Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the CTM Full Year Results 2024 presentation. The call will be managed by Jamie Pherous, Managing Director, James Spence, CFO, and Eleanor Noonan, COO. 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 turn the conference over to Jamie Pherous. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks, Rachel, and good morning, everyone. It's nice to say that, welcome to our full year results presentation. This should take approximately half an hour, with Q&A at the end. I'm also joined today, as Rachel said, by our CFO, James Spence, and our COO, Eleanor Noonan. You may not be familiar with them, but, James has joined us in May, and Eleanor's been here for a couple of years. So both are highly experienced individuals, and it's great to have them on the call today, and we look forward to introducing them, if you don't know them, on the roadshow, and post-roadshow. So let's hop straight into it. If we can go to slide five, please, the group overview.
So from a consolidated point of view, revenue is up 9% and EBITDA up 21% to AUD 201.7 million. Look, disappointingly, FY 2024 has underperformed, which we take on board. However, we need to acknowledge that this underperformance is specific to three key items. The first two issues are first half issues we previously flagged at our first half results, being the second quarter macro impacts in North America. Pleasingly, as we flagged at that result, client activity rebounded in January and had no impact in the second half, and we'll talk to North America shortly. Secondly, the bridging accommodation contracts that was expected to deliver AUD 1.5 billion per annum in TTV and significant revenue and profit was materially below forecast due to changes in government policy. This led to our downgrade.
Then in the second half, the one-off war-related humanitarian work we managed tapered off much faster than we anticipated late in the second half, as families were resettled and no longer required interim accommodation services from CTM. You can see this as we have highlighted in the chart, with 2H EBITDA below 2H 2023. This led to a 4% miss from the bottom of guidance. But what we have done on the next two slides is to split out Europe from the rest of the world to better display what the underlying business is doing, given the noise of the European one-off war-related humanitarian projects and their impact on the business. So if we can move to slide six. Yes, slide six, Europe.
Okay, and if you, if you look at this now, so as you can see, whilst the full-year revenue is up 18% and EBITDA up 16% to AUD 97.7 million, we expected quite a bit more from the humanitarian projects contributed in the second half. The projects tapered off much faster than we anticipated. And 2H EBITDA was down 48%, or down AUD 32.4 million on 2H 2023 to AUD 34.7 million. But I want to reiterate, this is one off project work that is not recurring. CTM has been proud to accommodate displaced persons fleeing conflict in Ukraine and Afghanistan for a number of years, and we are pleased that over 90% of these families are now resettled in long-term accommodation, and therefore no longer requiring interim accommodation services from CTM.
This reduced demand is now reflected in our FY 2025 forecast. Now we can move to slide seven, if we can. Rest of World. As you can see on this slide, we have a completely different story and will take strong momentum into FY 2025. The Rest of World business grew 21% in EBITDA to AUD 122.5 million. As we flagged to the market at the half-year results, we could see green shoots in our largest regions of North America and ANZ. It is this second half turnaround, North America and ANZ regions that was most pleasing. Our Rest of World 2H EBITDA was AUD 74.3 million, up AUD 16.7 million or 29% on 2H 2023, and our EBITDA margin expanded from 21% to 27% over the same half year.
This represents a major turnaround in both regions, which we'll talk to in coming slides. But now if we can move to slide eight, where we show the key metrics that indicate how the underlying business really is performing. So what we lay out on this slide is the metrics that matter at CTM internally that we think defines our long-term sustainable growth. On the left-hand side chart, we show revenue per full-time equivalent employee from FY 2019, being the pre-COVID year, to FY 2024. This metric demonstrates how efficient the business is running, and we are pleased to advise that revenue per FTE is up 35% on FY 2019, meaning we are 35% more efficient per person than pre-COVID.
Importantly, revenue per FTE grew 9% in FY 2024 versus FY 2023, and Eleanor will talk to the revenue and cost initiatives that have driven this outcome that set us up over the long term to execute our long-range plan. Then on the right-hand side chart is underlying earnings per share. Whilst we acknowledge that we acquired businesses through the COVID cycle, and as a result, we and the market expect profits to be significantly above FY 2019's EBITDA of AUD 150 million, our EPS has recovered to 88% of FY 2019. So of course, this is net profit. This is against a backdrop of the corporate market recovering to circa 80% of COVID levels. And we know this is peer leading, a peer leading metric post-COVID for all our peers globally.
Then now on the second row are the metrics that we measure ourselves on year to year. Firstly, cash conversion. This is above our expectations and finished the year at approximately 89%. The business continues to generate cash, and this gives us optionality with our cash management strategy, which James will talk to later. The second, the second area is the incremental revenue conversion to EBITDA, which was well above our 50% target at 61%. This demonstrates both the operating leverage in the business that we're now seeing from our larger scale, and the automation execution delivered by our teams around the world, which Eleanor will also talk to a little later. And client retention at 97% and client wins at AUD 970 million are at expectation. So the things that we can control, we are executing against.
