Good morning, welcome to Dalrymple Bay Infrastructure's results for the 12 months ended 31 December 2025 or FY25. I'm Michael Riches, CEO, with me today is Stephanie Commons, our CFO. Today, we will be providing an update on our financial performance for FY25, including detailing the outcomes of our capital allocation review process that has led to a 7.7% increase in our distribution guidance for TIC Year 2025-2026 from the prior guidance provided in May 2025, as well as detailing some of our key strategic priorities for 2026. We continued to improve our financial performance and grow distributions to shareholders during FY25. EBITDA rose 5.2% year-on-year to AUD 294.3 million.
Funds from operations, or FFO, was AUD 173.3 million, up 10.6% on FY24. This excluded the one-off early repayment costs and associated tax benefit arising from our December 2025 refinance. Slide 12 provides some detail on this reconciliation. We continue to invest back into the growth of our business, with approximately AUD 429.6 million of capital projects underway via our non-expansionary CapEx or Non-Ex CapEx program. We raised facilities of AUD 1.07 billion to repay the 2020 USPP notes and repay and cancel AUD 410 million of revolving credit facilities, substantially lowering interest costs on the debt prepaid and providing enhanced flexibility and diversity to DBI's balance sheet.
This refinancing proved that DBI has the credit profile to be able to access more flexible and better price debt capital over the long term. This is a key strategic priority for the business in 2026. The strong financial performance resulted in a distribution of AUD 0.24625 per share being returned to security holders during FY25, an 11.4% increase on the prior year. Importantly, we continued to operate in a safe and environmentally responsible manner with zero incidents that caused a serious injury. DBI continues to drive a broad range of initiatives, delivering improved returns for security holders. It is important to note that our unique business model and investment-grade balance sheet will continue to support our strong distribution profile.
From this foundation, we are focused on revenue initiatives and cost savings that require no capital deployment, effectively enabling a direct flow-through of the revenue and reduced costs on a post-tax basis to cash flow, increasing our FFO and the ability to grow distributions for security holders. In FY25, some of the value-creating initiatives undertaken by the DBI management team included revenue initiatives such as optimizing capacity for customers, managing security arrangements for customers more effectively, and deriving additional value through NECAP, such as our NECAP series Y, all of which we expect to deliver greater FFO in FY26. Cost-saving initiatives that, despite the impact of inflation, saw G&A costs remain constant year-on-year. Finally, financing initiatives, which improve the flexibility of and diversity to DBI's balance sheet, delivering substantial future interest cost savings and opening up further sources of more flexible and better price debt capital.
These revenue and cost initiatives have an important impact on our ability to increase distributions. At our FY25 half-year results, I indicated that we would be undertaking a capital allocation review. That review has now been completed, three key decisions leading to the step change in distribution guidance that was announced today. Firstly, sustainable incremental revenue and cost-saving initiatives will, post-tax, be applied in full to distributions to security holders. As an example, delivering an AUD 5 million increase in FFO through these initiatives would equate to a 1 cent per security increase in distributions. Secondly, it is intended to increase the utilization of debt to finance NECAP expenditure, resulting in a more balanced mix of debt and operating cash flow being used to fund NECAP.
The utilization of operating cash flow to substantially fund NECAP in the last four years has been a key factor in the creation of the significant headroom in our debt covenants and investment-grade rating criteria, which now permits the increased debt funding of NECAP. As you can see from the chart on the bottom left of this slide, and there's further detail on slide 13, our leverage remains well below debt covenant levels. The addition in FY27 of over AUD 400 million to the NECAP asset base and the resultant uplift in TIC will further drive leverage improvements. Finally, and most importantly, with reduced reliance on FFO to fund NECAP projects, the distribution payout ratio can be increased to the upper end of the 60%-80% payout ratio target band.
The outcome of the review is a step change uplift in distribution guidance for TIC Year 2025, 2026. The combination of the strong FFO performance and the decisions from this review has resulted in distribution guidance for the remainder of TIC Year 2025, 2026 of AUD 0.26375 per security. We expect, in the usual manner, to a further assess distribution guidance in May this year, once the inflation and NECAP amounts and the resultant TIC for TIC Year 2026, 2027 are known. This uplift we are announcing today represents a 7.7% increase in the distribution guidance for TIC Year 2025, 2026 on the guidance that was provided in May 2025.
Along with the step change in distribution guidance, DBI also announced today a Q4 2025 distribution of AUD 0.0675 per security, a 10.2% increase on previous guidance for the Q4 2025 distribution. That distribution will be paid on 19 March 2026. It should be noted that the impact of the tax deductions associated with the early repayment costs incurred on 12 December 2025 debt refinancing, has resulted in no tax being payable by the group in respect of FY25. There is a consequential reduction in franking credits to DBI, otherwise expected to be available in respect of the Q4 2025 and FY26 distributions. The Q4 2025 announced distribution is therefore a combination of unfranked dividend and repayment of loan notes.
