins. Is this a new level, you know, that we should be thinking about in terms of sustainable margins in this division, or are there other factors which are kind of moving that number around?
I'll take this one, Cale. The answer is we don't know, but we feel pretty good because in that number, there was no domestic, very little domestic. You remember the whole half, the U.K. was pretty much shut down. I think the takeaway from the U.K. is that we know we've got very, very high online. As that comes back, it's incrementally pretty effective for us. We'll have to wait and see. Yeah, we just have to wait and see, but we're getting quite confident.
Okay. All right. Thanks so much. That's all my questions.
The next question comes from John O'Shea and Ord Minnett or Minnett, excuse me. Please go ahead.
Morning, Jamie. Can you hear me, guys?
Certainly can.
Thanks very much for the presentation. Just on the M&A front, I noted your comments there. Can you give us some sort of sense as to how people are kind of viewing the current dynamics in that market? You know, obviously the sector's been savagely impacted. Obviously you've got only really a couple of players that are actually in a position to do anything regarding M&A, frankly. You know, a number of people have sort of been hanging on. Do you feel that? What are you seeing there? Are you seeing people sort of multiples coming down? Are you seeing people that are keen to get out?
Are you seeing people saying, "Okay, well, the COVID recovery's around the corner," you know, multiples are kind of what they were before? Or can you give us some sort of sense as to what the market looks like from a kind of a buyer's perspective from your end?
Yeah. Yeah, sure. I mean, firstly, from the seller's perspective, we'll have to wait to see our peers, but I can tell you, I think we've bucked the trend. I would imagine this half was terrible, and people would have gone backwards from the last half.
Agreed.
We'll wait and see because of the lock-downs. Don't forget, what we're seeing around the world, you're seeing this terrible mess. Again, we're just an exception to the rule. You had no government support or little government support with probably worse conditions for travel. When you put that together, that's put a lot of pressure on businesses, particularly in the Asia Pac region. When you come to North America and Europe, the same thing. While things are starting to turn, I mean, I think the U.K. has been very tough. We are again an outlier. Even in North America, I think because they never got government support, while things are coming back, people look at their balance sheets and have got enormous debt, and I don't know how they're gonna trade out of that.
I think when I look at it all, what we're seeing a greater demand to sell.
Yep.
As you've correctly pointed out, there's not many people that can buy. The supply-demand curve is starting to favor the buyer.
Yep. Yeah, thanks. That's a good summary. Would it be fair to say in that environment that the margins these people are starting to ask for is obviously coming down as they get more desperate? Is that over-dramatizing things or do you see that from what's coming across your desk?
I think we're just looking at things differently. I mean, it's a bit hard now to go and look at pre-COVID, isn't it?
Yeah.
That seems like light years away. It's more, I think, though, we're in a really good position now. We've got I mean, the good thing for us, really pleasing that most of our, you know. If you think about what we've done in North America in what, 21 months, it's quite incredible. So I think we're in good positions. Europe's obviously in a good position as well. Clearly in ANZ, we've got a lot of work to do. I'm really looking forward to hopefully getting the, you know, as I said, the approval so we can get cracking with that. I think what we're learning through this cycle is that we're getting better and better at acquisitions. Clearly
Yep.
You know, just time on the ground doing them. Now that we're bigger, they're more of a tuck-in than ever before. As we're getting a lot bigger, we've got, I guess, a very strong recipe on what to do, and we've got a great team in this business that does them all. What that tends to say is that we're really looking now. I think the synergies we can extract are getting more material than ever before.
Yeah.
If you remember in the old days of building this business, we'd buy a business and in fact, we had to throw more cost into it to make it scalable. Essentially there was a sort of anti-synergy. Now the synergy is becoming a lot more immediate, a lot more obvious and they'll extract quicker. We take into account when we're looking at value. But again, I think it's fair to say everything we're gonna do is always gonna be accretive. Thankfully, I think we've got a pretty good track record over 12 years or whatever it is since we've listed of executing pretty well. We're clearly getting better at it. We've got dedicated resources that understand how to do it better.
Thanks very much, Jamie.
The next question comes from James Bales in Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. I've got two questions, one on revenue and one on margins. Firstly on revenue, how large an impact do you see the customer wins being versus the AUD 810 million pro forma? Are those wins incremental?
Yeah. I think. I don't think I quite heard your first question, but I think I did. Firstly, margins are moving around a bit, right? This is revenue yield. Now things are starting to get a bit steadier. There is no doubt places like North America, we're getting buying power benefits. We also, as we've said, we're finding the productivity gains in one system. Now we're actually doing it at, you know, we're halfway home to a full recovery now. We can start to see the results. Things are getting. Things are actually better than we predicted, and that's a good thing. There's still a way to go. Your second question, James, sorry, on EBITDA margins. Can you just repeat that, the second part of your question?
