I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Mark Schubert, Managing Director and CEO. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and welcome everyone listening in today. Thank you for joining Cleanaway's financial results briefing for the FY 2026 financial year. I am Mark Schubert, and I am joined by Nigel Simonsz, Cleanaway's CFO, who joined the business in July, and Richie Farrell, General Manager of Investor Relations and Sustainability. Following the presentation, we will open the call for questions as usual. Moving to slide three. Before we begin, please note the usual disclaimer. Unless specifically called out, I will be talking about underlying performance of the business and the associated financial metrics throughout this presentation. The agenda for today is set out on slide four. The plan today is that I will take you through the highlights and overview. I will then step you through the segment performance and what drove the result. Nigel will then cover the financial performance and cash flow.
Finally, I will address our strategic progress and outlook for FY 2027 and beyond. Moving to slide five, which will be familiar to a lot of you on the call today. For those new to the Cleanaway story, it sets out our investment thesis. Cleanaway remains Australia's leading total waste solutions provider with scale, network reach, and a highly diversified customer base. The strength of the business is that it is not just one business. Instead, it is a portfolio of assets, services, and customer relationships that together create the leading national waste management platform. Our strategy is about working that platform harder. This means executing better at branch level, improving asset utilization and operational efficiency, while maintaining disciplined capital allocation. It also means continuing to invest in the systems, the people, and the data that allow us to run the network smarter and efficiently, and to lift returns over time.
With the strong foundations built, we are investing to build a more modern, data-led, and more cash-generative business. Moving to the executive summary on slide seven. On behalf of the approximately 9,700 Cleanaway team, I am pleased to report that FY 2026 was another year of earnings growth for Cleanaway, but it was not without challenge. The year's earnings were predominantly driven by strong performances by Solid Waste Services and Contract Resources, and the benefit of the indirect cost reduction. Certain parts of the portfolio underperformed our expectations, leading to modest organic growth on a net basis across the group. The conflict in the Middle East resulted in some market softness and higher fuel prices. Solid Waste Services delivered a strong result with good pricing, better productivity, higher landfill volumes, and CDS growth. Contract Resources also performed ahead of the acquisition business case.
Health Services, Industrial Services, and OTS project volumes weighed on the result. Ultimately, high fuel costs did not have a material impact on the group result, but mitigating those costs and managing the related issues took significant time and enterprise-wide attention. This included substantial proactive engagement with our suppliers, including owner-drivers and subcontractors, to ensure they were being treated fairly and paid appropriately. Moving to slide eight, we delivered underlying EBIT of AUD 470.2 million, up 14.2%, and net revenue increased 13.1% to AUD 3.7 billion. Group ROCE increased 60 basis points to 9.7%. This reflects our disciplined approach to capital allocation and the improvements we are making to operational efficiency. The board declared a final dividend of AUD 0.035 per share, taking the full-year dividend to AUD 0.0685 per share, an increase of 14%.
This reflects the board's confidence in our trading outlook, sustainable cash generation ability, and its commitment to providing attractive returns to shareholders whilst maintaining balanced sheet strength. Statutory NPAT was lower at AUD 98.5 million, reflecting the net costs associated with significant items. These largely related to legacy matters, the recent business reorganization, IT modernization, and non-cash impairments. Going forward, we expect fewer events that give rise to these costs due to the significant foundational work we've already completed. Furthermore, we expect to materially reduce the number of items classified as significant in future reporting periods, which Nigel will speak to later. Pleasingly, free cash flow improved materially, up 64% to AUD 213.8 million. This was driven mainly by good work in capital management, timing of fleet delivery, and improved payment terms for our new trucks. We've also updated our definition of free cash flow.
The measure now includes all cash capital expenditure, while excluding proceeds from land and property sales. In summary, FY 2026 delivered earnings growth and cash flow growth, but the underlying organic growth was weaker than we would like for reasons we understand. Importantly, we have plans in place to improve and restore performance across those business lines. Our focus remains on delivering a more stable, more cash-generative outcome in FY 2027 and beyond. This will be achieved under the three pillars of Blueprint 2.0, whereby we will generate higher value revenue, use our scale as an advantage, and become a leaner, lower cost, and more scalable enterprise. Moving to slide nine, this slide bridges the FY 2026 result to the midpoint of the guidance range we provided in February. If you recall, at that time, we expected underlying EBIT of AUD 480 million-AUD 500 million.
Following the escalation of the Middle East conflict and the associated fuel price volatility, in April, we revised that range to AUD 460 million-AUD 480 million. The result of AUD 470.2 million was within that range. We thought it'd be helpful to use the bridge to explain what changed relative to the expectations we had back in February. Solid Waste Services and Contract Resources, excluding the Middle East, performed strongly in line with our expectations. We outperformed our expectation with respect to managing the fuel price volatility by responding rapidly. We applied the contractual mechanisms available to us, and we also benefited from external support mechanisms introduced during the event. At the same time, our team responded to and supported our affected suppliers and subcontractors as appropriate. To give you a sense of the activity levels, we had to review over 400 suppliers and around 18,000 invoices.
Looking at the graph, the left-hand side of the bridge addresses the elements related to the Middle East conflict. At a group level, we recovered a large proportion of the direct fuel costs in-year. Recovery was not uniform across our segments, however. There is a lag in recovery for a small proportion of direct fuel costs, and Contract Resources operations in the Middle East were directly impacted. Conversely, re-refined base oil, or RRBO, in OTS more than offset its direct cost impacts. Mitigating the impacts involved an extraordinary effort from the team, and I'd like to acknowledge those efforts. Moving to the right-hand side of the bridge, where importantly, the variances were concentrated in a small number of businesses. In Health Services, the anticipated second-half recovery was slower than expected. This was in part due to the reorganization and sales centralization, which delayed our efforts in addressing revenue leakage opportunities.