Importantly, we continue to retain our target of 3% to 7% per annum growth in distributions for the foreseeable future, subject to business developments and market conditions, meaning this uplift today in guidance will have a positive compounding impact in future years. I will now hand over to Stephanie, our CFO, to talk through our financial results in more detail.
Thanks, Michael. Good morning, everyone. Just on slide 10, for those following the presentation, our debt refinance. As Michael mentioned earlier, we raised AUD 1.07 billion in debt in December 2025. We were continuing to assess the debt markets over 2025 and were regularly assessing whether the benefits of a refinancing warranted the costs associated with an early repayment of any of the USPP notes. In late 2025, DBI determined that the compression in spreads over the year, ultimately resulting in a 1.56% weighted average margin on refinanced debt, compared to a 3.26% weighted average margin on the 2020 USPP notes, together with other financial and non-financial benefits, warranted execution of the refinance.
The early repayment costs, which comprised cross-currency swap rate costs and make-whole amounts, which totaled AUD 103 million, with an associated AUD 27 million tax benefit, were funded by drawing on the new revolving bank facilities, as well as utilizing funds we realized from the conversion of in-the-money value in our remaining cross-currency swaps. The increase in leverage resulting from the refinance remains well within our debt covenant and our investment grade credit rating criteria, and there exists sufficient headroom in the new revolver facilities to continue to fund our NECAP program. The refinance delivered and will continue to deliver significant benefits to DBI security holders over the longer term, well above the direct net AUD 75 million of reduced interest costs through to 2030.
We expect the strong credit profile of DBI, reflected in this refinance, will provide us with significant opportunity to access more flexible and better priced debt markets going forward, and assessing those markets to capture a further reduction in interest costs and to reduce refinancing risk is a strategic priority for the management team in 2026. In terms of profit and loss statements, our FY25 revenue and EBITDA are both up on prior year, demonstrating the resilience of our business model and the focus that we've had on incremental revenue creation and our disciplined approach to costs. The TIC revenue increased by 3.9% in FY25, which is in line with the increase in the TIC rate.
As a reminder, handling costs represent the amount invoiced to DBI by the third-party operator of the terminal, noting that the operator is owned by a subset of the terminal customers, and those handling costs are fully recharged to customers of the terminal, as can be seen by the matching handling cost line. Accordingly, these costs have no impact on DBI's EBITDA. The table at the bottom right of the slide provides a reconciliation of the components of the net finance costs that went through in 2025. In the cash flow statement, you can see that capital expenditure represents the spend on DBI's NECAP projects. This spend increased in 2025, driven by the progress on the major asset replacements underway in our NECAP program. This current NECAP spend is anticipated to contribute meaningfully to our TIC revenue from July 2027 onwards.
In the appendices, we have provided a reconciliation of the NECAP spend to our statutory accounts, and we've also provided reconciliations of net finance costs and income tax. DBI maintains an investment grade balance sheet with S&P and Fitch, who both reaffirmed their ratings during 2025 at BBB and BBB-, respectively. Fitch has, in the last month, reconfirmed their investment grade rating with an improvement from a stable outlook to a positive outlook. We currently have AUD 2.25 billion of total debt facilities, of which AUD 2.07 billion was drawn at 31 December 2025. Our drawn debt has a weighted average tenor of 6.3 years. We continue to maintain strong performance against our key coverage metrics, with substantial headroom to debt service, leverage covenants, and rating agency criteria.
In the appendix, we've provided a reconciliation of our borrowings disclosed in our financial statements to our drawn debt amount. In terms of hedging, all of our foreign currency debt remains 100% hedged, swap back to AUD, so DBI has no FX risk for either in-interest or principal payments. DBI manages its interest rate risk via a mix of fixed rate debt issuance and interest rate swaps. We're currently reviewing our longer term hedging strategy to take account of the expected change in the debt markets that DBI is able to access in the future, with maintaining a strongly hedged position on interest rates as a priority.
DBI's weighted all-in interest rate for its debt book will be approximately 4.63% until mid-2026, and will step up to around 6.5% thereafter, when the block of five-year interest rate swaps that were transacted in May 2021 roll off and are replaced with forward start swaps that we transacted during 2022 and 2024. The 6.5% weighted average interest rate from mid-2026 is well below the 8% that we previously guided at the HY 2025 results and reflects the positive impact of the December refinance on our borrowing costs. I'll now hand back to Michael.
Thanks very much, Steph. If I can draw your attention to slide 16 in respect of organic growth in our NECAP program. Our NECAP program has been and will continue to be a source of organic growth and uplift in our TIC. It is important to remember that DBI earns a return on and of NECAP expenditure. The TIC adjusted each 1 July to account for NECAP projects commissioned during the previous 12 months. NECAP also includes an interest during construction component, ensuring a return on capital expended whilst projects are being undertaken. As referred to earlier, the NECAP program will be funded by a greater proportion of debt than has historically been the case. We have adequate capacity within our debt facilities to execute on that funding requirement.
