I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Nathan Blackburne, Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Good morning and welcome to the FY 2024 Half Year Financial Results presentation for Cedar Woods. I would like to make an acknowledgement of the traditional custodians of the land we present from today. We pay our respect to elders past, present, and emerging, for they hold the memories, the traditions, and the culture of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across the nation. Cedar Woods is a property development company that was established in 1987 and has been ASX listed for 30 years now. Our products include land estates, townhouses, apartments, and commercial developments. In our portfolio, we have 9,700 lots or dwellings in the pipeline, which is made up of about 35 projects across Victoria, South Australia, WA, and Queensland. We have an excellent long-term track record in growing earnings, and we have always made a profit and always paid a dividend.
Our focus on shareholder returns is instilled through disciplined capital management, and the company has demonstrated superior returns to peers over the longer term. We have a stable and experienced board and executive team that is very focused and consistent in its approach. The housing market, broadly speaking, looks to be entering a favorable phase, and one we expect to last for several years. The nationwide housing shortage will take years to fix, and those with multi-year projects that are ready to go can take advantage of this. It is predicted that the economic climate continues to be very supportive of the new housing sector that we are in. We see this as the right time to stick to our strategy as our core business is likely entering these more favorable operating conditions.
Our strategy is to grow and develop our national project portfolio, diversified by geography, product type, and price point, so that it continues to hold broad customer appeal and performs well in a range of market conditions. The strategy is proving successful with the strong relative returns that we've been able to deliver over the longer term. Cedar Woods has multiple product types in four states and different price points that appeal to a variety of buyer profiles. As part of our strategy, we are supplementing our portfolio with projects that are undertaken in partnership. Our capital partnering strategy is a strategic pivot that will see a greater portion of future earnings coming from partnering arrangements.
Partnering allows us to do a number of things: further leverage our existing development skills, generate regular fee income and thereby smoothing our earnings profile, accessing larger scale and a greater number of development sites, which in turn supports our diversification strategy, and finally, grow our earnings but in a less capital-intensive way. Further diversification and greater scale allows the company to perform more consistently through the cycles. So far, we have established partnerships with QIC and Tokyo Gas, presenting exciting opportunities for Cedar Woods to participate in projects of scale without committing to the entire capital requirements of those projects. QIC and Tokyo Gas are both substantial and experienced partners. The QIC partnership offers us access to well-located sites in major town centers for developing apartments and townhouses when those housing forms are in very short supply around the country.
QIC is the owner of a substantial portfolio of major shopping centers, and our first joint venture project with them will be at one of their major town centers, being Robina in Queensland. Tokyo Gas has selected Cedar Woods as a national development partner. We announced a second project with Tokyo Gas being our Bloom retirement concept, which is now underway in Adelaide. The intention with both partnerships is to expand them with more projects, and there are discussions underway with both parties in this regard. These charts demonstrate the geographic and product diversification in our portfolio. The first chart on the left shows the proportion of our portfolio in each state and a reflection of our geographic diversification. The middle chart shows our presales by location, and as you can see, we have good presales in three of our states.
Queensland is running a little behind because of the timing of particular stage releases. We have acquired a number of new projects in Queensland in recent times, and as these come to market, that will be reflected in the future charts. The chart on the right shows the mix of product in the presales, with residential land still being the largest sector for townhouses and apartments, together accounting for 30% of our presales, and offices accounting for 9% of presales. We continue to boost this diversification with the joint venture at Robina in Queensland, which will add a large number of townhouses and apartments to the portfolio. As announced separately, we have signed an unconditional contract of sale to sell the Williams Landing Shopping Centre in Victoria.
The sale comprises the shopping center and one hectare of adjacent development land, with settlement due in March for the shopping center component and the surplus land component due to settle in the first half of FY 2025. Cedar Woods will realize a net profit after tax of AUD 16.8 million directly from the sale, most of which will be realized in the second half of FY 2024. The purchaser was selected to purchase the shopping center given its extensive experience in owning and managing shopping centers, which Cedar Woods considered would benefit the Williams Landing community. We'll be retiring the existing shopping center funding facility as part of the sale and apply the balance of proceeds to debt. The transaction will significantly improve our gearing and corporate facility headroom.
Cedar Woods still retains a significant pipeline at Williams Landing of more than 15 development-ready sites with the capacity to do commercial, residential, and mixed-use style developments that will be progressively tackled over the coming years. I will now hand over to Leon for an overview of the financial results.