Our new liquid injection and product destruction facilities were safely started up, but later than expected. In the Industrial Services business, we experienced lower project activity, fewer shutdowns, and weaker utilization across parts of the portfolio. Finally, in our OTS business, project waste volumes were below our expectation, with some large anticipated second-half projects not proceeding, including due to customer credit constraints. In FY 2027, we'll build on the FY 2026 outcome. We'll recover those specific areas of the business and focus on growing core volumes and revenue, improving productivity, and making sure we leverage the opportunities and benefits identified through Blueprint 2.0. I'll now take you through the segment performance. Solid Waste Services delivered a strong performance in FY 2026, and that was despite lower commodity prices and the temporarily lower contribution from Eco ahead of the completion of the compost refinery.
We grew net revenue by 6.4% to AUD 2.5 billion, and EBIT was 9.1% higher at AUD 405 million. We also demonstrated the operating leverage in the business by expanding EBIT margins by 40 basis points to 16.2%. This evidences that Cleanaway continues to benefit from scale, pricing discipline, and better utilization. Within collections, we saw good performance across C&I and Municipal, supported by price and productivity. The Citywide contribution is now flowing through. Integration remains on track, and the business continues to show good labor, fleet, and overhead discipline. We also renewed the Port Phillip and Maribyrnong Council contracts. Pleasingly, we secured the Cairns Municipal collections contract. This is a 7.5-year agreement starting in December 2026 and will contribute over AUD 100 million of revenue over the life of the contract.
This is a strategically important win that demonstrates our ability to compete successfully in the municipal tender market when the economics are right. Our landfills and transfer stations also performed well, supported by higher volumes, project activity, and ancillary revenue. CDS was another positive contributor, with a full-year Tasmanian contribution supporting organic growth. As planned, we closed New Chum landfill on the 30th of November, which incurred a loss of approximately AUD 3 million for the period. As part of the strategy refresh, we made the decision to close the Construction and Demolition SBU. The decision was based on focusing our efforts on the parts of the market where we can achieve an adequate return and illustrates our commitment to discipline the capital allocation. The key takeaway on this slide is that Solid Waste Services remains a strong and resilient core earnings engine for the group.
Moving now to our Oils & Technical Services and Health Services business. In aggregate, net revenue fell 1.2% to AUD 676 million, and EBIT fell 10.7% to AUD 75.1 million. EBIT margin contracted 120 basis points to 11.1%, with the underperformance driven by Health Services. OTS delivered a solid reported result with year-on-year growth across the portfolio. RRBO pricing and Cleanaway Equipment Services were the strongest drivers of earnings growth. This was offset by expected project work not proceeding in the second half. We realized the integration benefits from the former LTS and Hydro business units and identified opportunities to simplify the network. Our focus remains on high-margin project work, where our portfolio of total waste solutions, network, and safety standards provide a competitive advantage. Health Services experienced a difficult transitional year.
Following a competitive tender by a major customer, we retained most of the volume at lower rates. This reduced revenue and earnings materially. The disruption to our Yatala Health Facility in Queensland in the first half, following damage from ex-Trop Alfred, resulted in approximately AUD 2.4 million of higher logistics costs, and overall volumes were lower than expected. As we look at FY 2027, product destruction and liquid injection facilities came online in the final quarter of FY 2026. The Yatala Facility in Queensland was restored, and the team is working through a more focused operating model. The team has a recovery plan in place, including dedicated specialists supporting central sales to drive revenue growth and restore EBIT and margin. Turning now to slide 13. The performance of the Industrial Services segment is largely reflective of the initial contribution and outperformance from the Contract Resources acquisition.
At the overall segment level, we delivered 77% net revenue growth to AUD 670 million and 135% EBIT growth to AUD 55.9 million. EBIT margins increased 200 basis points to 8.3%. Contract Resources outperformed the acquisition business case, delivering AUD 320 million of revenue and AUD 36.1 million EBIT, excluding AUD 6.4 million of synergies. This highlights the capability of the team, and illustrates the quality and resilience of this production-critical and turnaround services business. This was delivered with the backdrop of the headwind of the Middle East conflicts. EBITA for the year was AUD 41.4 million and converts to an EBITA margin of 12.9%. This is comparable to the overall group EBIT margin of 12.6%. The integration of CRs and our Industrial Services segment is on track and delivering synergies ahead of plan. The new structure has been in place since 1 January under the leadership of the Contract Resources CEO.
We are beginning to realize further synergies, particularly in shared customers, workforce planning, and greater asset utilization, and we expect these to build during FY 2027 through cross-selling and operational leverage. We now have the leading Industrial Services platform, and that positions us to execute on the growing pipeline of significant decommissioning, decontamination, and remediation opportunities. Cleanaway Industrial Services was weaker. Lower contracted and project activity and fewer shutdowns led to lower utilization and profitability. The operating model realignment with Contract Resources is well underway, improving consistency, scalability, and long-term performance, and this work will continue. We will focus our IS work on activities like we are in CRs. We can earn appropriate risk-adjusted returns with less variable outcomes and, as a result, transition towards a structurally higher margin portfolio and build on the real momentum provided by Contract Resources. With that, I will hand it over to Nigel.