DBI's capital allocation, operational expertise, and relationship management has continued to ensure a smooth facilitation of the NECAP program. All committed NECAP is fully approved by all customers. With committed projects underway today and based on current asset management plans, a similar amount of capital spend is projected, but is yet uncommitted over the next five years. NECAP remains a significant growth driver for our business and will continue to add meaningful value to customers and security holders. The chart on slide 17 illustrates the positive impact of how our investment in NECAP will lead to future revenue growth via an uplift in our TIC. If the Shiploader 1A and Reclaimer 4 projects are completed as expected, together with all other committed NECAP projects, our TIC would increase by approximately AUD 0.70 per ton in TIC Year 2027, 2028. That is from 1 July 2027.
To place the contribution of NECAP into perspective, every AUD 0.70 per ton uplift in the TIC adds approximately AUD 59 million to our revenue base. Slide 18 provides you with a self-explanatory update on the progress of our largest NECAP project, Shiploader 1A. The project commenced in April 2023, with commissioning and existing machine removal expected by Q4 of 2026. The project remains on schedule and on budget, as does the Reclaimer 4 project, our other major NECAP project. Across industry, finding major projects that over this time period are on schedule and on budget has not been common. Our projects team is to be commended on the quality of their work and their commitment to these projects that has delivered this outcome.
We continue to make that a strong focus. Delivery of these projects over 2026 is a key strategic priority for the management team. In regards to our 8X expansion project, we retain significant expansion optionality to accommodate metallurgical coal exports from the Bowen Basin. As a reminder, 8X is expected to deliver up to 14.9 million tons per annum of additional capacity, with the option of delivering that capacity incrementally via a phased approach. We reviewed the DBT access queue during 2025 and did not accept renewals for customers with indefinite capacity requirements. The queue, however, remains at over 29 million tons per annum. Therefore, we believe there is demand for the 8X project. The timing of that demand is subject to a variety of factors associated with current mine expansions and new mine developments.
We continue to explore opportunities to optimize the utilization of existing capacity in parallel with the 8X expansion. Ultimately, the provision of capacity in the most efficient manner available will deliver the best long-term outcomes for DBI and its customers. As we focus on generating long-term security holder value, we will naturally explore opportunities to grow our business in alignment with our current risk profile. Our competitive advantages will be key guides in the opportunities we consider. As a reminder, our competitive advantages include: our regulatory expertise, where we have demonstrated an ability to navigate complex regulatory situations to deliver substantive value. Our capital deployment capability, demonstrated through a strong track record of successful execution of multiple major projects.
Our operational expertise, where through our substantial oversight of terminal operations, we've been able to create positive operational benefits, particularly where balancing the interests of multiple stakeholders in the supply chain. Our funding capacity, where our successful execution of the December refinance and numerous previous debt programs has created access to multiple debt capital funding sources. Finally, and importantly, our key relationships, which have been developed with customers and key stakeholders over many years, allowing constructive and positive negotiations that have delivered win-win outcomes. Applying those skills and capabilities to enhance and/or unlock the value in other businesses or assets, will be the lens through which we assess opportunities. In doing so, however, we remain disciplined and mindful of the key attributes of our existing business. Any opportunities pursued will take into account those factors.
Finally, focusing on the street, the key strategic priorities for the management team for the next 12 months. With our take-or-pay contracts and future earnings profile, DBI is well positioned to continue to deliver long-term growth in total security holder returns. Our priorities over the next 12 months will include: delivering further organic revenue growth through new revenue initiatives and the inclusion of the cost of completed NECAP projects in the NECAP asset base. Completion of the Shiploader 1A and Reclaimer 4 projects on time and on budget. Progressing opportunities to capture long-term Bowen Basin metallurgical coal production via our continued review of the use of terminal capacity, including optimization of existing capacity and our economic assessments of the 8X Project.
Further assessment, as Steph mentioned, of refinancing opportunities to improve balance sheet flexibility, reduce refinancing exposure, and access other sources of debt capital to reduce interest costs over the long term, whilst maintaining an investment-grade credit rating. Identifying opportunities for diversification through acquisition of assets that have a similar risk profile to the existing DBI business, and which enable value to be created through our competitive advantages. We will continue to explore and assess opportunities for alternative uses of DBT, but within our existing resource base. Finally, we will deliver whole-of-terminal ESG and sustainability initiatives, many of which are set out in our sustainability report, which was also released today. Thank you very much for your attention, and I'll now hand back to the operator to take questions, and we'll respond to those.
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 are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. The first question today comes from Andre Fromyhr with UBS. Please go ahead.
Thank you, good morning. Just wanted to start with the outcomes of the financial review. I understand the new guidances for the payout ratio at the upper end of the target range, 60%-80%. I also understand that sitting behind that is a new assumption that you can fund more NECAP projects with debt. I'm curious if that's a, you know, structural permanent change to how NECAP is funded, why you couldn't have at the same time, actually lifted that target payout ratio range?