Yes. I haven't gotten there yet. Just to clarify on the first one, you guys called out 80 million of TTV that's been won. I just wanted to understand whether, you know, if that translates to 10%, is that an extra 8 that should be added to the pro forma number for revenue?
Oh, look, I think AUD 80 million is a very small part of what we've won since. Okay. We're just trying to point out that that's a new segment we haven't really done as well in as we are in other segments that we really will do well in, particularly across the Atlantic. It's just a very small part of the wins. I think what we're trying to say, we don't know structurally what's gonna happen. What we can tell you is that if everything comes back to normal, we'll be doing more than AUD 810 million, providing we execute an acquisition and if everything comes back to normal, because we've been winning business since calendar 2019, a lot of business.
For now, we're comfortable seeing the market look. There'll be some structural, potential structural issues on some. Maybe international doesn't come back to 100%. We know we look at a worst-case scenario, and we know what we want. We're pretty comfortable saying, "Well, let's just leave it at AUD 110 million," and we know the things we're doing, particularly in North America and the other automation through the years, that we're comfortable saying to the market, "Well, on that, give or take, we're gonna make AUD 265 million." That's what we're shooting for.
Got it. On margin, on the first two points on slide 10, can you just help us understand, are those benefits of Lightning vertical integration, et cetera, captured in the margin expectation of that AUD 265 million EBITDA?
Yes and no. Some of it is, some of it isn't. As we've said before, we've called out synergies, but you know, on that slide, Tim, we talk about that AUD 1 billion benefit of integration. That significant efficiency benefit is beyond our initial expectations. That tells you that we're now in it, and now that we've I guess the key is that because it was quiet, we actually did a lot more than we normally would in an integration, which is a good learning for us as well. We're a lot more in the weeds in terms of things we want to move faster, and we're seeing those results. I guess.
You know, James, we're not in the business of overpromising and underdelivering, so there's still things in the future that could go wrong as well as right. I think for now we're just comfortable leaving it as we've presented it, you know. Here's our pro forma revenue, all things coming back. We haven't built in anything else. We haven't built in clearly the growth we've got. At the same time, there could be some structural recoveries in travel that we're unaware of, particularly international. We're not worried about domestic travel, but international, we still don't know yet. Until we see all these impediments removed for four months, we're not gonna make a call. That'll come probably when we give the full year results.
We should know a lot more by then.
Great. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
The next question comes from Mitchell Sonogan with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Morning, Jamie. Can you hear me?
Yeah.
Mate, just following up on the U.K. government contract, you mentioned you're now the sole provider. Can you maybe provide any detail what percentage of the panel you had in calendar year 2019 versus the other two panel members that have now dropped off? Thanks.
Obviously, it's. Look, we don't like to talk about customers and just our view, and we don't like to talk about the win values either because, you know, you rely on what a customer says, right? You know, that's the hard part. That's why we shy away from it. We let our numbers do the talking. On that one, I can tell you it's material, and we'll leave it at that. 100% is what we had before. If the size of the customer proves to be what they say it is, it's quite material. Put it this way.
Okay.
We're very comfortable in that region. It just underpins things as we move forward. It underpins, you know, they're a great customer, but also, as I think I've tried to intimate before, you know, with North America being successful, that mostly rubs off onto Europe. Typically, anything North America wins, they usually always get a piece of it these days as well. There's a lot of dynamics that are very favorable for us in Europe.
Okay, thanks. Just a little bit more detail talking about the U.K. dropping a fair few of those restrictions, also testing requirements, and you've talked about France. Can you detail about what you're hearing over there on the ground in the U.S., and also any conversations you might be having or hearing about, Australia's plans over the next few months as well? Thank you.
Yeah, yeah. I think for us, you know, it's different markets. It's about people getting back to the offices. Our understanding now is that end of February looks like it's all happening, and we're seeing that, you know. We've been really lucky. I've been spending time over here with very senior people at key suppliers, including CMOs of the big three airlines. There's a consistent message in North America. They think it's endemic by 28 February. You know, I think Delta, for example, has announced they're bringing back served meals, blankets, pillows, all the normal stuff on the planes, which tells you a lot about this market. Europe's a little bit behind the U.K., but the U.K. is by far the one that is most advanced.
I mean, for example, where I'm living now in North there is no mask mandates other than airports or public gatherings. It seems very normal. I understand it's the same in the U.K., which we're going over there in next week or the week after. Things are very different to, say, Australia and New Zealand. It's not even mentioned in the media here. I mean, you turn on the media, it's all about Ukraine and other things, and the Olympics. It's just not appearing. I must say it's very refreshing. I wish I think other governments of the world would move forward as well because we're seeing that subtle feedback. I've been flying a lot.