Thanks, Nathan. As we advised in the previous ASX announcements, full-year financial year 2024 earnings are substantially skewed to the second half. We are forecasting full-year net profit after tax in the range of AUD 36 million-AUD 39 million. In the first half of financial year 2024, we delivered net profit after tax of AUD 2.6 million and revenue of AUD 123.2 million from 417 settlements. Reflecting on the interim result and the expectations of the full year, the board has declared an interim dividend of AUD 0.08, fully franked, and the board will consider the final dividend in the context of the full-year result. With sales improving in the first half compared to the prior corresponding period, we hold presales contracts with a value of AUD 525 million at 31 December.
About half of these we expect to settle in the second half of financial year 2024 and a balance contributing to earnings in financial year 2025 and financial year 2026. Setting up the business for continued earnings growth into the future, during the period, we paid AUD 28 million for previously contracted land acquisitions, continuing to build out our project pipeline. Looking at the half-year result in a bit more detail, lower revenue and higher finance costs in the period have resulted in a lower profit result for H1 financial year 2024, notwithstanding improvement in gross margin and stable administration overhead. Revenue was 19% lower in the first half due to a higher portion of lower-value land settlements. Gross margin improved from 25%-26%, although gross profit overall was lower with the lower total revenue.
Higher land holding costs in the first half contributed to an increase in project operating costs. Finance costs were higher as a result of the combination of higher average debt balance, higher base interest rates, wind-out of interest rate hedges, and accrued interest on other financial liabilities. The lower tax expense in H1 financial year 2024 resulted from the lower profit and the establishment of an employee share trust that will provide future tax deductions for existing employee share plans. Now, taking a look at the balance sheet, total assets at 31 December of AUD 838 million was up 7% on 30 June's balance of AUD 783 million as we progressed development at our projects in the first half. Net assets and equity were slightly down on the June balance, reflecting the half-year earnings, less cash dividends paid during the period.
Net bank debt of AUD 274 million was up from 30 June and gearing measured by net bank debt to equity at 63.9% and net bank debt to total tangible assets, less cash, at 33% reflected our investment in inventory in the first half, and this will contribute to the stronger profit result in the second half. The company increased the limit and extended tenure of its three- and five-year corporate finance facilities in the second half, with the increased limit giving the company AUD 390 million in combined finance facilities and ensured continued secure long-term funding availability, with an average debt maturity of approximately 3.2 years. We maintain a solid liquidity position with sufficient facility headroom available at the end of the half, and while interest cover at 2.3 x is lower than the prior year, it remains comfortably above facility covenants.
Gearing and interest cover are expected to improve as we retire debt in the second half quite materially. Taking a deeper look at our cash flow and capital management objectives, we continue to benefit from the long-term support of our financiers. As I just noted, we increased our funding limits by AUD 30 million during the period, and at 31 December, we added AUD 50.2 million in undrawn facility capacity. This was after the investment in new land of AUD 28.7 million, which was included in operating cash flow, and we expect much stronger operating cash flows in the second half as we release capital from inventory. Particularly significant settlements in March and April will boost facility capacity given undrawn facility headroom of over AUD 100 million around that time. These will come from a few East Coast projects, including Glenside, Fraser Risee, Sage, and Mason Quarter.
We seek to recycle capital when appropriate, and this includes the Williams Landing Shopping Centre sale Nathan just talked to. As mentioned, this settlement in the second half will retire the AUD 30 million project facility we have with that asset and further pay down the corporate debt facility. With the strong operating cash flow expected in the second half and significant undrawn facility headroom, the company projects to continue to maintain strong liquidity in the upcoming year. I'll now hand back to Nathan to talk to market conditions.
So, now touching on market conditions, I will also talk about our recent sales experience. So, this graph we have here shows our gross sales by quarter going back to FY 2020. The first two quarters of FY 2024 on the right-hand side show that the first half's sales results were strong and generally in line with the last quarter of FY 2023. The second quarter of FY 2024 showed the strongest quarterly sales results for the last two years, importantly. Sales growth is a positive forward indicator as these sales translate to settlements in future periods. Sales are being driven by investors, downsizers, and upgraders, with first home buyers' sales improving progressively. Sales are most buoyant in WA, where the economy is strong and property is more affordable. Sales prices have been increased across many projects in the company's portfolio in the first half, but especially in WA.