I think, thanks, Andre, for the question. It's certainly the intention at the moment, and we will continue to assess, you know, capital allocation and make sure it's appropriate going forward for the business. It's certainly the intention at the moment to fund our NECAP with a greater proportion of, of debt.... You will have seen our FFO payout ratio has historically been around 70%, pretty much in the middle of the, of the target range we've, we've provided. As mentioned, the intention is to increase it, the higher end of that range. We think at the moment, that remains appropriate, the 60%-80%.
Whether going forward, we, you know, the board assesses that, I think will depend on how we progress with some of the initiatives around looking at our financing options going forward. We certainly think, you know, the December refinance has created an environment, particularly in the current debt markets, where it, it presents opportunities for us, may well lower, you know, interest costs, in, in the future. In those circumstances, depending on, you know, FFO and what we need to utilize it for, yeah, there may be an opportunity to increase the, the payout ratio. At this stage, we still believe 60%-80%, yeah, represents an appropriate number to ensure we can continue to grow our distribution strongly, but retain, you know, capital, yeah, as required, particularly for, for NECAP projects. Yeah, we think it'll be...
Certainly the intention is for it to be at the, at the upper end of that range. Whether there's an opportunity to change that range going forward, yeah, that always remains, you know, something that we will, we will constantly assess.
Okay. Yeah, thanks. I've just got another question about the NECAP spend on the, on, on the ship loaders.
Mm.
I mean, I guess you're, you're active on Ship Loader 1 at the moment, but I'm wondering, can you provide an update on sort of the age and replacement schedule of, of the other ship loaders at the moment? And I'm also curious that in the 8X costing, the 4th Ship Loader is quite a bit more expensive than, than, you know, what you're spending on the SL1 replacement. Just wondering if you could reconcile-
Yeah.
You know, what other works go into that?
Yeah, sure. Ship Loader 2 and 3 are actually undertaking this, a NECAP project at the moment, which was part of the NECAP W series, which is undertaking a study for the replacement or refurbishment of Ship Loader 2, and it will also include an assessment around Ship Loader 3 as well. Ship Loader 3 is about five years younger than Ship Loader 2, but is actually because it services berth 3 and 4, has actually shipped more tons through Ship Loader 3 than Ship Loader 2. Both are getting to the point where refurbishment or replacement is becoming necessary, just from a whole of life cycle cost perspective.
That study, which we expect to be completed during the course of 2026, will give us some guidance, and we will talk to you as around, you know, what is the appropriate approach to either replacement or refurbishment of those ship loaders. We should have, by the end of this year, a bit of a pathway towards how we're thinking about the timing of those replacement or refurbishment of those ship loaders.
In terms of the second part of your question on Ship Loader 4 as part of 8X Project, the reason for the change of cost or the additional cost is that Ship Loader 4 not only involves the new ship loader itself, it also involves effectively a new outloading string that is required to ensure that we can actually get the coal to Ship Loader 4. It'll need new conveyor belts, new galleries, new trippers to effectively, which we'll have to build so that the coal can come from the stockpile out to Ship Loader 4. Obviously there's currently 3 outloading strings, which takes the coal to each of the current 3 ship loaders.
For Ship Loader 4, we have to build probably not a whole new outloading string, but it'll be, you know, substantially that. That's where the additional cost associated with Ship Loader 4 is derived from.
Thanks very much.
The next question comes from Cameron McDonald with E&P Financial Group. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Question actually probably for Stephanie Commons, Michael Riches. Just the AUD 75 million worth of cumulative interest savings, how should we think about the phasing of that, you know, relative to the years that is saved over? You know, how does that interact? Because you've previously obviously given guidance about a step up in the interest bill as well. Does, and this looks like that's removed that profile as well, please.
Thanks, Cameron. The answer to your first question, that AUD 75 million assumes that when we come to refinance the USPP 2020 under the, you know, previously, we had an amount maturing at the end of 2027 and a larger amount maturing at the end of 2030, and we have simply taken whatever interest we were going to be paying for those two tranches and replacing it with the weighted average margin of this refinance. It's just the net difference. There is a small amount of weighting in the first year, but the majority, and then the rest of it is really just over about 3 years. I think it's about AUD 103 million, AUD 183 million in 2027, and close to around AUD 500 million, AUD 400 million-AUD 500 million in 2030.
Then there's a small amount in 2032 that's actually not included in that AUD 75 million. It's above, above that. Also, that AUD 75 million is a net number, but that's probably the way to think about it. It's relatively even, but slightly weighted towards the first two years. In terms of the second question, which I've forgotten, so it was...
It was the previous step up.
Oh, the step up. Yeah, the step up.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. That step up, a lot of that was based on the obviously, what hasn't changed is the base rate being replaced by the interest rate swaps and the fixed rate 2023 notes that have been left fixed, staying in place. Most of the change is really coming from a combination of the lower margins on the refinancing that's replaced the 2020, and also the lower margins on what we expected the NECAP funding to be. Obviously, the NECAP funding that we expected to draw between now and beyond 2026 was gonna be at a higher rate. That NECAP funding that we already had drawn and that we expect to draw in future, that was gonna be a lot more expensive.