This will be demonstrated clearly as we walk through the each region in the coming slides. So let's move on to the performance by region, slide nine, and then let's go straight to slide 10, Australia and New Zealand. So as you can see from this slide, the region underwent a significant turnaround in the second half, as we flagged at the half-year results. So I want to focus on second half execution, as we have highlighted on the chart. 2H revenue was up 11% after being flat in the first half, a pleasing turnaround in just six months. This is due to two factors: the success of Sleep Space, as Eleanor will talk to shortly, and client wins.
Look, there is no doubt that the timing of the Helloworld corporate integration in 2022, timed with the post-COVID opening of travel in Australia, was really difficult for us to manage, and we did lose some accounts through this integration. Our service is measured by NPS scores and is now back to the highs of pre-COVID in this region. When, when combined with our superior tech stack, we are winning new accounts but winning back accounts that left us. The good news is this is continuing into FY 2025. Second, there is a turnaround in margin expansion from 24% to 30% in 2H 2024 versus 2H 2023, with 2H EBITDA up 39% on the PCP to AUD 26.3 million.
This is a real story and demonstrates the synergy benefits being realized from the acquisition, and much more significantly, the automation benefits playing out into the efficiency of the region, which Eleanor will also talk to a little later. So as you can see with the 2H result, we are taking strong momentum into FY 2025, noting that Australia's only got a very small skew to the second half. Let's go on to slide 11, North America. North America is a very similar story to ANZ. As we flagged the first half, we could see the green shoots in this region, and like ANZ, they also experienced a significant turnaround in the second half. While full-year EBITDA is up 33% to just shy of AUD 60 million, it is the second half, which is a standout, demonstrated momentum into FY 2025.
Transactions are up 17% in the second half, normalized revenue up 9.4%, and EBITDA up 39%, with an uplift in margin in the second half from 18% to 24%. All good statistics. So what made the difference? Well, we've talked previously to the benefits of completing integration, allowing our management team to focus on doing just a few things very well. We changed the organizational structure around to get faster results, and we believe we've built a high-quality management team. And that management team have focused on three main areas. Firstly, faster onboarding of accounts. There's no doubt we are winning clients, but we're disappointed that clients weren't transacting as fast as we had hoped, and that impacted our revenue lag. Secondly, a focus on profitable accounts.
We let some accounts go that were unproductive and not profitable to the business, to better focus on the accounts that best fit the business moving forward, and lastly, automation execution, and we saw the benefits of this strategy in the second half, and these benefits accelerated into the fourth quarter. I mean, when we look at fourth quarter alone, AUD 210 million of annualized clients were brought on board in this quarter alone, boosting our transaction growth. 4Q transactions are up 21% on 4Q 2023, and the result is 4Q EBITDA was AUD 21 million and is up 46% on the PCP, so this 4Q result defies normal seasonality, where typically 3Q is seasonally stronger than 4Q in profits, so it shows the momentum the business is driving.
Just, just a point, you'll note, the second half revenue is lagging activity consistent with our peers, but this had minimal impact on EBITDA and is largely due to the one-off industry-wide distribution cuts, primarily the well-publicized American Airlines distribution cut experiment that had around a AUD 12 million impact in revenue. American Airlines have publicly admitted it was the wrong strategy and have since reversed their strategy back to supporting corporate travel distribution in FY 2025. So expect no go-forward impacts. And secondly, with this growth, we account for hotel revenues on a cash basis. So the receipts in June lag, are really for many months earlier. So receipts lag the rapid growth in activity. So just like ANZ, we take great momentum into FY 2025. Now, if we can move on to slide 12, Europe.
As we stated earlier, it was a rapid taper off of the one-off project revenue, late in the second half, that impacted the final result. While full-year revenue was up 18% and EBITDA up 16% to AUD 97.7 million, it is the second half that more than offset the rest of the world's strong 2H performance, as you can see on the chart. Yeah, 2H revenue dropped 28%, and 2H profit dropped 48% to AUD 34.7 million from AUD 67.1 million in 2H 2023, but as I said earlier, this is masking the strong underlying BAU growth in the region, which we demonstrate on the next slide, and this next slide is quite important, just to understand what's going on in our business.
So on slide 13, this slide shows that the underlying EU business is performing well and is our leading region, always has been since COVID, through COVID. If you focus on the chart, where we compare revenue and EBITDA growth to FY 2019, the pre-COVID years. And as we've identified, FY 2023 and FY 2024 were significantly impacted by one-off war-related humanitarian project work. This work is largely complete, as mentioned earlier. And FY 2025 assumes no bridging vessel extension and no war-related humanitarian project work, just like FY 2019. So they are good years to compare how the business has grown in terms of BAU since FY 2019. And as you can see from our FY 2024 forecast, FY 2025 is expected to be substantially above FY 2019 in both revenue and EBITDA.