The construction sector continues to experience challenges with high work volumes and labor shortage, though improvement in these conditions is progressively occurring, and cost growth has slowed considerably. There are significant shortfalls in new dwelling supply across jurisdictions and dwelling types. These charts demonstrate that we have hit a low point on dwelling starts nationally and that the dwelling shortfall is forecast to intensify over the next three years as the number of completions dwindle amid strong population growth. Due to the construction sector headwinds, many approved projects are not being delivered across the industry, and government is seeking to expedite planning approvals. This shortfall in supply has started to create upward pressure on prices and enabled increases across much of our portfolio. Those with a supply pipeline are set to benefit.
Cedar Woods has a broad portfolio of shovel-ready projects, and I will soon outline some of those that are coming on stream. Demand for new housing is significantly influenced by population growth. The current migration surge is providing a tailwind for new housing, and it has been occurring at record levels. Net overseas migration was at around 240,000 persons per annum pre-COVID but well over 500,000 last financial year. We expect migration levels to continue to be robust through to FY 2025 and beyond. In the year to June 2023, WA grew by 3.1% due to interstate population movements, in part, and we expect this trend to continue due to stronger wages and cheaper housing. On buyer profiles, new home loan commitments are starting to rise, with similar increases being experienced across both investors and first home buyers.
We expect demand to lift as confidence increases around interest rates stabilizing, especially with those first home buyers. This year, we continue to deliver the ESG strategy with significant investment in climate change initiatives and environmental enhancement across the communities. An example of this is the microgrid we put in place at Eglinton Village in WA. Approximately 50%-65% of total energy demand at that project is expected to be supplied by renewables through rooftop solar and community battery storage. This is just one example of the types of initiatives that we are developing and putting in place across the portfolio. Over the last two years, we've mapped our corporate carbon footprint and put in place targets and measures across our offices, such as committing to green energy and minimizing paper waste.
We are now exploring ways as a business to reduce the emissions associated with some of our development activities. Cedar Woods continues its national partnership with The Smith Family, which is Australia's leading children's education charity. Our flagship community grants program is another initiative we are very proud of and one which sees a portion of the profits from our projects given back to small community groups in the various regions that we operate. It was also pleasing to see that our latest staff survey recorded strong staff satisfaction scores. Now, to look at some highlights from each state. In WA, we have 13 residential projects and more than 5,000 lots or dwellings. Our WA portfolio is primarily comprised of residential lots in a good spread of locations north, south, and east.
The first stages of new projects were successfully launched, including Atwater in Rockingham and Eglinton up in Perth North. The Ariella project has been extended by the acquisition of adjacent land, and this extends the life of this highly successful project. Sales have been strong in the first half of FY 2024 across the portfolio, and we have achieved strong price growth across most of our WA estates. Price increases are now nearing 15% across many projects in the WA portfolio, and this is just over the past three to four months. In Victoria, we have nine projects which offer a wide range of products, including land lots, townhouses, apartments, and offices. Our office projects continue to do well, with Boston Commons experiencing high demand for strata offices in Melbourne's west.
Our Victoria residential projects experienced a softer market during the first half than other states, mainly as a result of the increases in interest rates and property being less affordable in Victoria. We have six projects in Queensland and over 1,400 lots and dwellings to deliver there. There's a mix of land estates, townhouses, and apartments in this portfolio. The construction sector has seen significant cost increases, which has impacted the timing of some stages but which we expect to restart once more capacity comes back into the sector, and we are starting to see that now. Given South East Queensland's relative affordability and strong inbound migration, we expect this market to perform well over the medium term. We've also added to our portfolio with the joint venture with QIC at Robina.
The newest of our estates in Queensland is Flourish at South Maclean, which was recently launched and has experienced strong sales results. In Adelaide, we have seven projects, including four within the Glenside estate and three at Fletcher's Slip. In total, we have around 1,100 townhouses and apartments yet to deliver, a pipeline which will keep us busy for a further six years. Our South Australian projects are well-established with strong reputations for quality and sustainability, and they will continue to make meaningful contributions in coming years. Sales conditions have been moderate to strong in recent months, depending upon the project or stage that we're delivering. In our portfolio, we have a number of new projects that will start to deliver first earnings over the short and medium term, with six new projects in FY 2024.
This is as a result of the successful acquisitions activity over the last few years, which has significantly added to our portfolio. There is a mix of apartments, townhouses, and land estates, and the new projects are spread geographically across the states that we are in. In the medium term, there is a raft of apartment projects that will be ready to go in any apartment market recovery. These new projects, along with the existing ones already contributing in the portfolio, support our growth outlook. Inquiry and sales are currently the strongest in two years, with WA especially experiencing a significant uptick in demand. Sales to first home buyers are picking up, and sales to this cohort are supporting already strong sales to investors, downsizers, and upgraders in most states.