We refinanced all our revolvers at a much lower rate. We're also just doing a bit of analysis to see to what extent the base rate may have impacted that. I wouldn't have expected it to be too much because I think the base rate we had hasn't changed too much from what our assumptions were to what we now think they're going to be. I think most of it is really on the margins, on the revolvers and the savings on the USPP, which is permanent savings there.
Perhaps just to add to that, Cam, I think you can obviously... We will still have an overall step up in interest costs come mid-2026 as a result of the roll-off of the cheap, 2021 swaps and the replacement with, you know, new swaps that were put in place over 2022 and 2024. There will be a step up, and I think, yeah, probably where you should look is, as we've said in the presentation, we're expecting across the whole debt book, an average interest rate of about 8% for, yeah, going forward from mid-2026. Now, that's reduced down to 6.5%, thereabout.
If you want to think about it in a holistic way, you'd sort of look at, okay, what would have been the debt payments on, you know, call it close enough to AUD 2 billion on 8% against what they'd be on AUD 2 billion on 6.5%, and think about the overall interest cost change. Then obviously we're at 4.63% now, so the uplift is gonna be, you know, between 4.63%-6.5%. Whatever that is, 1.85% on the, on the debt book, is probably the way to think about where our overall interest cost increase is going to go.
I think there's also the assumptions we would have made around what it would have cost to refinance the 2020s when they did.
Yeah
come up for refinancing. I think the fact that that's come right in is, we would have assumed a much higher rate that we would have needed to pay to refinance that.
Yeah.
Great, thank you. Then just Michael, just capacity optimization initiatives, like, what, what was the benefit in this period and what further opportunities are you currently working on?
You see the other revenue line for this year is about AUD 3.5 million. That, that was a combination of things, including capacity optimization, some work on security arrangements with customers. So, you know, we expect that number, you know, on an annualized basis, That other revenue to be higher, and that will be, you know, largely driven out of capacity optimization initiatives. We still think there's, yeah, opportunities around capacity optimization. It's probably, it's been, you know, as you'll all be aware, quite a bit of, you know, flux in the, in the market at the moment, in the coal market generally. Anglo are now, you know, looking to go out to reprosecute the sale of their assets.
Fitzroy have gone through a sale process in relation to the AMCI ownership. Obviously, Bowen Coking Coal has now been bought. We expect with some of those things playing out over the course of 2026 and getting a bit better handle on what those outcomes might be, there certainly should be further opportunity for capacity optimization. The terminal still not running at the capacity level we would hope. The beginning of this year has been significantly impacted by weather, particularly Cyclone Koji. We're getting through the end of the wet season, which is positive, and we do see coal availability from miners starting to ramp up. And that's very positive, I think, for the industry generally.
We still see there being pockets of potential for, you know, future capacity optimization, you know, going forward.
All right, thank you.
The next question comes from Samuel Seow with Citi. Please go ahead. Sam, your line is open. You may ask your question.
Oh, thanks. Morning, all. Can I please ask on the AUD 0.70 NECAP driven TIC upgrade? I think previously you talked that might have been AUD 0.63. We've got, like, a 10% uplift, where the uplift in the NECAP schedule appears minimal. Just wondering what's driving that. You know, is it the higher 10-year bond yield? If so, you know, can you perhaps provide some color around what's embedded in that assumption of AUD 0.70 from a yield perspective? Thanks.
Yeah, sure, Sam. I think it is a combination of 2 things. The previous, you know, AUD 0.63 didn't include NECAP Y, which was approved in the second half of last year. That's AUD 24.2 million. That's a bit over, you know, 5% on what, what we were previously contemplating. That's, yeah, probably, yeah, half or so of that uplift. The rest is, you know, we, you know, the 10-year government bond rate has definitely crept up, you know, as we've seen across all bond yields. Yeah, we've applied a sort of assumption around 4.5% for that bond yield going forward, you know, at least in the short term.
That's, you know, been the driver above what our previous expectation was, around bond yields for the other, you know, 3%-4% uplift. They're the two key drivers that move it from AUD 0.63 to AUD 0.70, you know, and, yeah, we'll also, you know, have the potential where we're putting our proposal to customers in the next couple of months around NECAP Z, which will be in that sort of AUD 30 million-AUD 50 million range, as we sort of generally, forecast, as subject to obviously customer approval. Yeah, that'll further grow the, the TIC as well, but that's not included in the, in the AUD 0.70.
Got it. That's very helpful. Thanks for that. Then maybe on the 6.5% weighted cost of debt in the second half of 2026, it implies that basically your base rate might have been a bit lower as well, maybe around 130 basis points, as well as the lower margin. I just want to ask 2 questions. One, is that right? Then two, when you think about further refinancing of the other half, you know, what are your considerations? Is it really would appear that, you know, both base rates and margin are still attractive even with the recent tick up in yield. Yeah, just what are your, your considerations about pulling that, that, I guess, second bullet? Thanks.