In fact, we expect EBITDA to be over 150% of FY 2019, despite the corporate market recovering to only 80% of pre-COVID levels in Europe. To grow this significantly beyond FY 2019 demonstrates two things: We have had significant customer win growth to drive revenue through this period, and secondly, the very high penetration of CTM technology is driving very strong EBITDA revenue margins, actually above those we were achieving in FY 2019. So while FY 2025 is forecast to be well below FY 2024, due to the completion of the one-off project work in FY 2024, the underlying business continues to be strong. We see FY 2025 as a reset year in Europe. Let's move on to slide 14, Asia.
FY 2024 was essentially a COVID recovery year, with revenue up 24% and EBITDA up 29% to AUD 17.9 million. This was led by continued strong growth in the corporate segment. The China reopening post-COVID has certainly been slower than we expected, and this has impacted our wholesale recovery that relies on China international outbound. Furthermore, the unsustainably high ticket prices we saw last year as China opened up post-COVID have sharply declined by 21% in the second half, impacting overrides and revenue, particularly as it relates to wholesale. We see this as good for our customers in the coming years, as pricing is returning to sustainable levels. Corporate is going very well in the region, up 11% in transactions through this second half.
We made some really good decisions in the last few years to do two things: We deleveraged from Greater China, and we also secondly, we doubled down on corporate. This has been really successful for the business because wholesale isn't contributing anything like we hoped, and this is because Japan is helping us win regional accounts, and Singapore is delivering record results well beyond pre-COVID levels. Further, our exposure to Greater China has declined from 89% of regional revenue pre-COVID to 69% of revenue in FY 2024, as we show you on the chart below there, so we think we have the building blocks for sustainable regional, regional corporate growth, with wholesale recovery being an added growth lever to the region, if and when it comes.
Also a reminder that Asia is the only region that has a slight 1H seasonal skew, so expect 2 H to be lower than the 1 H in a normal post-COVID environment. We also need to put Asia into perspective. It contributes under 10% of group profit. So with that, I'm going to hand over to James Spence, our CFO.
Thanks, Jamie, and good morning, everyone. It's great to be here at my first CTM results presentation. So turning to slide 16, we look at group financial highlights. I'm not going to repeat the revenue and underlying EBITDA commentary already shared by Jamie. Instead, points to highlight on this slide. Firstly, the increase in the underlying tax rate from 24.6% to 26.4% is driven by the increase in the U.K. company tax rate in April 2023. In relation to cash tax, in FY 2025, we expect the cash tax to be primarily in Europe region, as it was in FY 2025. We anticipate continuing to utilize carry forward tax losses in other regions.
Secondly, as with EBITDA, note the strong increase in underlying EBIT-EPS of 23% versus the PCP, showing the operating leverage of the business with the revenue increase at 9%. Thirdly, on the right-hand side, you can see the non-recurring items of AUD 22.8 million pre-tax, consisting of Atlas project costs as previously flagged, integration costs, costs from the U.S. and ANZ acquisitions, and one-off legacy bad debt provisions we've taken on balances over a year old related to COVID and non-recurring large-scale projects, and finally, we've included in the bottom right of the slide, the reconciliation from underlying to statutory NPAT. So I'll now move to slide 17, where we show cash flow for the year: net cash flow after working capital moves, tax, CapEx, returns to shareholders and all other items, with a net outflow of AUD 16.2 million.
A key point to highlight on this slide is the strong cash conversion of 89%. Note also the AUD 84.1 million returned to shareholders through a mix of dividends and share buybacks, which I'll talk to further on the next slide. You can also see the CapEx investment of AUD 47.6 million in FY 2024, primarily into proprietary technology, such as Lightning, Sleep Space, and Scout, which underpin the growth and margin metrics, which you heard Jamie talking about earlier, and the growth forecast for FY 2025. We expect CapEx at similar levels in FY 2025, and we'll be reviewing further during the year to ensure we're optimizing the return we get on CapEx in future years, which may lead to savings opportunities. Looking at capital management and the balance sheet in more detail on slide 18.
This is one of the key highlights of this set of results. Points to note from this slide: firstly, the company continues with the policy to distribute 50% of statutory NPAT in dividends, leading to a final dividend declared of AUD 0.12 per share. The dividends are unfranked for the time being. Secondly, you can see that the balance sheet and liquidity position of the company is strong, with net cash of AUD 134.8 million at June 30th, 2024, and an unused facility of AUD 100 million, which provide the company with funding, flexibility, and optionality.
Thirdly, given the balance sheet strength, the forecast strong cash flows, and the share price weakness relative to our strategic plan, we're signaling today our intent to reset the buyback program outside blackout periods to up to AUD 100 million from today, i.e., above the AUD 26 million already spent, and extend through to June 2025. The buyback will be subject to board discretion and market conditions. With that, I'll now hand over to Eleanor to talk through the growth drivers. Thank you.