Thanks, Mark. It is my pleasure to be able to report my first results as Cleanaway CFO on behalf of the entire Cleanaway team. With the segment drivers in mind, we now turn to the financial performance and the bridge from the operating story into the reported numbers. The financial summary shows the benefit to shareholders of earnings growth and improved cash flow through progressively growing dividends. Revenue, underlying EBIT, and underlying NPAT have all improved. Cleanaway has a sustained long track record of revenue, earnings, and underlying EPS growth. This reflects the quality and resilience of our business model, and shows the strength of our established integrated network of infrastructure. Looking at the key underlying metrics on the slide, net revenue for the year came in at more than AUD 3.7 billion, up 13.1%.
Group underlying EBIT was AUD 470.2 million, up 14.2%, with EBIT margin improving 10 basis points to 12.6%. This reflects improving asset utilization, cost efficiency, including the indirect cost reduction program, and demonstrates our operating leverage. While not shown on this slide, underlying EBITA was 14.9% higher at AUD 491.4 million. This metric excludes non-cash-acquired amortization charges and offers a clearer view of the business's underlying cash-generating capability. Free cash flow was AUD 213.8 million, up AUD 83.2 million, or 63.7% higher than the prior period. Underlying NPAT was 13.6% higher at AUD 223.1 million, with underlying EPS also up 13.6% to AUD 0.10. Return on capital employed, or ROCE, is a metric that we are transitioning to, as it is more commonly used by our peers and adjusts for the non-cash amortization of acquired customer contracts.
ROCE improved 60 basis points to 9.7%, demonstrating that we are deploying capital more efficiently and generating better returns from our asset base. Similarly, ROIC has improved 60 basis points to 6.6%. The earnings trend across the last few years is moving in the right direction. FY 2026 continues the pattern of growth from earlier years, which is a credit to the scale of the platform and the operating discipline in the business. Now moving to slide 16, underlying EBIT adjustments. Most of these are items that were spoken about in the first half, and the annualized impact of these are presented here. New items relate to the MRL levy provision, transactions related to closed landfills, and C&D closure costs. The MRL levy provision was flagged in an ASX release in July when we decided to appeal the decision of the Supreme Court.
The amount presented here is lower than the amount in the announcement, but this merely relates to the classification of the interest element sitting further down the P&L. There was a net benefit from transactions related to New Chum and Willawong, with the latter sold during the year. The C&D business was ultimately closed in the second half, having failed to attract an adequate bid. The strategy refresh has refined where we want to play with our focus on attractive return segments and capital discipline. This can be seen through the rationalization of our C&D service offering and reducing certain inefficient IS metro activities. The board is reviewing the underlying adjustment policy to improve clarity and raise the threshold for significant items. It will help sharpen the distinction between recurring underlying performance and exceptional or transitional items. This is intended to make the reporting framework easier to interpret.
Should the change be adopted, the outcome would not materially affect the current FY 2027 underlying EBIT guidance range. The only item that would be treated as a significant item for FY 2027 on that basis would be the IT transformation program. Moving to free cash flow on slide 17. As Mark mentioned before, we have updated our definition of free cash flow. The measure now includes all cash capital expenditure, while excluding proceeds from land and property sales. Focusing on the material items in the bridge, we generated AUD 101.3 million or 12.8% more underlying EBITDA. The cash outflow relating to the underlying adjustments detailed in the earlier slide was AUD 90.7 million, being AUD 40.6 million higher than the prior corresponding period. Working capital movements were AUD 49.1 million favorable. This represented a marginal positive inflow of working capital in FY 2026, compared with an outflow in the prior period.
We are not anticipating any significant net working capital movements through FY 2027. Net interest paid was AUD 23.7 million higher than pcp. This reflected higher average debt balances from debt funding approximately AUD 470 million of acquisitions. Tax paid was AUD 14.5 million higher, and this reflects our higher taxable earnings and a AUD 58.7 million catch-up tax payment in the first half. This is the final catch-up tax payment. Cash CapEx was AUD 8.3 million lower. There was a timing benefit of around AUD 40 million related to fleet, reflecting delayed deliveries and improved payment terms. The structural drivers of improved cash generation are in place. We should continue to support the business over the medium term, a lthough FY 2027 will still absorb a number of timing and transition-related cash costs. Moving to slide 18. Cash CapEx came in lower at AUD 326.8 million versus AUD 335.1 million in the prior year.
As referenced earlier, FY 2026 CapEx was lower than expected, due mainly to the timing of fleet deliveries and improved payment terms. We expect this benefit will not repeat in FY 2027. Having largely built out our infrastructure network of scarce processing assets, our capital intensity, as measured by CapEx over net revenue, is on a declining trajectory. This year, our CapEx as a percentage of net revenue was the lowest for five years. The nature of our CapEx is also changing. There will be fewer larger projects that have characterized our spend over the last 5- 10 years and an increasing proportion of our spend on fleet. Fleet CapEx, by its nature, is lower risk but still delivers good returns through reduced running costs, improved utilization, and more reliable customer service. The growth investment pipeline is now focused on a number of smaller items, but these remain important.
It includes core waste management assets to support our growing business, including fleet, compactors, and bins. We have also invested in technology that will support our advanced ways of working, including data and analytics infrastructure, and tools such as smarter selling and the pricing engine. While capital discipline remains very much our focus, the business is still investing in the platform needed for future growth. In FY 2027, we expect total CapEx to be between AUD 400 million- AUD 410 million, plus around AUD 40 million related to cash payments for trucks delivered in FY 2026. Cash CapEx for FY 2027 is expected to be around AUD 360 million. Finally, I will turn to net finance costs and dividends on slide 19.
