Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Experience Co Limited H1 FY 2022 results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session, at which time, if you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your telephone keypad. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today. I would now like to hand the conference over to our speaker today, CEO of Experience Co Limited, John O'Sullivan. Thank you, John. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Lyndon, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thanks for your attendance with Owen Kemp, Experience Co CFO, and myself, to be able to present to you our financial results for the H1 of FY 2022. As per usual, the structure of this morning's presentation will be as outlined on slide three of your packs, which I'll give a brief update on the business. Owen will take you in a more in-depth look at our financial results. To close out the session, prior to questions, I'll provide you with a brief trading update and outlook for the business post this half. Turning to slide number five, to start with, today's presentation.
The H1 of FY 2022 was undoubtedly the most challenging period for the business during the two years of the current pandemic. With two variants of COVID-19 to be dealt with, the closure of the Queensland border for most of the half, and shutdowns in New South Wales and Victoria. This all led to increased disruption with the business, periods of inactivity, internal restrictions on domestic travel, and temporary staff loss caused by COVID close contact regulations. That said, as our business emerges from this half, the business does emerge with a stronger balance sheet. As a result of our Wild Bush Luxury and Treetops Adventure acquisitions, we have improved portfolio quality.
In addition to this, as we close the half, we now have a much clearer pathway on an international recovery, in addition to the fact that domestic travel, as from the third of March, within Australia will return back to some form of normality. Turning now to slide six, and Owen will go through the detailed financial results of the business later in this presentation. Just to call out some key highlights. For the half, our sales revenue was AUD 19.2 million. We recorded an underlying EBITDA loss of AUD 3.1 million. As I said in my opening comments, the business still maintains a very strong balance sheet, with cash and cash equivalents of AUD 27. 5 Million, and a net cash position of AUD 12.5 million. Turning to slide number six on international recovery.
As we have maintained through the course of this pandemic, we have been preparing our business for international recovery. In the most significant event during the course of the last two years, we now have a situation where the Australian international borders are open. Importantly for our New Zealand business, we have a pathway for recovery starting from July, when Australian nationals will be allowed to travel to New Zealand. Then from October, when foreign nationals will be able to travel into New Zealand as tourists. We are very encouraged to see that the strong demand for our international facing businesses, off the back of increased aviation capacity coming into Australia, strong interest by working holidaymakers to obtain Australian visas.
Tourism Australia research, which demonstrates and indicates that latent demand for Australia out of our key inbound markets, still remains incredibly high. We're also very encouraged that adjacent to this, as I've said earlier before, we are now seeing an intent by state and territory governments within Australia to adopt a more living with the virus approach than one of COVID zero and associated lockdowns and interstate restrictions. Turning now to slide number eight, before I hand over to Owen. As we've said to many of you over the course of the last two years, we've spent much time within the business preparing our business for the day of recovery, and also with a key strategic view on improving the business. As we sit here today, the business is in very good shape.
We have strong systems, we have good people, we have a good cost discipline and a strategic focus on where we wanna take the company. With that back office now in place, specifically, we're starting to focus on particular product innovations and improvements across the four operating units of the organization. Specifically in North Queensland, we're very proud that as of tomorrow morning, we'll be conducting a launch ceremony with Minister Hinchliffe for our new Reef Magic pontoon. This AUD 7 million piece of infrastructure will soon be in position on the Great Barrier Reef in order to take advantage of the domestic recovery as it returns from April. Within the Treetops Adventure business unit, which we completed the acquisition on the 1 st of December, I'm very pleased to report that the new St. Ives site is open and trading very, very strongly.
In addition to that, we've submitted to the Douglas Shire Council, the DA for the new Daintree development, that will be rolled out, in later this financial year in the month of June. In our legacy business of Skydive, it's very important to make the point that during the course of the half, we saw very strong latent demand despite the travel restrictions and despite some of the COVID restrictions imposed on the business. This was certainly evidenced by, 2021 Christmas promotion, which recorded record volumes and outperformed, 2020 by almost 50%. We're also very excited in March of this year, later in this March, we'll be launching a dedicated brand campaign around What's Holding You Back? for our skydiving business.
Finally, with Wild Bush Luxury, with Maria Island acquisition now completed, the focus is very much on organic growth opportunities within the Arkaba Conservancy and also Bamurru Plains business units of that operating division. Both businesses have strong forward bookings, as we head into the rest of the calendar year. With that, I'd now like to hand over to Owen Kemp to take you through the financial results.