Thank you, James. Good morning, everyone. My name is Eleanor Noonan, Global COO. Could we please move to slide 20? I'm pleased to be presenting the results we have had in project delivery throughout FY 2024 and how this has contributed to our revenue growth and improved EBITDA outcomes. These successes stem from our focus and discipline in planning and leading project delivery, transformation, and change. We have also intentionally invested in the development of our leaders. In February this year, we launched our five-year strategy, outlining our long-term vision and setting a target to double our FY 2024 profit within five years. We know there is a realistic opportunity, given our global market share sits at around 1%. Throughout FY 2024, we have been focused on project execution that delivers long-term value and enhances ROI for our clients.
Additionally, we have aligned our entire senior leadership team to be disciplined, structured, and accountable for key initiatives that deliver these outcomes. In FY 2025, we will further enhance the alignment of our performance targets with our incentive programs, and this is in line with our remuneration framework and benchmarks that were introduced in FY 2024. Our successful outcomes realized in FY 2024 gives us confidence for our FY 2025 revenue and EBITDA targets. We have proven evidence of strong client uptake of our newly released technology solutions and in our ability to consistently manage our costs, as shown in our improvements in EBITDA margins. In FY 2025, our operating plans continue to break down our strategic ambitions into actionable horizons. These plans were developed through a collaborative effort involving in-depth workshops, both in our global and regional executive teams across all regions.
This process has been crucial in defining our targets, key initiatives, and the metrics needed to achieve each region's goal for the coming year. Let's now move to slide 21, revenue drivers. I'd like to take you through some of the detail that drives our confidence in the FY 2025 targets and outcomes. One of the significant revenue drivers that was launched in our ANZ market in February 2024 is Sleep Space, our proprietary hotel content engine. It is one of many projects that are included in our FY 2024 CapEx investment of AUD 47.6 million and is placed as CTM's newest strategic investment in client-facing technology. The launch of Sleep Space exceeded our initial expectations for the ANZ market, where it was a positive contributor to the region's second half turnaround.
We are well underway to scale this product globally, and each region has a tailored development and go-to-market product plan with modest revenue expectations for FY 2025. Our research indicates that this will have a positive impact in our other markets, particularly within North America. As mentioned, this project is well underway for launch in all other markets throughout FY 2025. If we can now move to slide 22, cost management drivers. In line with our strength in project execution demonstrated in FY 2024, we have also been focused on projects that positively impact our EBITDA margins. A project that has been running for many years is Scout, which is our proprietary AI and automation tool, initially developed within our ANZ market. The development of Scout showcased our track record in innovating, and in FY 2024, started to see material client outcomes, improved our speed and quality of service delivery.
At a macro level, our headline story is an improvement in global revenue in FY 2024 of 9% or AUD 59.8 million, while our global FTE resources held steady with a 0.4% overall decrease in our workforce. Breaking this down further, in our ANZ region, where Scout was rolled out first, Scout has demonstrated excellent outcomes. We have increased revenue by 11% while reducing our workforce in this region by 3.3%, and importantly, increasing client satisfaction measured using a Net Promoter Score, or NPS, where this score increased by 150% or 45 points over the same period. Scout is being further developed simultaneously around the world, with a primary focus of improving client servicing and processing that enhances our service delivery.
Another key project that demonstrates our strong commitment to disciplined project execution through FY 2024 is Project Atlas. This project is focused on enhancing back-end processes across all markets and includes significant standardization and automation improvements. This project is set to improve our FY 2025 bottom line by AUD 10 million, and increasing to AUD 20 million in FY 2029. And again, pleasingly, our project delivery has aligned with our initial business case estimations. Notably, the majority of non-recurring underlying costs of AUD 10.5 million in FY 2024 is related to Project Atlas, which is on track for successful project completion in September 2024. I'd like to now hand back to James.
Thanks, Eleanor. So on to slide 24, where I'll go through the FY 2025 target metrics. We've decided to present this differently this year with the focus on the key value drivers of the business, i.e., revenue growth and margin, rather than an EBITDA range. The reason for this is that we see the strategic value in the group over the medium term being driven by the performance of these two key metrics. EBITDA, which can easily be derived from the target metrics, is an output based on the revenue growth and margin inputs. We expect that this will provide more useful information for investors to understand and value the business than an EBITDA range. And as you've heard from Eleanor, this is much more closely aligned with how we look at the strategic value in the business. So turning to the numbers.
We've carved out the metrics on Europe separately because of the non-recurring revenues included in Europe's FY 2024 numbers. For Rest of World, we're targeting revenue growth of around 10% in FY 2025, in line with our 2H performance in North America and ANZ on a normalized basis. We're targeting EBITDA margin of around 27.5%, an uplift of 450 basis points versus FY 2024. We've set out, and Eleanor has highlighted, key drivers, including automation, Sleep Space rollout, and new business wins. In Europe, given we're coming off FY 2024 comps with material one-off project work, we expect revenue to decline by around 18% versus FY 2024. EBITDA margins are expected to return to around 49%, which are above pre-COVID levels, benefiting particularly from the usage of proprietary technology.