Underlying net finance costs increased AUD 34.7 million to AUD 156.2 million, driven by the debt financing for the Citywide and Contract Resources acquisitions, which was possible due to the strength of our balance sheet. There were also a number of cash rate increases during the year. Our FY 2027 outlook for net finance costs is around AUD 170 million, with the cash component being around AUD 140 million. This reflects the annualization impact of rate rises. We have undertaken some additional hedging, which has lowered our sensitivity to around AUD 2.6 million cash net finance costs per 25 basis points movement. Moving to dividends.
The board has declared a fully frank final dividend of AUD 0.035 per share, taking the full-year dividend to AUD 0.0685 per share, up 14.2% on last year. This increase reflects the business's strong underlying growth, our confidence in future delivery and strategy execution, including our ability to deliver strong free cash flow growth. With that, I'll hand back to Mark.
Thanks, Nigel. We now move back into the outlook. We're guiding to an underlying EBIT range of AUD 500 million-AUD 530 million. That range is built first on organic growth in the core solids business, supported by pricing, volume, and productivity. Then on recovery across Health, OTS, and Industrial Services, together with the incremental benefit of indirect cost actions already underway. At the same time, the guidance recognizes a higher central investment requirement for IT systems modernization and systems of capability that will enable Blueprint 2030. For the latter, the costs will be incurred before the benefits are realized. As we discussed back in April, free cash flow is the currency of Blueprint 2.0.
Given the inherent variability of cash over balance dates, as illustrated by the AUD 40 million benefit recognized in FY 2026, we felt it would be more prudent to guide the building blocks of free cash flow. We also recognize investors may have different cash flow definitions. We expect depreciation and amortization of AUD 435 million-AUD 455 million, and taken together with our EBIT guidance of AUD 500 million-AUD 530 million, you can derive an underlying EBITDA range of AUD 935 million-AUD 985 million. We expect cash CapEx of approximately AUD 360 million. As Nigel said earlier, we don't expect any material working capital movements during the year. Cash interest paid is expected to be approximately AUD 140 million, subject to no further cash rate movements.
We continue to expect total landfill remediation costs of around AUD 180 million over FY 2027 to FY 2029. Finally, we expect the net cash impact of underlying adjustments to be AUD 40 million - AUD 50 million. With our foundational investment now complete and legacy issues mostly behind us, we are focused on delivering improved quality of earnings, maximizing cash flow, and generating sustainable value. I will now move to slide 22, where I want to briefly recap on our strategy. Blueprint 2030 2.0 is the next phase of Cleanaway's value creation journey. Blueprint 1.0 was about building the platform. We strengthened the business, we improved operating disciplines, we embedded the branch led operating model, we reset data analytics, we progressed CustomerConnect, and we built Australia's leading integrated waste infrastructure network. That work is now substantially complete.
Blueprint 2.0 is all about making that platform work harder. We want to create superior shareholder value by extending Cleanaway's position as Australia's leading waste management and technical services company, and by maximizing the cash flow and growth potential of the business. The key shift here is from building foundations to extracting value. This matters because Blueprint 1.0 delivered strong earnings growth, but free cash flow did not yet fully reflect that improvement. That was due to foundational investment, one-off and legacy costs, and catch-up tax payments. Those pressures are now easing. Cash flow is now the clearest measure of how strategy converts into shareholder value. Moving to slide 23. Together, these three pillars support the value creation framework. This framework is useful because it shows how the pieces fit together, and it is deliberately straightforward.
Revenue growth comes from market growth, pricing discipline, and targeted investments. Margin expansion comes from operating leverage, better pricing, lower cost to serve, and improved asset utilization. Capital efficiency comes from keeping overall CapEx disciplined, focusing growth capital on mid-teen return opportunities, and limiting M&A where the network is already strong. Those drivers support EPS growth, stronger free cash flow, improving returns, and sustainable dividends. The simple investor message is Blueprint 1.0 built the platform, Blueprint 2.0 converts that platform into value. We are making scale our advantage, we are using data and technology to improve customer outcomes and lower costs, and we are optimizing the network we have already built. We are applying disciplined capital allocation to ensure growth translates into free cash flow, returns, and shareholder value.
Moving to slide 24, the track record slide is there as a reminder that this is a business that has built earnings, scale, and cash generation over time. The FY 2026 result is part of that broader trend. The key message here is that the platform is much larger, stronger, and more profitable than it was a few years ago. The next step is to make the quality of that growth more consistent and more repeatable. Moving to slide 25, and I will briefly touch on last week's announcement before wrapping up. Cleanaway received a non-binding proposal from EQT Infrastructure to acquire 100% of Cleanaway shares for AUD 3.13 per share. The proposal is all cash and was improved from EQT's initial proposal. The proposal allows the company to pay a franked special dividend, and the board expects to do so if the transaction is implemented.
The cash amount of any dividends would come off the offer price, but this could be efficient for domestic holders from a tax perspective. The quantum of this dividend is yet to be determined. The board has carefully assessed the bid and has come to the conclusion that it will recommend the bid, assuming EQT completes its confirmatory due diligence, and delivers a binding bid at this level and subject to agreeing a scheme implementation deed. The proposal represents a premium to pre-announcement trading of 34% to the one-month, three-month, and six-month VWAPS. It represents an EV/EBIT multiple of 20x based on our FY 2026 result. At the same time, we remain confident in the strength of our existing business and the long-term value Blueprint 2030 can create for Cleanaway shareholders. EQT's proposal attributes value to our strategy today.
While the board works through the next steps in the process with EQT, the priorities for the business do not change. We remain focused on safe and reliable operations, serving our customers, supporting our people, and executing Blueprint 2030 with discipline. Moving to slide 26. To close the formal presentation, the core message is this: FY 2026 delivered solid earnings and cash flow growth. The organic growth was weaker than we would like due to some pockets of underperformance. The underperformance in Health, Industrial Services, and OTS is understood, and we are addressing it. Solid Waste Services and Contract Resources, stability, and resilience supported an improving cash generation profile. The focus for FY 2027 is to convert the scale of our platform into consistent organic growth, better execution, stronger cash flow, and high-quality earnings.