Sure. On the AUD 0.065, yeah, as I said, it is primarily margin driven. The base rates, we've adjusted for whatever the forecast is on the current, you know, curves look like. To a certain extent, our debt is either the debt that was fixed previously, which is the 2023 USPP note, the base rate within that hasn't changed. We've just swapped that back from $ to AUD, but kept it fixed. All the other swaps we have in place, that start, that we build forward start swaps we put in place, they're still there. There's an amount of unhedged debt that is susceptible to slope rate, but we don't feel that our assumptions in there...
That's probably gone changed a little bit, but not substantially, I wouldn't have expected. Most of the change in that rate is really margin driven, and it's driven by both the existing refinances that we've had, the cost of funding future debt draws to fund the NECAP, and also the yeah, the repayment on the USPP that we would have assumed would have been there, that isn't there now. That's, that's there's not really much of a base rate in there. In terms of how we're thinking about the other half of our debt, we're certainly looking at that this year to see if there's any opportunity to refinance any of the other U.S. private placement debt. We will go through another exercise this year to have a look at that.
Again, we'll make that assessment as to whether or not the costs of repaying that make that worthwhile, given market conditions at the time and access to different markets. We do have a lot of our debt sitting now in very flexible revolving facilities, so we do have a lot of flexibility about approaching another market at some time. If markets are very positive and particularly if they can deliver a cheaper rate of interest than what we are currently paying, even under our existing revolvers. You know, we've got a lot of flexibility this year, both for refinancing existing drawn debts into new markets if it's attractive, or looking at some of the older, fixed rate US private placement debt to see if there's any benefits in, in paying that out early.
Great. That's, that's helpful, guys. Just maybe just one clarification: so what amount of your, your debt is actually floating at the moment?
Currently, I think in the presentation, it's sitting at around 83%, but that is stepping down-
... over the next-
That's what's fixed, not what's floating.
Oh, sorry.
Just to clarify, Sam, about 83% fixed at the moment.
17% float rate at the moment on what's drawn at 31 December. If we were to draw anything out, if we were to draw anything else, there's a, there's a chart there that sort of shows our hedge profile in one of the, in the slide as well. It looks like it, it, the hedging percentage or the fixed hedge percentage does step down to around the sort of mid-60, sort of 70% by the end of the decade.
Mm.
That's assuming the amount with debt withdrawn today doesn't change. It doesn't take into account... Clearly, we're gonna be doing additional debt draws to fund NECAP, and those debt draws on revolvers will be float rate. We do intend to do some sort of hedging program during the year to increase that fixed rate. We, you know, that's something that we're focused on doing probably over the next little while.
Got it. Got it. Thanks a lot, guys.
The next question comes from Ian Myles with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys, congrats on the result. Look, just a couple ones. Just on the tax, are you likely to receive a refund this year and pay pretty much minimal tax this year, and I guess into next year, will you actually pay much franking as a result?
Yeah, we will get a refund this year, but we will start to pay tax during this year as, as well. We expect to generate, you know, franking credits that'll be available either at the very back end of, of this financial year and, and definitely into 2027, so that we sort of return to what has been the normal franking position that has, has applied previously, obviously subject to a few, you know, tax idiosyncrasies, if I- I'd call it that. Generally, we'll, we'll, we'll get back to a franking credit position, yeah, by the end of, by the end of this, this year, and into 2027.
Okay, If I just look at your NECAP program and add up all the programs to finish by June, that's about AUD 55 million of conversion into NECAP. Is that a reasonable expectation, or will it be probably slightly less than that?
It'll actually probably be slightly more.
Any reason why?
'Cause, I mean, I think, two, two, two things. One, you know, we have spent time with all of our customers. Some of those projects were not fully approved by customers, and therefore, had to go through a QCA approval process, which means you sort of have to start that process as it applies to completed projects earlier in the year. You know, when you've got full customer approval, QCA process is a much shorter time period, so we can actually wait longer before we have to submit the, sort of this is our addition to NECAP, and that allows us to complete some of those projects that perhaps weren't otherwise gonna be completed earlier. That's, you know, something that, you know, we've been very conscious about working with customers on to get the most efficient approach.
Yeah, that's predominantly it. The other aspect is we do add IDC to...
Yep
... you know, the, the, project. The amount you see is just the base project cost, and there's...
Yep.
There's IDC as well. I think also, Ian, the date that you see in that NECAP schedule is effectively the date the whole series will be finished. There'll be projects within a series that finish beforehand, but some series might have eight to 12 different projects. There's often a number of projects-
Yep
that are finishing, but the whole series won't be finished until the dates that are indicated there.
Yeah. Should we sort of expect something closer then to AUD 60 million-AUD 70 million sort of in terms of the commission 8X, the, the capitalized interest?