Group costs are expected to be around AUD 23 million, which include some additional group personnel and higher variable compensation costs, with bonus payments in FY 2024 being low. Now, looking at the skew of forecast results, which will be weighted to 2H, due to a mix of factors, including normal seasonality, and as Eleanor mentioned, the progressive rollout in ANZ and North America through the year of the revenue and cost savings initiatives. Additionally, note that Europe 1H 2025 is expected to be significantly lower than the PCP due to the roll-off from the project work in 1H 2024. And as a result, we expect a lower 1H 2025 than the PCP at group level. So with that, I'll now hand back to Jamie to wrap up. Thank you.
Thanks, James. And on to slide 25. Summary. Just a quick summary overall. So firstly, as you can see, we missed guidance in FY 2024, and we're really disappointed about that. But, you know, as we said, this is largely the one-off project underperformance, particularly in Europe, and in the second quarter of the first half, the softer macro in North America. These things led to the miss. But as we hopefully we made really clear, clearly through this presentation, the underlying business is performing well. As we demonstrated earlier, both North America and ANZ experienced 2H turnarounds that bodes well for FY 2025. Both regions had a second half 2024 uplift of 39% in EBITDA and a 600 basis point margin expansion versus 2H 2023.
We expect Europe to be over 150% of FY 2019 when stripping out project work. Further, Eleanor described the focus on revenue and cost automation. We are achieving or exceeding the metrics that support long-term compound growth, wins, retention with special note of revenue per FTE up 35% since FY 2019, and conversion of incremental revenue to EBITDA at 61%. The last two metrics exceed our internal expectations. Thirdly, James talked to our strong balance sheet, and as a result, extending our buyback program by an additional AUD 100 million by June 2025. We are generating strong cash flow. We have no debt, and as a result, have cash management optionality for dividends, share buybacks, and potential M&A. But FY 2025 is a reset year as we cycle off the project work over the past few years in Europe.
As James laid out, Rest of World expectations represent significant revenue growth and EBITDA margin expansion FY 2025. However, we will be cycling off very strong 1H 2024 Europe numbers, masking the underlying performance of the group. So with that, I'm gonna hand back now to Rachel for questions. But one last thing before I do, just to let you know, that from now, with the process we're gonna get into now, we'll give an activity update at our CTM AGM, 31 October. This will be the new pattern we get into. If we can now hand back to the moderator, Rachel, for questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on your speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. In the interest of time, if you could please try to limit your questions to two. Your first question comes from Tim Plumbe with UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, Jamie. Just two questions from me, if possible, please. Just, s orry, I might have missed it a little bit, but could you talk a little bit about the new business win pipeline? On my numbers, it looks like about AUD 340 million in the second half versus AUD 670 million in the first half. Are we seeing any slowing there in terms of opportunities? And maybe just can you talk to the competitive dynamics for new business wins heading into FY 2025? Obviously, some big movements towards the top end. So that's question one. The second question, just how should we think about the impact of upcoming elections? What do you typically see in terms of general corporate travel market activity, and then also company-specific contracts when you're heading into an election, please?
Yeah. Thanks, Tim. The new business wins. Look, it is how it is. I think as long as we hit our targets, but, you know, I don't want to go into it too much, but July started off really strongly for us. I think that's the key takeaway, and when you look at our five-year plan, we will be. You'll hear more during the year of how we're boosting that team to. So it's a key driver of the next five years. In terms of, it's always competitive, of course , you've got the GBT's, CWT merger, which seems to be delayed and may be delayed further.
It is what it is, but obviously from our point of view, we wanna make sure that we can partake in what might happen with some of those customers that might be disillusioned with that acquisition. That's what we're setting up for. Secondly, elections. They can have an impact, a short-term impact, but we've built that into our guidance in terms of our projections instead of our targets.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Wei-Weng Chen with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Just a couple from me, so first question is, I guess to me, it feels like this is a bit more than just an unwind of Europe work. I guess by my calculations, Rest of World EBITDA guide is about AUD 165 million this year, o r next year, sorry. But in February, you said you were confident North America would be over AUD 100 million and ANZ would be around AUD 70 million. Clearly, they won't be that, so I was just wondering what's happened in, you know, these non-European regions?
Look, I think, Wei-Weng , I think you've got to focus on the growth, right? You know, the market's pretty steady, and as you see, the Rest of World was AUD 122.5 million, and if you're saying, you know, roughly it's AUD 165 million, I mean, that's pretty strong growth, right? In a market that's steady, and like I said, it's a reset. We're moving forward in the next five years, and I think in anyone's world, that's pretty big growth.