Before we hand over to questions, I want to take this opportunity to thank our employees for all their hard work. These results would not be possible without them. With that, we will now take questions.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you would like to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question today comes from Jakob Cakarnis from Jarden Australia. Please go ahead.
Morning, Mark and Nigel. It's Darcy White here on behalf of Jake. Thanks for taking my question. Just the first one, on the AUD 500 million- AUD 530 million EBIT guidance, can you help us bridge from FY 2026? Specifically, can you talk us through what organic growth is assumed for FY 2027? Whether there's still plans to generate savings from corporate cost reductions, and how much is carried from Contract Resources and any deal-related synergies, please?
Yeah, sure. Thanks for the question. So if we try and bridge from AUD 470 million to say, somewhere around the midpoint of the range, you probably want to think about it in four buckets. The first would be sort of a bucket which includes those businesses that we've closed, plus say, the Yatala roof being repaired, which obviously, that work is all done. So like C&D business being shut down, New Chum has been shut down, Yatala roof has been repaired. So you don't have those headwinds in 2026, in 2027. The second bucket would be the indirect costs benefits. If you remember what we just said, we've talked about an incremental AUD 25 million additional to the AUD 13 million that we saw in FY 2026 coming from the indirect cost program.
The third bucket would be organic growth, including sort of the recovering SBUs, would be the third bucket. And then the fourth bucket is a negative, and that would be those sort of IT, and Blueprint 2030 capability upgrades that we'll be spending on 2027. And they kind of fall into perhaps sort of three buckets themselves. There's some incremental cyber costs in there. There's the real spend on IVMS and pedestrian detection and the control room, where we'll have the costs without the benefits this year as we ramp that program in. And then there's the sort of Blueprint 2030 future tech to allow the advanced ways of working, that spend to make sure we get at that margin expansion that we've promised. So that's the four buckets, three positives and I guess a negative in terms of cost.
Thanks, Mark. Just as a follow-up on the organic growth that you're mentioning, can you talk about the type of considerations we should think about for the operating environment in FY 2027?
Yeah, sure. I think what you should think about is, firstly, 2026 was weaker than we had anticipated, so we are starting about AUD 20 million behind where we thought we would be. That would be the first thing I would say. I think secondly, I would probably say that when we did the bottom-up budget build that sort of underpins the range today, what we saw was, in 2026, a higher proportion of landfill volumes were project-related. That is obviously less predictable than our muni and C&I volumes going into the landfill. Because of that, we think landfill volumes are not necessarily going to grow at the same rate as you saw in 2026. I think also, in resource recovery, what we are seeing there is we are seeing glass being separated from commingled in Victoria.
Remember the mandate where the councils have to roll out the glass bin, and that is obviously coming out of the commingled bin, which would come to us. Then similarly, we are seeing the ramp-up of the CDS in Victoria and Tas, and so we are seeing less volumes come through just generally into the MRF. The third would be, we dedicated a significant amount of horsepower of the organization to managing the fuel-related issues, supporting suppliers. That meant we did not get at the non-labor indirect costs that we are targeting, and so we are a bit behind where we thought we would be at this point, coming into 2027. I think fourth, obviously we talked about the IT strategy and the spend that we need to do there.
Lastly, I think, just probably have in your mind, and it is important that when you think about the AUD 500 million - AUD 530 million, think about what Nigel was talking about just before, in that we are reviewing the underlying adjustment policy, and we have budgeted on that basis. That means the only adjustment we expect to make to the statutory result is IT transformation costs. Things like reviewing EAs, stuff like that is included in the underlying results. So there should be no surprises when it comes to results going forward. I hope that helps.
Thanks, Mark. That is clear.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Dylan Adrian from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Hey, Dylan.
Yeah. Good morning, Mark, Nigel, and Richie. Just filling in for Lee Power. I just want to clarify the comment on lower IS contracted and project activity. Should we be reading that as projects not proceeding or that they are delayed? What are you doing to fill that gap?
Yeah. That is an IS question, isn't it. Just on there, what you should be thinking there is, that was deferrals of maintenance, project work, and turnarounds that IS was looking to complete in the second half. When that gets deferred, it is very hard for the team to. They can flex their cost, but it is very hard to flex their D&A down. That work will come. It is just, obviously getting delayed. I do think there is a bit of a Middle East impact there because what is happening is you are seeing Australian-type activity not get delayed, so production can be boosted so that then the interruption from the Middle East is mitigated in some way. I think what are we doing about it, to your question, obviously we are restructuring. We have restructured IS in the last six to nine months.
The thing to be thinking about there is we are very much adopting an IS operating model that looks like Contract Resources. That is all around embedded branches. In other words, a branch on location at the client site dedicated to that and scaling up and down to do turnarounds, et cetera. Of course, that just leads to more predictable work, better reallocation of people and equipment, and that sort of thing. That is what we are doing to fill that gap.
Okay. That is clear. Just a follow-up to Darcy's earlier question. Of the AUD 6 million-odd synergies still to come from Contract Resources, what is the expected phasing into FY 2027 and 2028, please?
Yeah, cool. Okay. The way you think about that is the AUD 6 million of synergies are sitting in the IS number. That is the first thing. We promised AUD 12 million. We are on track to the AUD 12 million. We will have delivered the AUD 12 million in the FY 2028 number. Just remember, those are only the cost synergies. They are not the revenue synergies. We are already seeing revenue synergies elsewhere. I think we have talked about before, we are definitely seeing the cleaning, the outcomes of cleaning, in other words, the liquids coming to the liquids team, et cetera.