Yeah, that's probably a fair expectation. Yep.
Okay, that's great. Look, just on the interest expense side, like, is it attractive in the current bond market and to debt markets to actually pursue the refinancing of those residual USPPs? Or is it something where the current environment may not be conducive to it?
Look, it's a, I, I think it's one that, you know, we've- as Steph mentioned, we spent basically almost all of 2025 looking at, you know, our USPP debt profile, combination of make-whole payments that we'd have to make in, and obviously, that's back determined against U.S. treasuries, swap rate costs, which were on both, FX rates and interest rates. There's a huge amount of interplay between all of those factors. Towards the end of 2025, we decided with the way credit spreads were, were moving, that it was attractive to do that for the U.S. 2020 notes.
I have to say, you know, and all credit to Steph and our finance team, we moved extraordinarily quickly on that and, you know, did a billion-dollar refinancing in a very, very short period of time because, as we all know, time kills deals, and who knows which way the market's going to move or things are going to change. You know, focus for this year will continue to be, is there opportunity to look at the 2021 USPP notes? 2023 USPP notes, I'll frankly say, are hard because they have such long-dated tenor. You know, we have those, some of those notes go out to 2038, and obviously when you're looking at make-whole and the like for an extended tenor, it has a significant impact. It's not to say it's not possible.
Definitely the 2021s, yeah, we, we certainly think there's opportunity in that space, and we'll continue to assess it. Debt markets continue to be strong. As Steph mentioned, base rates are less of a consideration because of our high hedging position in any case, and it really comes down to whether, you know, we can access markets which give us, yeah, attractive margins that, that make the cost, yeah, worthwhile. And I think there's definitely opportunity there, and that's why it remains a key strategic priority for us, and we'll continue to assess it over the course of this year.
Is there a board policy about how much you're happy to have in bank versus bond markets, given, you know, I know it's a long time ago, but GFC did frighten a lot of people?
Yeah. I think it definitely we have a policy in place. It's reasonably, you know, flexible. You know, we spoke to the board at length about this refinance, and how we think about, you know, the debt stack going forward, what the maturities look like, and, you know, how we make sure that we don't, you know, get caught by having too short tenor debt. I think, you know, as we go forward over into this year, you'll see, you know, how we're progressing around, making sure that we have that appropriate mix of, you know, long-term tenor debt and some shorter-term tenor debt to give us some flexibility and improved pricing.
Yeah, there's also there is definitely board guidelines on how much we can have refinancing in any year and, you know, both for bank and bond, and that's why we try to focus the, the profile of, of maturities that we've got, has always been very good. We do have a lot refinancing now in 2030 because of the revolving facilities that we put in place for five years. Given their bank debt, we do have a lot of flexibility about when we term some of that out, and what we'd like to do is, now that we've got that flexibility, is be a bit more opportune about when we look at markets and what markets we do look at, and whether or not, there are other...
We can bring some more diversity into our debt book apart from just US private placement and bank debt.
That makes sense. One final question. You look at your NECAP spending for the SL2 and SL3. When do you think you'll be at a position to put that on the books, that it's an approved project?
Um, I-
Are they two projects or one?
Not yet determined. They may be two, they may be one. That's the study that we're undertaking at the moment and the discussion we're having with customers. In fact, we have a customer forum today where we'll be talking to customers and giving them a bit of an update on those two projects. I think the studies, you know, will come to a conclusion during the back half of this year around what, you know, is the most effective solution, both in terms of throughput, life cycle costs, and upfront costs.
You know, once we do reach that conclusion, the intention would be for the operator to recommend a project, whether it's both ship loaders, whether it's one ship loader, at sort of this time next year, for us to seek approval, probably in, you know, the, the first half of 2027, to have it as a committed NECAP project from, you know, sometime during 2027.
Okay, look, that's great. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Nathan Lead with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
G'day, Michael and Steph. Just 3 or 4 for me, I hope you don't mind. First up, the Slide 16, the 429.6. Maybe I'm asking Ian's question in a different way, but could you give us what you think the time profile will be of when that spend gets rolled into the asset base? Obviously, it happens across time, so just wondering whether you can help us out there.
Sure. I think as sort of indicated to Ian's question, 1 July 2026, I think, you should assume, you know, AUD 60 million-AUD 70 million without IDC represents a pretty reasonable sort of estimate. Obviously not quite yet determined, but that's probably gonna be close to the mark. The rest of the AUD 429.6 million, almost all of it, not quite, but certainly an amount that it gets you in aggregate above AUD 400 million, would, will, will be added to the asset base in 1 July 2027. If you were to say, I'll just pick some hypotheticals here, AUD 60 million at 1 July 2026, then you'd see AUD 340 million at 1 July 2027. AUD 400 million will, you know, again, or pro- some of those projects still have some time to get completed.
As I said, Shiploader 1A and Reclaimer 4 are the biggest component of those. They remain on budget and on schedule, so that's all looking positive for being added to 1 July 2027. Obviously, you know, things can change, but that would be our best estimate at the moment.