Yeah. Okay. And then I guess you, you made a comment earlier in the call that you let some accounts go. I guess my concern when I hear that is often that's like a euphemism for clients leaving. Can you maybe talk about how that conversation goes with the guys that you're letting go? How much time did they have left on their contract, and/or did you try to negotiate with them or renegotiate with them before dropping them?
It's more when it comes up to re-tender, it's how you position things. I think the takeaway you have to look in North America is that second half turnaround. You know, where revenue's at, where profit's at, I think it's a really good result, and it sets up momentum. I mean, we talked about the fourth quarter as well. We think that's a really good outcome, and that's gonna give us momentum for next year.
Okay, cool. Thanks. That, that's all. I might rejoin the queue.
Your next question comes from Sophia Mulligan with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hi, Jamie, can you hear me?
Certainly can.
Thanks for taking my question. Just a quick one on North America. I know you spoke about the American Airlines issues impacting you. I guess if we look across the last quarter or the quarterlies that are coming out of the U.S., corporate seems to be doing quite well, and a lot of airlines are talking to double-digit growth rates. Could you just talk to the FX rate and what you're seeing in the pipeline in North America specifically?
Yeah, as we said, the fourth quarter, we added transactions up 21%. I won't talk to July revenue, other than to say that catch-up has been pretty significant in July. So we think we're in a good position there. And when you put that to our target metrics, and we talked about, you know, 10% growth across the Rest of World and that margin expansion, America will be leading that outcome. I'll leave it at that.
Just a quick one on TTV. It doesn't look like you've provided it. Is there a reason that's been taken away at a group level?
Look, it's just not relevant to us. I mean, it's all about revenue. It always has been about revenue, how we convert into profit, and that's just how we've always operated. That's how we're going to continue to operate. I mean, TTV doesn't buy profit or revenue.
All right, cool. Thank you. I'll return next week.
The next question comes from James Bales with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi. Hi, guys. I just wanted to understand the AUD 7 million of setup costs for Project Atlas in FY 2025. Is that expensed in and incorporated into the guidance?
Take that one. Hi, James. It's James Spence here. So what we've signaled there is our expectation of non-recurring costs for next year. Those aren't included in the margin and group cost numbers that we've provided in the target metrics.
Okay, got it. And then maybe just on cash flow, it seemed like the message at the half year was that the rail payments would unwind in the second half, and you're expecting that that would get close to 100% cash flow conversion. That didn't quite pan out that way. Do you still expect 100% conversion of EBITDA going forward?
Hi, James. I'll take that one as well. Look, I think we previously said we expect cash conversion in the region of 80%-90% going forward. Obviously, in a growing business, you know, that seems a pretty good target to set. We are exposed to the volatility in the settlement cycle in the travel sector, and certainly we've seen that in this period and coming into the business. I've, you know, it's quite visible that we are exposed to that volatility. But I think 80%-90% is a good base to model the business and coming in at 89%, as we have for this year overall, we think is a good result.
Perfect. Thanks, guys.
The next question comes from Benjamin Gilbert with Jarden. Please go ahead.
Morning, team. Just firstly, just on CapEx, it looks like it's sort of 30-odd% ahead of what you were guiding at the half. Just interested what the driver of that was. Have you changed any practices around what you're capitalizing versus expensing through the half or so far?
Yeah, I think it's really the money we've spent on Sleep Space and Scout AI automation. I mean, they're things that we've really doubled down on, but we're also getting results. As Eleanor made pretty clear, we're getting really good returns on that. So as I've always said before, if we're going to do something, we'll get good returns. But also, as James said, we expect that now to be relatively flat next year. And we're even looking at opportunities to reduce that cost in future years as we review ROI on all our projects. But the real step up is those projects, but they're certainly getting a return. I think we made that pretty clear.
Thanks, Jamie. I want to add to that, Benjamin. There certainly has been no change in our CapEx and our capitalization policy. I've come into the business and very focused on that number. Obviously, it goes to cash, which is key metric for us. We'll be looking at it hard, and ROI, as Jamie said, is a really key metric for us. So this is, yeah, something that's getting a lot of focus at the moment.
Thanks. And just second one for me. And Jamie, I fully appreciate your comments around the growth, and it's, the growth number is obviously pretty significant as you look at the run rates. But obviously, there's also a bit of an expectation game on our side of the fence as well. I just wondered, to what extent do you think the management team or the group's been distracted? Obviously, there's been some challenges around the U.K. contract and some of the humanitarian ones that might have created some, I suppose, and you obviously mentioned how the world contract around ability to sort of maintain momentum will continue to drive some of these.
I suppose what I'm trying to get at there is, as we look into next year and you're given some clean numbers, X, some of these sort of more volatile, maybe less predictable contracts, do you think that more singular focus as we look forward is gonna be some of those run rates from a contract wins in absolute terms on a net basis, start to accelerate again? And just because there has obviously been quite a lot of volatility and movement versus expectations over the last twelve months.