Thank you.
No worries.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Samantha Edie from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hey, Samantha.
Good morning, team. Congratulations to Nigel on starting the new role, and also congratulations on the proposed takeover. I just have two questions today. The first is around the free cash flow. I see that you have changed your free cash flow calculation, so you are now taking away cash CapEx rather than maintenance CapEx. Can we just get some color around the reasoning behind that change? Then just secondly, if we look at those line item guidance that you have given, if you work backwards, you get to about AUD 316 million, then if you take off the cash tax of, let us say, AUD 100 million, that gets you to around the same levels as where you are at for FY 2026. Is that the right way to be thinking about it?
Well, [do you want me to go]?
I'm happy to take it.
Okay, go for it, Nigel. Here we go.
Thank you. Thank you for your comment earlier. I think, Samantha, yes, looking at it in the right way, I think hopefully we have provided enough reference points to kind of guide the free cash flow. And obviously, we have got the AUD 45 million of IT transformation costs, which we have commented on earlier, as well as the impact of underlying adjustments, cash impact coming through into FY 2027. But yes, we broadly see it the way that you have described.
I think the comment there, Sam, would be that clearly, if it wasn't for the AUD 40 million that's kind of swung from 2026 into 2027 associated with the timing of the fleet delivery in June and the change in the payment terms, you've got AUD 40 million crossing years. And so in many ways, free cash flow in 2026 would've been AUD 40 million lower if it wasn't for that, and 2027 would've been AUD 40 million higher. And so you would've seen a more distinctive step-up between 2026 and 2027 of, like, AUD 80 million if those things had flipped the other way. Hopefully that makes sense—
Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.
—and doesn't confuse you. As to the reason, sorry, Sam. As to the reason why we changed from maintenance to total CapEx, it was really around a lot of the investment going forward will be in the fleet. And then there's that discussion that we had at the Investor Day around some of it's growth, some of it's stay in business. So rather than have the confusion there, it was easier just to lump it all together and factor it in that way. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay, awesome. That's really helpful color. Thank you. And then just secondly, around that IT transformation cost. So that looks like a bit of a step-up at AUD 40 million-AUD 50 million. Can we just get some more color around what's involved in those costs, and was that a bit higher than you were anticipating?
Yeah. I think you're talking about the underlying adjustments being AUD 40 million-AUD 50 million. Yep.
Yeah.
Happy to chat you through that. It probably is slightly higher than what people have been expecting. So probably what the piece that people were expecting was AUD 25 million for CustomerConnect. There's no change to that number. This is the final year. What's exciting for us, and hopefully for you as well, is that we did release two this week. We did it on Tuesday morning about 9:00 A.M. So that means we've now got the golden customer record. That is super important because you think about revenue growth going forward. Revenue growth is all about price, it's about volume, it's about churn, and it's about share of wallet.
What this enables us to do is it allows us to turn on smarter selling and the pricing engine, which really helps us drive the share of wallet through total waste management and obviously volume based on really location-specific pricing at a company-wide scale. So it is like a transformational week for Cleanaway in terms of our capability enabled by that release two. Obviously, the next release is the one that digitizes the trucks. That starts in South Australia, and that will start to roll out this half. So, we're getting towards the finish line finally on a multi-year program. Coming back to your AUD 45 million, so that's the first AUD 25 million. The other AUD 20 million is really around some muni software that we need to replace. The simple story there is that the vendor of the software has been purchased by another company.
That company has now decided they're going to switch that software off, not just that it goes out of support. It's actually going to be switched off early next year. So we have to replace all that muni software on a schedule-driven way across the company. That's AUD 20 million-ish. Those are the big building blocks. Sam, hope that explains it.
Yeah, that's super helpful. Thank you.
No worries.
Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Amit Kanwatia from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Morning, team.
Amit.
Congratulations. Hi. Morning. Congratulations on the result. If I can ask the question on the EQT bid.
Yeah.
You have demonstrated solid free cash flow today. Free cash flow is the currency for Blueprint 2030 2.0. The question is, why do you sell the business now? Ahead of those strong free cash flow delivery earnings still seem to be growing by 10% +?
I think, what I go back to is, the board has gone through an extensive process from receiving the unsolicited approach. What I would also say is, just remember, and we have talked about this before, we kicked off the strategy work, the refresh strategy work in July last year. We did seven months of strategy work. At the same time, we rebuilt the corporate model from scratch. That enabled us to do the valuation work. We had done that valuation work in advance of the EQT approach. I think, you should think that the board engaged with EQT to get to a point in price which they could then discuss with shareholders. To your point, the board looks at the value of the bid through multiple lenses. One of those is the cash flow analysis.
Ultimately, the board believes it is at a value where it is now time for shareholders and the independent expert to take a look. That is probably really all I can say. I need to also stick to what we have said already.
If I just look at the deal multiples, I am looking at the EV/EBITDA multiple, which is around 9.7x on a 12-month forward basis. Free cash flow yield around 4%, 4.5%, 5%, which is solid as well at this level. AUD 3.13. If I look at the past kind of sector transactions, it seems to be a bit light to us.
Well, again, what I would say is, that it is a trade-off now between upfront certainty today versus the time, capital investment, execution risk, market risk to realize the 2030 standalone value. I am not going to comment on multiples and that sort of thing. I am not going to comment on multiples versus other deals that have been done because they were done in different environments with different businesses.