There are sound underlying fundamentals of low unemployment, record immigration, and a significant undersupply of dwellings, as well as strong government support to get new supply online. We think that the housing shortage will last several years, and further price growth is anticipated in the markets in which we operate, which are largely the more affordable states. Cedar Woods is well placed to roll out shovel-ready projects and stages, as conditions allow, to capitalize on the expected demand. We end the first half with over AUD 525 million of pre-sales, partially de-risking future earnings. We expect a significantly stronger second half underpinned by planned residential settlements and the sale of the Williams Landing Shopping Centre, and a full-year net profit in the range of AUD 36 million-AUD 39 million is expected. This result is dependent upon settlements scheduled close to the end of the financial year.
The catalysts for a more sustained improvement in sales volumes is expected to be a combination of the peaking of interest rates and an improvement in builder capacity, both of which will help to restore buyer confidence. And finally, our portfolio of approximately 9,700 lots and dwellings in quality location supports our medium-term earnings outlook. Thank you for listening to the results presentation for Cedar Woods. I'll now hand over to our operator.
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 a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Edward Day with MA Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi, Nathan and Leon. Just wondering if you can talk about the sales mix in a bit more detail and, I guess, the composition of settlements, sorry, in the first half and what that looks like in the second half?
Yeah, sure. So, in the first half, our biggest contributor to our settlements was from Mason Quarter. It's a land project in Victoria. We had about 120-130 settlements there. We still anticipate making another 60-odd from there in the second half, but it is a much more mixed settlement profile where we'll have an office building in Victoria. We'll have about AUD 36 million of revenue from there. And then, the other big one is Glenside townhouses. We had none in the first half. We could have 60-70 in the second half and quite a strong revenue contribution from those. Whereas in the first half, it was more lower-value land lot settling, largely from Mason Quarter and projects in WA.
Okay. Thank you. Couple more, sorry. Just on your Subiaco acquisition in WA. Can you just talk about what you're seeing in terms of movements in land prices?
Yeah. Hi, Ed. Thanks for the question. So, really, there's been so few transactions, it's difficult to point to a trend. But, it is fair to assume that the numbers that we are offering are at lower rates per square meter or whatever other measure than we might have been a year or two ago, primarily to reflect the increase in construction costs over that period. So, that is flowing through to cheaper land or flowing through to our ability to pay for land. And, I would say that that is consistent with what is happening nationally.
There are quite a number of opportunities out there that we're running the ruler over, both built form and land, but also noting that we've acquired quite a few projects over the past few years and have a healthy pipeline from which to deliver on and capitalize on current market conditions.
Thank you. And then just one last one. Just wondering what the average time from sale to settlement is and whether you're seeing any movement there.
So, it is improving for both built form and for land. We aren't yet back to the delivery timeframes for a typical stage or apartment project that we were doing pre-COVID. But, the tenders we're getting in now, for example, for a civil stage in WA are a couple of months shorter than they were 12 months ago. So, let's say a 10%-20% improvement in delivery timeframes in WA for land stages over the last 12 months. And then with apartment projects, we're seeing delivery timeframes come down from two years to somewhere between 18 months and two years.
That's right. Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Shane Bannan with PAC Partners. Please go ahead.
Oh, good morning, Nathan and Leon. Just a couple of quick questions. Leon, I know in the past you've basically articulated a natural sort of margin you'll gravitate to of about 30%. You've been sitting below that over the last couple of years. I'm assuming with these price pressures that you're articulating on the call that you'll see that sort of margin start to improve a little bit from here. If I could put that in a broader context, saying that you're obviously going to be buying much the same sort of market, how that's going to evolve over time?
Yeah, that's true, Shane. So, if I look at the sales prices we have in market over the last, say, six months, we have improved prices at a faster rate than cost and improved margin on most of our projects. In saying that, the overall group margin is highly dependent also on the mix of product that we're settling. So, different projects and different types of products have quite different margin. And also, the cycling out of older projects and bringing in newer projects because margins also typically improve over the life of the projects. So, the newer projects typically have lower margins initially, and then the older projects typically have improved those margins and have higher margins. So, for our existing projects, our margins are generally improving. In saying that, it will still be very dependent on what mix of product we have, say, settling next financial year.