Look, I think to be fair, firstly, that comment, and we've got a team that does that specifically in Europe. It doesn't take, you know, more effort from anyone else in the world. But as Eleanor said, we've got this real. T he biggest thing is now everything's integrated, and that's the biggest change that we've seen in the half. So as Eleanor said before, the accountability, the laser focus on winning business, getting more revenue per transaction, particularly through Sleep Space and other matters, and then cost out through AI and automation, that's all the business is talking about. That is the difference. I can't say that that is the difference. It's that everything's integrated, and now it's go, go, go.
So the idea is we're going to do three or four things very well, and we're laser focused on that, you know, as we set up for a five-year growth plan.
I feel we're pretty clean now in terms of the base, like, these sort of left field things are, you're pretty confident that the numbers you put out there for next year are looking pretty fair, and you've got some conservatism in that base?
Look, maybe it's helpful for me to speak to that, Benjamin. You know, I've come into the business. We've done a comprehensive operating plan for FY 2025. It's been both top down and very much bottom up. You know, we've seen that a lot of the non-recurring revenues are now behind us. I think Jamie, in his speech, said that, you know, this is a reset year. That's a long way of answering your question. The short way is, yes, that's how we see it.
That's clear. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
The next question comes from Julian Mulcahy with E&P. Please go ahead.
Just two for me. Firstly, back on that earlier question about, you know, next year you were expecting AUD 7 million EBIT from Australia and NZ, and over a hundred in North America. Were they just kind of aspirational targets, or was there something behind them that's changed and why you've gone more conservative this year?
I think it's just a matter of, i t's just a reset of where the market's at and what we think, and getting back to long-term growth expectations are reasonable. I mean, I can't stress enough that to put out that we expect the rest of the world revenue to grow by 10% and the, and the margin to grow by 450 basis points is, that's pretty big growth, right? I mean, secondly, you do have elections. You know, Virgin, there's been a bit of Virgin restructure in Australia. We've factored all those things in to our target metrics for next year. But outside of that, it just is what it is, right? It's a reset. And James, you got anything to add to that?
Yeah, I mean, I guess, Julian, I'll reiterate what I said before. You know, we've done a pretty comprehensive review, which has really involved, you know, the entire senior management team. And you can see on the target metrics slide, on slide 24, the rest of the world growth to be around 10%. We think that's a pretty good number to be putting out there. And the EBITDA margin increase from 23% to 27.5%. I mean, these are very healthy increases we think, and clearly we're looking beyond year one to the five-year plan as well. So, you know, I think this is a pretty good trajectory to be on.
And that don't include any M&A?
Correct.
Right. And just finally, what was the revenue contribution from evacuation work during the year?
Julian, we can't disclose that for a number of reasons. But I think if you go back to that slide where we show what the business was doing, you can see the two years where projects have impacted it, particularly it's the non-humanitarian war stuff that really impacted it, not the other bridging project. I think when we compare 2019 to 2025, FY 2019 to 2025, it's pretty clear that the trajectory we're coming out of and where we're going, I don't know much more we can do than that.
Okay. Thanks, guys.
The next question comes from Ben Wilson with Wilsons Advisory. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Morning, guys. I'm just interested in EBITDA for next year. I know you've said you're focusing more on margins. But just thinking about the first half EBITDA next year, sort of looking through your guidance, by region, is it sort of safe to assume that first half might be down about sort of 15%-20% on first half 2024?
Thanks, Ben. James here again. Look, we're not giving out specific numbers in terms of EBITDA by region for next year, but you can, you can expect, you know, a rough rule of thumb to say 1/3 , first half, 2/3 , second half is likely. And look, the factors that are driving this are the rollout of the initiatives that you heard Eleanor talk about in terms of Sleep Space, Scout, and Atlas progressing through the year, the impact of new business wins coming through the year and indeed, you know, the ordinary seasonality that we experience within the business. So there will be a skew, and of course, we're rolling off these significant non-recurring projects that impacted the PCP.
Look, we're not gonna be really specific about the 1H, 2H split, but you can think that it will be heavily weighted to 2H.
And, Ben, this is Jamie again. It's just on there, you know, we talk about it on slide 24, what we think the skew will be, so you can work it out.
Yep. Thank you, and just in terms of that sort of 1/3 , 2/3 or 35/65 skew, first half, second half, is that expected to be? I guess by region, is it sort of expected to be in line with their typical seasonality, but coming to that at a group level? Or is it more sort of consistent right across the board, about 35/65 ?
Yeah. Hey, look, Ben, we think we've given quite a lot of additional disclosure here when you look at us giving growth rates by region, you know, rest of the world and splitting out U.K. So I hope that'll be helpful for investors, but we're not gonna get into a, you know, 1 H, 2 H split by, you know, by region at this stage. I think, you know, read what it says on slide 24. You can see the skew. I don't think we're gonna say more than that at this stage.