Sure. Just unpicking some of the comments you made earlier, and good to see that significant cost being classified above the line. I think that is good. Just on the fiscal 2027 guidance range, and you said the negative is around the IT investments, some capability into 2030. Can you give us a bit more flavor in terms of the cost range around some of that, the payback period, and how should we be thinking beyond fiscal 2027?
Yeah, sure. No worries. I think just to orientate people, because there is a lot of different IT being talked about. We are talking now about the FY 2027 guidance, the AUD 500 million-AUD 530 million. We are talking about when I built up sort of the four buckets, we are talking about the fourth bucket, which was the negative bucket associated with IT and Blueprint 2030. Again, there are three buckets that sit within that fourth bucket. The first one is cyber. It is a small amount of incremental spend on cyber. In terms of the second part is the safety, sort of, I guess, IT spend. Remember, we have installed, and the live stats are in the deck in terms of IVMS, pedestrian detection. We are almost done on pedestrian detection across the yellow gear fleet. We are about 66% on the IVMS. We have stood up the control room. It is live. It runs 24/7.
That all comes at a cost. As we ramp that program into the assets, what we see is you have the cost, but the benefits take some time to come because you create the knowledge of what's going on. You then address that, and then those events drop over time. We are seeing that drop occur, but that will probably take a year for those benefits to appear against that sort of safety-related spend. We have analog companies that have seen peer companies overseas that have done this sort of work, have seen those costs get offset by the benefits. The third part is the spend associated with the sort of advanced ways of working.
This is all about making sure we can get at the benefits of CustomerConnect by having enough data analytics, AI capability to sit on top of that and get at that 260 basis points of margin expansion. That is things like how we really operationalize and scale the pricing engine, smarter selling, the branch assistant, all these sorts of things that will really make sure we just can get the value from our scale and make that our advantage.
Just around the cost range, cost bucket, around some of these three buckets, then looks like safety should be finished by 2027. What about?
Yeah. So that's it. I think, cyber is an incremental spend. The safety will get to steady state during 2027. Then, I think, we will have a stable amount of spend on Blueprint 2030 and the sort of advanced ways of working. Again, these are not huge numbers, but when you add the three together, it is enough that it is worth mentioning as sort of an offset against why, and I guess, analyst mind, did we not get above that AUD 515 million number. This is one of the key reasons that dragged us back down.
Sure. Just a final one. I mean, Health business challenges, I mean, I think you've highlighted on the call, but I'm looking at the EBIT margin, 9.7% in second half, kind of significantly down versus what delivered in FY 2025, first half 2026. I mean, how should we be thinking about that business returning to the normalized levels in the future? Is it more 2027- 2028, or most of which should be towards the second half of 2027?
Yeah. I think you should think that, yeah, so predominantly that change is caused by health. You're right. I think you should probably think about a couple of things. Remember in FY 2026, we had the Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred. Alfred took the roof off the Yatala Facility, and that's the call-out that we made around that sort of AUD 2.5 million of costs. That roof is a really good roof now. It's been replaced, and that came online late sort of 2026. I think unfortunately, the repair of that roof wasn't in our control. It was the landlord's job, and it took just much longer than expected. That was delayed. We brought product destruction online in Dandenong, in the Health business. Again, we brought it online, but it was significantly later than what we'd hoped. But again, it's online now.
Liquid injection in Silverwater we brought online during 2026. It was, again, took longer than we had expected. But again, it's online now. I think, on the technical sales side of Health, probably one thing we didn't get right in the restructure was we probably didn't respect the technical sales in Health capability that we needed to have going forward. We addressed that. We've got 8 extra technical salespeople in Health that we brought in over the back end of the first half. Again, that's sort of addressed for 2027 and wrapping up. We didn't get at some of that revenue leakage work in the Health business. I know that sounds very negative, but those are like the four or five things that combined that made Health underdeliver.
Oh, and of course, in 2026, the fundamental other issue was we had the major customer in Victoria recontract. We got 90% of the volume, but we got it at a much lower margin. When we said before it was like a reset year, it was a reset to that contract. That's fine. We've got the volume now we'll just grow from here.
Are you able to clarify how much is Health, I mean, in terms of the range contribution to that segment for, I mean, the EBIT contribution Health is to that, to the memory—
We gave you a clue to that on the bridge slide. If you look at the bridging slide, which is Richie's favorite slide. It is slide nine. The clue there is to look at the 7 for Health. That is what we are trying to catch up.
Okay. Thank you. Leave it there. Thanks.
No worries. Go ahead.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Nathan Reilly from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hey, Nathan.
Morning, gents. I am just looking at the free cash flow guidance, and thanks very much for the building blocks there you have given me for 2027.
Yeah.
I am just trying to get a sense of how that might look beyond that timeframe. So in terms of those underlying adjustments, IT, your use of provisions, do they kind of drop out into FY 2028?
Yeah.
Or is there some sort of base there that remains?
Thank you for the question. We appreciate able to give you an answer on that. The underlying adjustments, the sort of the AUD 40 million - AUD 50 million, obviously, that drops away because CustomerConnect doesn't reoccur and the muni software doesn't need to be replaced a second time. The prior year underlying adjustments that Nigel called out, which is another sort of circa AUD 40 million, that's a combination of the MRL levy issue, the enterprise agreement, and legacy waste. Again, they don't repeat either. Immediately, you see that sort of 80 step up in FY 2028 before you even start with then obviously, you start to see Blueprint 2.0 acceleration and EBIT growth and obviously, that sort of thing. Landfill remediation in the longer term.