You know, if you've ever flown around America at hubs, you usually see the planes lined up like buses trying to get on the runway. That's how it's been. Going through security, the mazes are full again. It's certainly on. No doubt that over here, leisure's coming first, but corporate we can tell is coming quickly behind now. Because as we've said, we've been through a few of these before. We know the things that matter. If people feel safe to travel, by everyone that travels is vaccinated, 'cause you've got to internationally, and B, there's no impediment to travel. The main impediment now is testing. Clearly for business, you wanna go to London for two days, you have to go and try to find a test. That's slowing people down. When that goes, it's material.
You would have seen that. I think Cancún is the number one segment in the world, which is just crazy. It's because there's no impediment to travel. You can hop up on a plane. There's no testing. You can come and go for the weekend. The economies are winning when they stop the PCR tests, assuming everyone's vaccinated. We just hope that this logic is starting to apply and percolate to the top of other governments in those countries. They're the ones winning it from tourism economics.
Yeah. Thanks, Jamie.
Mark Wade and CLSA, please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. First of all, just curious on how you're seeing the relationship with suppliers. Like on one hand, you're a lot bigger than you were before. On the other hand, there's some looming commission cuts in Down Under. Yeah, what are you seeing there, Jamie?
It's a good question, Mark. In fact, I can tell you honestly, 'cause I'm over here, right? I'm seeing suppliers all around the world. Qantas is the gross exception to the rule. Where with other key suppliers who understand the partner that as corporate, that's where the high yield is. We're having really proactive conversations about how we can work more closely together to win and get bums back on seats. It's actually very, I'd say, sadly, for them, because I would've thought when international comes back, people have choice. Hopefully people remember the airlines that did support them through the hard times, but we'll have to wait and see.
All the key airlines in these two regions, and I've been really enthused by just how important relationships are and wanting to work together. There is no doubt in North America seeing that in early margins, and would expect that to stay, and we're still doing that. Again, it should be like that, right? I mean, at the end of the day, if you think about where we sit in the supply chain, by yield, and we tend to keep customers. These are all the things that suppliers want, whether that be an airline or a hotel or a car. How can I get a customer that sits with me longer at a higher yield?
I think it's very clear that wherever I've gone, including hotels, hotel chains, 'cause a lot of them are headquartered here too, we're seeing the same response. Sadly, Qantas is an exception to the rule.
Okay. Just maybe one for Cale. Maybe it's in the pack. I didn't get a lot of time to look at it before the call. Just trying to discern the organic level of growth or alternatively in North America and Europe, alternatively, what's the contribution of T&T? If I can get a bit of a sense on what it's contributing to TTV, revenue, EBITDA in the half just finished.
Fine. That's difficult to determine 'cause the business is broadly integrated from that perspective. It's unscrambling an egg at this point.
All right. Thanks, Cale. Appreciate those comments.
The next question comes from Brian Han with Morningstar. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Just one question, if I may. The decision by Amex GBT to list on the market, and judging by its perspectives, its aim to focus on the SME sector, do you expect that to change the competitive dynamics in your space? How much do you think that will accelerate further consolidation in the industry?
Yes, it's a good question. We love that someone else is listing, because, you know, I think most things listed are leisure, right? We get lost in the ether a little bit. I think it's a great thing. Clearly, they've made it very clear why they're mid-market, which they're not really in. They talk about acquisitions, and they talk about having access to capital. I'd, you know, again, they're probably flush with cash and seeing the access to capital. It's pretty helpful to be listed if you've got a good balance sheet. We welcome it actually. The more comps we have, the better. They have also been acquiring, as you know.
I think it's really just the two of us that are in a position to acquire, and we'll see where it goes. You know, we think it's a real positive actually. Plus for us, we get to see a bit more transparency of what's going on under the bonnet at GBT, so that's always healthy for us as well.
Yeah. Jamie, just on that, acquisition front, given that Asia's still sort of in the dumps, do you see much opportunities in that area in terms of M&A?
I couldn't hear that question. Cale, could you maybe respond to that one?
Yeah. Sorry, Brian. There are a number of organizations really struggling in Asia. We're aware of that. But it's not really a large M&A focus for us at this point.
Okay. Thanks, Cale.
At this time, I would like to hand back to Jamie Pherous for closing remarks.
Yeah. Guys, thank you again for listening this morning. We're on road show the next four days. If you'd like to talk to us and didn't get a chance, please contact Alison Dodd on the contacts from the ASX. We're happy to set up a conversation with you. Have a good day. Thank you.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.