Okay, no problem. Thanks, guys.
The next question comes from John O'Shea with Ord Minnett. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Jamie. Can you, can you hear me okay?
Yeah.
Yeah, thanks very much for taking my question, and look, some of them have already been answered. But I guess, from my perspective, you know, one of the key questions that's, that's obvious here is this: obviously, we're aware of the bridging contract and the extent to which that was factored into your guidance. Now we're talking about this non-recurring project work, which has sort of come as a little bit of a surprise, I guess, the quantum of that that was in your historical numbers. Moving forward, the question is more around are you to what extent is that gonna be a focus for you moving forward, this humanitarian work? Is it going to be a core business for you? Or are you gonna be more focused on the TMC-type work, or are you gonna do both?
If you are, it would be helpful to sort of understand dynamically, you know, what you're expecting in each of those businesses. Because at the moment, I think the market's confused as to whether you're a TMC or a humanitarian business or both.
Yeah, thanks for your question, John. Just to make it really clear, we do a lot of group business, right? I mean, it's bread and butter for most big clients. They'll do a confs in a group, and this humanitarian work is just an extension of that, except it's much larger, and it's much more technical, particularly to get people out of countries when in a war zone. So we've built a skill set for it. It's highly. There's a very high margin to that business, and to make it very clear again, we just do that work for a department of a client, and we do a lot of it private now, too.
So I think while we've made it really clear that that is usually war-related, that these things happen, and let's not think this got us through COVID. I just wanna remind you, we never went into debt through COVID. It is what it is, but we still think that we've got a very strong expertise in this that no one else can do. It is an extension of corporate. I know people try to say it's different work. It so isn't different work. I just want to stress that again, we do group work. This has taken it to a whole another level with more software, and then the skill set to be able to get people in and out of countries when airports are closed.
And it's a bit of IP, I think, that we've developed that will lend itself well in future years. So, as far as the extent, the same as corporate, but very clearly what we're saying at the moment, with guidance next year, that we don't expect any of, any non-related, or humanitarian work that's related to war at this stage. So what you see is what you get. And it just, you know, obviously, that it got us through the tough years of COVID.
Yep. So what you're really saying, Jamie, is that humanitarian work will be a core part of your business moving forward, but that project work will be up and down based on the demands or the different political climates, et cetera, that exist at the time?
I mean, I wouldn't say. I think it's more the fact that if there is a war, it's not--it's a nice hedge for us, right? That's how I'd look at it.
Sure.
It's a nice hedge.
Sure.
When corporate and other things go off, we tend to go well through that. So we always think about strategically, long term, how we make this business as, you know, as strong as it can be and bulletproof as it can be, and it's served us really well the last three or four years. It's just unfortunate it's come off really quickly, and this is not to be confused with the bridging contract. That clearly was material underperform in its own right.
Yeah, sure. Sorry. Thanks very much for the clarity.
Thanks.
The next question comes from Philip Pepe with Shaw and Partners. Please go ahead.
Hi, all. Thanks for taking the question. Look, most of mine have been answered, but just ask a couple of sidebars, perhaps. American Airlines, revamping their model, going back to the agent network, how is that going to impact you, and have you seen any impacts yet?
We think it's gonna work out pretty well. Obviously, they took an aggressive decision that they didn't want to value corporate distribution, and they made it pretty public that they lost $1.5 billion with that experiment, so I think it's all gonna unwind. I think it's really healthy, not just American, but for distribution of corporate travel. There is no doubt that through this cycle, unusually, leisure got to the same yield as corporate. That's never been the case in my 30 years, where corporate yield was always higher. It's clearly returning very quickly. Leisure's come off. That's what's driving the ticket prices down, and everyone's going back to that good old bread and butter of corporate.
So I see it as a very positive move, not just American Airlines, but for the rest of distribution. And I think all my peers would say the same thing.
You just touched on my second question. The impact of falling ticket prices, while publicized, really haven't [impacted] TTV. What, what could that mean for your net revenue going forward?
Yeah, again, we've said this before, and if you look at our revenue mix in the accounts, we're very high transactional, so it doesn't impact us very much except for Asia. As we said before, Asia, with the wholesale business, is a bit more like a leisure and other business where we rely on commissions and overrides, and that does have a function, more of a function of TTV, which you're seeing in Asia. Outside of that, as we've said before, we have a very low exposure to that. And you can sort of see that in the second half of America as well. We lost those overrides, but it didn't impact profit too much.
Excellent. Thank you.
We've come to the end of our Q&A session. I'll now hand the call back to Jamie for closing remarks.
Yeah, thank you. Look, thanks, everyone. Any other questions, please send them through. We know that there's still some questions probably there, but otherwise, we'll see you during the week, but just please reach out. We want to make sure that, it, you know, that everything's clear as it can be. But thanks for listening and have a good day.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.