Remember we said to you it's AUD 180 million over FY 2027, 2028, and 2029, which is code for sort of AUD 60 million a year. We expect that to drop to more like AUD 30 million a year from FY 2030 onwards. I know that's not the exact timing of your question, but I give you the clue for the other items in the cash flow building blocks that will move over time. Does that help?
Yeah. No, you anticipated my second question, so well done there. I guess just on the CapEx, in terms of the cash CapEx guidance of AUD 360 million, I mean, that's consistent with that sort of envelope that you've referenced previously in terms of the level of CapEx that you think you'd be needing on a longer-term view?
It is. Just remember the exceptions that we've said to that. We've said that it's AUD 410 million on a go-forward basis. What we've also said to you is that excludes major capital spend on things like Dynon Road, where that is sort of AUD 40 million-AUD 45 million, is that right?
Yeah.
Yeah, AUD 45 million. The timing of that spend is kind of 2028 onwards. It also obviously excludes if there's energy from waste spend, and it also excludes Lucas Heights extension CapEx. We're not sure whether we can fit that within the capital envelope at the moment. The first spend there would be sort of 2028 onwards.
Brilliant. Thanks for that. Final question from me, just in relation to the bid.
Can you give me just a sense of the level of engagement that you've had from other parties or interested parties in terms of conversations, informal conversations or otherwise, over the more recent timeframe or whatnot?
Really, Nathan, there is a no shop, no talk requirement in the, in the process deed, so there has not been any discussion with any other parties. Yeah, I think that is unfortunately the short answer to your question.
That will do. Thanks very much.
No worries. Thanks, mate.
Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Cameron McDonald from E&P. Please go ahead.
Hi, Cam.
Yeah. Good day, Mark. Sorry. I have been caught on other calls, so apologies if you have answered this.
Of course.
But just in terms of the guidance of the, take the midpoint of AUD 515 million, how does that relate back to a greater than 15% EPS growth rate for FY 2027?
Yeah. I think, clearly, let me try and explain that to you. Remember, we break into four buckets. The first is FY 2026 was weaker than we had anticipated. We are starting probably around AUD 20 million behind where we would have liked, and you can look at the bridging slide for that, and that is really in IS, in Health and in OTS. The second part is that when we did our bottom-up budget build, we saw a higher proportion of landfill volumes were project related. They are less predictable than what we have in muni and C&I volumes going through the landfill. Because of that, we think that the landfill volumes are not going to necessarily grow at the same rate as prior periods. In resource recovery, we are seeing glass being separated from commingled bins. Remember the Victorian mandate is you must offer the fourth bin if you are a council.
We are also seeing a ramp up in CDS and Vic-Tas, and that is taking volume out of the commingled bin that would come to us. The third, we had to dedicate a significant amount of time to fuel-related costs and supporting suppliers and third parties in that Middle East conflict time. The color there is we had sort of 18,000 invoices we needed to deal with. We have 439 suppliers. That is just on the C&I side and then you go across to 109 muni contracts that we need to manage very actively. That meant we did not get at the non-labor indirect costs that we were targeting. We are starting the year behind where we would have liked there. Team did a great job on fuel. It is just that that put us behind on the other part.
Then, like we talked about, I do not know whether you heard, Cam, but we were talking about in the IT strategy, we need a bit more spend on cyber. We have got the cost of setting up the IVMS control room, installing all the PDD and IVMS and monitoring costs. That spend will not have the benefits this year. It will flow through in sort of the future year. Then, there is also the spend associated with putting more capability to support CustomerConnect and data analytics to make sure we can get to that 260 basis points of margin growth against spend today for benefit going forward.
I think the other thing I would say to you is that when you think about the AUD 500 million - AUD 530 million, as I said earlier on the call, again, I will just go over it again because I think it is important, is that, we are reviewing the underlying adjustment policies. We have budgeted on that basis. That means that the only adjustments that we expect to make to the statutory result is the IT transformation costs. Those things like we have talked about before, like legacy EAs and stuff, that is all going to get included in the underlying results. There should be no surprises when we come to results going forward. That is probably the bridge between that, and that leads to us not being at that north of 15% comment that you made before, and obviously, we are just at slightly sub 10%.
Well, yeah, based on the numbers you have given so far, and making a very quick adjustment to the non-cash interest that goes through, you are closer to mid-single-digit EPS growth, are not you, from the AUD 233 million?
I do not. Yeah, I do not know. That is not the same number I have got in my mind, but happy to take it offline.
Sorry, the AUD 223 million. Yeah. It would be interesting to unpick that, particularly given this is a significant change since the April Investor Day. I am a little bit surprised that things have changed so quickly, yet you stand up and say that you are going to deliver 10%-15% EPS growth CAGR out to 2030, yet within four months, you are not even within that range anymore.
Well, I think, in my view, we have been over it. Yeah. We have been really clear with you as to what has caused that weakness, that we have just walked through. I think we have got clear weakness in IS, in Health, and in OTS all at the same time, which means that that starting point is weaker. Plus that, we have got some incremental cost that we do need to spend, that it has a cost now but a benefit later on. You cannot get at some of that 260 basis point margin increase if you do not put a layer on top of CustomerConnect, so you can use the smarts and the digitization that we have installed. Similarly, the IVMS PDD control room spend is real spend.
People who run these fleets understand that you make the change and there is a year-long lag whilst the behaviors change that then leads to the savings. That is unfortunately just the situation we find ourselves in and where we have done the detailed modeling. This is where we are at. Like I said to you before also, this is a much cleaner guidance because we are changing that underlying adjustments policy and you should expect there will be less in that bucket and there is only AUD 45 million after that IT transformational spend and that drops away in 2028.
Yep. Okay. Thank you.
No worries.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.