Thanks, John, and good morning all. I'll pick up on slide 10 of the presentation and run you through the financial results for the half. As John alluded to, they're no surprise to you all that the H1 saw the most adverse trading conditions and results for the group since the emergence of the pandemic over two years ago. What we're looking at today in terms of numbers on a page is numbers that are significantly smaller than the true earnings potential of this business that we have. At revenue of AUD 19.2 million, we were clearly impacted by the protracted lockdowns and border restrictions. The swing on the prior year in EBITDA is principally down to the events of the pandemic and as that interacted with changes in government stimulus and approach over the periods.
In our AGM update in October, we noted Q1 underlying EBITDA loss of approximately AUD 3 million. Given what was to transpire in Q2, we were pleased to leave the half at around about that same result at AUD 3.1 million loss for the period. Now, I will touch on how lockdowns and borders, both domestic and international, impacted our business in the half as we run through each of the segments shortly. Before we do, we're very pleased that new acquisitions, albeit highly weighted to the end of the period, are tracking well, and there are early positive validations in our strategy to not only re-weight the portfolio, but also provide growth opportunity in these categories going forward.
While grateful for the government support, which you'll see on the page we continued to receive in the period, the best support that we ask for is a stimulus of confidence. Confidence in our borders and confidence that we have moved beyond the lockdown lottery of recent years. From a highly disrupted period that we'd seen in the H1, we move into 2022 seeing markets reopen. This will result in a transition in our business, which goes from going through what we call pandemic operations to one that's refocused on executing and leveraging the growth opportunity as the market volumes recover. Now moving into skydiving. The highly disruptive period is probably best evidenced in our skydiving business, and it's seen in the revenue line, which is well down on PCP. Now, this is a story of major metro lockdowns impacting volumes.
While pricing and market position was well-maintained as a market leader in both Australia and New Zealand, with Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland shut for the majority of the period, we had millions of people restricted from doing activities, an experience we'd hope not to have happen again. The timing of the reopening from late October in Australia. We began to see a more gradual recovery than previous lockdowns, but perhaps that coincided with consumers holding back until the all-important Christmas period in Australia.
However, that coincided, as we all well know, with the Omicron variant from early December and the record case numbers heading into early January across the eastern seaboard, which proved an operational challenge that we hadn't confronted on a day-to-day basis, including balancing a customer base that was holding back on participation despite the success of the Christmas campaign that John alluded to earlier with bookings, but also managing staffing availability as cases, isolations, and health directives all came into play to making it a game of whack-a-mole late in the half. If I draw your attention to the chart on the lower left, perhaps what's pleasing for us and evident of the resilience of the model is the dark blue line and the dark blue column, which paints a simpler picture of a recovering trajectory in a very difficult period.
It really demonstrates the resilience of the segment in skydiving, but also our confidence as volumes will return as market conditions allow. Moving on to slide 12. We move from a metro story to the state border closure story that John and the travel restrictions that John alluded to earlier, that had the highest impact in the period on our adventure experiences segment. First of all, I'll touch on the continuing vertical, being GBR experiences or our marine operations in Cairns and Port Douglas. In turn, I'll comment on the acquisitions. GBR on the demand side, and you'll see this best on the chart on the lower left, we saw July to be quite strong. That was really on the back of the Q4 FY 2021 momentum that we saw.
Now, that proved to be short-lived, with the emergence of the Delta variant quickly closing off key in-state markets and the Queensland border, before the Omicron variant and the clumsy political resisting isolation state entry requirements that we all lived through impacting the December and January periods, ending highly disrupted. As you see in the orange chart, we still had that recovering trajectory despite all of that we threw at the business in that period. On the supply side, and in particular labor, the TNQ region saw the highest COVID-19 case levels since the emergence of the pandemic, and that really impacted daily operations at key operating periods. Once again, the whack-a-mole version was well in play. During the half, and most pleasing for us, we doubled down in improving the business.
We continue to improve our online digital platform, and we've seen record sales in dollar terms on our websites. We've reached practical completion in coming days on the Reef Magic pontoon that John alluded to earlier. We've got a well-maintained fleet and permit capacity to grow once again as the market recovers. Then at a micro level, and on a day-to-day level, we're maintaining pricing and discipline on sales. Pleasingly, speaking from Cairns today, with John, we haven't been the only ones investing through the pandemic. The hotel stock has never been better, and the Cairns Esplanade development has transformed the Cairns precinct. Moving on to acquisitions and slide 13. Just taking a step back, and I'm sure John would support this, as an opening comment, we couldn't be more thrilled to have Charlie Carlow and the Wild Bush Luxury team join the business.
Also Nick Dance and Mark Foster with Treetops Adventure late in the period. It's been a tremendous addition to the portfolio, and with shared values, the approach to the integration has been very collaborative and forward-looking. On a trading level, Wild Bush Luxury was obviously impacted by South Australian and Northern Territory border closures during its key season from July to October. As a result, our attention quickly turned to being prepared for the coming season and investing in the portfolio. In the premium adventure category, we also welcome Maria Island Walk from December. As expected, it's proven a resilient performer despite the Omicron variant and its impact on Tasmanian trends. In short, demand remains at record levels across each of the operations and offerings in this category, and we continue to see growth opportunities in the category.