Just to supplement that, Shane, we are nearly at 15% in terms of the amount of price increase that has been passed through on your average WA project since October, including a meaningful increase each week over the last two weeks. We'll be very quickly getting above 15% average price increases in just those few months.
But that mix again can drag the whole overall group if we have two apartment buildings that are giving us quite a high dollar profit but might have a lower margin. And then, so the overall group margin is quite impacted by that.
Right. Just one thing. I was just going to embellish the outlook here as the operational leverage implicit in these partnerships you're entering into, where other parties are contributing the land from the sound of things, a large part anyway. Could you just give us a sense as to what the revenue model looks like there in terms of the go-forward and how big you'd like to see this partnership aspect evolve?
So, on the last part of your question, first, we'd like to think that around a quarter of our earnings in a few years' time is coming from these types of arrangements. And, particularly with the QIC arrangement, there's quite a lot of potential there with the projects already identified but only an agreement, a formal agreement with QIC on one of them, which is quite substantial in itself. So, that's the end aim, showing that the core business of Cedar Woods only on balance sheet developments remaining the focus, but a meaningful part of their earnings coming from these partnering arrangements and hence the use of the term strategic shift. And then, the way the revenue model works, it varies between Tokyo Gas and QIC. Yes, QIC are initially sort of they're putting in the land.
And then, once all the preconditions have been met, we've tended the project, we've got the pre-sales, we've got the approvals, then the land is valued. Cedar Woods contributes 50% of that land value to QIC. And then the project costs are co-funded all the way through, and profit is shared at the end. That's that model.
And, it's Cedar Woods having management fees, selling fees throughout.
Correct.
That's management fee plus the 50% share in the profitability of the underlying project?
Yes. And so, that does supercharge the returns for Cedar Woods. Yes, we're giving away some of the profit, but we've got less capital out, and we're taking the development management fees and sales and marketing fees along the way.
Right. And your..
For Tokyo Gas.
Yep. Sorry. Yep. Go on.
Ideally, these arrangements for new projects are a similar arrangement where we're 50/50 partners on the land and sharing projects in sharing profits in the end, 50/50, but we'll be undertaking the project management. So, there'll be management fees, also the selling fees, and we'll be potentially finding the projects, so acquisition fees also. The current Tokyo Gas projects are a bit different because they've came into a couple of our existing buildings. So, they've just done that via participation fee, and they get paid a kind of percentage return, if you like, based on that. It's actually shown as a financial instrument in the accounts.
Right. Thank you. In fact, lastly, obviously, you know construction companies going to the wall over the course of the last sort of 12 months or so. Could I just understand how you now manage that exposure? I'm assuming you'll probably get more sensitive given the pressure the sector's been under over the course of the last sort of 12, 13 months.
Yeah. Thanks, Shane. So, we have 35 projects across the company. We do have builders working across a few projects each, some having just a single project. We've had one builder in South Australia fail on us. That primarily impacted our purchases because we had already settled on the land on most of the product. But nonetheless, it's an issue for our customers, and we've had to manage that for them. We think that we're through the worst of that. We certainly look very closely at the financials of any new builder that we're intending to appoint and look closely at the financials on a regular basis of builders that we have across the portfolio. We do have some deep partnerships with builders that we're very comfortable with the financials on. So, there's that.
The other protection mechanism we've got is, yes, we've got a gross maximum price structure across our projects as required in order to secure finance. So, we have confidence around the end number and as much confidence as we can reasonably get in terms of the builder getting through to the end of the project.
And, that financial check is quite a deep look. We'll get their order book, see what other projects they have. We'll look at who else they're working for, form of view of those counterparties, whether we think they'll pay their bills. We will reference check. We will also look at their payment times reporting numbers to see if they're paying their subcontractors on time. And, as Nathan said, after their appointment, we will continue to check in on those financials.
That one in Adelaide, that went under, we were kind of aware of their position for a while. Obviously, they had a good position when we appointed them, and we were trying to help them through that by sort of paying invoices immediately to help them manage that cash flow, but they didn't get there in the end.
In the meantime, from understanding what you're saying, Leon, the risk is largely shared by the end customer. I guess you've got a portfolio of projects anyway, so the risk is actually quite modest insofar as Cedar Woods is concerned.
Yeah. It's definitely a risk we focus on, but yeah, it's in the scheme of all our projects, the different types of product, the shared risk with customers. The fallout of it is financially not that significant, that Adelaide example. There was minimal financial impact of it.
We have no information across the portfolio now that would suggest any of our builders are in trouble.
Right. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time, and that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.