That's great. Thank you. Second question, the, you see the step up in the, in particular in the second half, 25 of the ancillary revenues. Like, how sustainable do you think that level is, or are you looking to grow it even further beyond there?
Definitely looking to grow, grow it beyond there. Yeah, everything in there is almost entirely sustainable revenue, in our view, and we're certainly looking to continue to grow that other revenue line.
Yeah, okay. Corporate costs for FY 26, what's, what are you budgeting on that front?
Yeah, pretty much flat line again.
Wow! Okay, fantastic. On the interest cost, maybe if I could just draw you to within the notes to your accounts. Is that table 22, which has the undiscounted principal and interest, for less than six months and six to 12 months. Is that a pretty good steer where you guys are expecting that to come out? I mean, I'm assuming that is de- as at balance date, no further draws. We'd have to layer that in, but it'd bake in all of the 2025 refinance in it?
Yes, that's correct. Yep.
Yep.
Yes.
It's a good steer. The 6.5% that you're referencing, that doesn't assume that you... I mean, you, you refinance long-term debt into short debt, shorter term bank debt. That doesn't assume that you then-
Yes
... go out and refinance into longer term, right? It could lift above 6.5.
No, I think, I think that's 6.5. That 6.5% step up doesn't assume that we're going to refinance everything at what we've just refinanced. It does include a bit of a buffer to assume that we would refinance into something that would be perhaps slightly longer term. We won't necessarily be doing the kind of three to five year ongoing. We would look to, you know, to the input earlier. You would look to go to markets that give you a mix of bank debt and bond, and a mix of flexibility and short-term pricing, and a little bit more of tenor, and pay potentially a small amount more.
There is a little bit of buffer in that 6.5 to allow for some slightly increased margins on top of what we just refinanced, in order to ensure that we're maintaining tenor. It's... Yeah, I wouldn't expect it to be above 6.5.
Fantastic. Thank you.
Subject to where base rates continue to move, potentially.
Well, yes.
We are strongly hedged.
As well.
Yeah.
Depends on how my hedging goes this year.
Yeah.
Yep. Great, thanks, guys.
The last question comes from Samuel Seow with Citi. Please go ahead.
Oh, thanks, guys. Appreciate you allowing me to follow up. Just a quick question on the other or ancillary re-revenue you've been talking to. Just wondering, is there any costs associated to that, or how should we think about-
No.
Yeah.
Effectively, you know, certainly no capital deployed and no additional cost in the business. I mean, you know, there are always some of these things we, you know, need to get the odd lawyer or two involved in to draft a contract here or there. There's always a little bit of cost. As, you know, Stephanie indicated, you know, the intention is to keep our G&A flat. To the extent there is a bit of cost on some of those initiatives, we'll find the savings elsewhere within the business. Yeah, there is some, but a limited amount of cost associated with those initiatives. As I say, we, we intend to keep G&A flat, so it'll be ensured that any additional costs from what we budget is, is managed elsewhere within the business.
Got it. Could you perhaps frame up then, how big that, that, that line item could get or what you're targeting? Just, just
Yeah, no, it's, I, I think, as I mentioned, there's, we, we think there's significant potential in it. It's not going to be, as I said, it's not gonna be huge, it's not gonna make a, you know, material difference to our EBITDA. We still think there's potential there. I couldn't really give you a number, Sam, for FY 2026 because I think it is dependent on a whole variety of different factors. You know, our focus is, you know, we sort of bite this off in, in AUD 5 million FFO increments and say, you know, if we can add AUD 5 million to FFO, that's, you know, AUD 0.01 per, per security. I think, you know, we got close in FY 2025, and if you looked at it on an annualized basis, pretty, very close.
you know, we're hopeful that FY 2026 will, you know, be able to continue that, that growth in incremental revenue. Yeah, we, we don't have ourselves a target in terms of, you know, Australian dollars. We sort of target the initiatives and try and optimize and maximize the Australian dollars that come out of each of those initiatives.
Probably the only thing I'd add to those is that the focus on them is to make them sustainable.
Mm.
It's, it's rare that we'll go after the quick win that just gives us a bit of an uplift for one year. But structure it in a way that it is, sits there year on year, and that's really the only... They're, they're That's where the focus tends to be, is on the sustainable revenue streams, even if they're relatively small, just by, you know, compounding them, it, it can add up to something that's that does make a difference.
Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that.
There are no further questions at this time. I'll hand the call back to Michael Riches for closing remarks.
Well, thank you very much, everyone, for attending. I really appreciate the questions that we got. Hopefully, we're able to provide you with some constructive answers to those. Certainly, if there's anything further that you need, obviously, Craig Sainsbury is our IR contact, so feel free to reach out to Craig. Obviously, we look forward to talking to you over the course of the next few weeks as necessary, where we will be, you know, out seeing investors towards the end of March. Thanks very much.