To Treetops Adventure, pleasingly, the integration progressing well, but also the resilience of the business through the Omicron and the record caseloads of December, while impacting some of the tourism-located sites in the portfolio, the resilience of this product stood up to both the pandemic, but also the La Niña weather conditions that we've all been living through. With over 100,000 visitors in the year to date under EXP ownership. The opening of St. Ives in Sydney has been incredibly successful to date, surpassing expectations and having us well placed in the Sydney market. The Daintree site is progressing well. In the near term, we expect the half to see some short-term caution from schools and parents as risk appetite adjusts to COVID and its relationship with children. These factors are expected to ease as term one progresses.
Very simply, the portfolio is better from the addition of these two new categories. Moving on to balance sheet. We are well placed to grow. The successful capital raise in October has the group well capitalized, and with a high-quality share register that we look forward to working with going forward. With a net cash position of AUD 12.5 million, and extension facilities to 28th February 2023, we are well placed to revisit debt capacity as cash generation improves in the recovery period. I'll now hand back to John to talk you through the trading update and outlook.
Thank you, Owen. Now just turning to slide 16, where we have both the trading update and outlook for the business. Turning first to the trading update. Certainly during the summer period, it should be no surprise to anyone that we were adversely impacted by Omicron, in particular in its impact on consumer sentiment, and also given the record case levels impacting staffing availability and also customer activity. That said, we've seen in the January month a vast improvement in our operating volumes across our business than in December trading. That's pretty evident insofar as the country has transitioned to start living with the virus as opposed to being locked away because of it. Certainly, from the month of December, we've been both EBITDA and also cash flow positive.
We closed at 31 December 2021 with net cash of AUD 12.5 million, and our acquisition integration progressing well. We're very optimistic about the outlook here at Experience Co. Certainly, we believe, as I said earlier, that the group is very well positioned across our operating geographies, both here in Australia and also in New Zealand, as the expected market conditions improve into the second half of 2022 and into FY 2023. We certainly are very optimistic about the potential improvements for domestic and international tourism. Certainly from a domestic point of view, we are starting to see good forward bookings in locations such as Cairns in hotels occupancy, and also an improvement in aviation capacity into some of our key operating geographies.
The strategic priorities for us as an organization in the short term for the remainder of the half, of course, will be around labor recruitment and also retention, as this impacts our operation and our operational efficiency across many of our business units. Of course, we'll be also focusing on the continued integration of our acquisitions, in particular, Treetops Adventure. Due to the continued uncertainty for the rest of the FY 2022, we won't be providing any earnings guidance for Experience Co. for this financial year.
With that, I'd now like to hand it back to the moderator, and we are happy to take your questions. Thank you.
As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound or hash key. Your first question comes from John O'Shea from Ord Minnett. Your line is open.
Morning, John, Owen. Can you hear me okay?
Yes, John.
Fine. Good morning, mate.
Hi, mate. Thanks very much for taking my questions. Look, first question from me. When I look at the trading update, the thing that sort of I notice there is you mentioned about, monthly EBITDA and operating cash positive from December 2021 onwards. Now, given the Omicron variant impact is in and all the uncertainties around everything that's going on at that time, that sort of indicates to me that perhaps the acquisition of Treetops had a positive impact there. Can you kind of talk us through that? Because it would seem to me that that's obviously a sort of surprised me that you're able to generate positive cash and positive EBITDA each month since then. Can you talk us through sort of the dynamics of how that all-
Yeah, sure.
sort of worked through?
Sure. Yeah, sure, John. It's a good question, and it probably does go to John's point around the portfolio quality and what we were looking to do with reweighting it. The first thing is there is a bit of seasonality there, so it is a good season for Treetops. The acquisition was certainly helpful during that December and January period. The other thing to draw out is how resilient it is in terms of its demand side as the pandemic has rolled on. It's first of all, its staffing is a bit easier. All these things come into play, as you'd understand, John, but staffing is a lot easier.
You're talking Treetops here, right?
Trees, yeah. Relatively early out of the business. The staffing is more straightforward. You're not as reliant on the close contact or intimate experiences such as you compare it to a skydiving where a tandem instructor will be strapped to a passenger, and that obviously comes with a lot closer activity and a higher COVID risk as we go through.
Unless you wanna jump out on your own, mate, which I wouldn't recommend.
Well, yeah. You know, some days it's like that, isn't it, John? I'd hope you don't have too many of them. Yes, Trees has been a key element of that. All things considered, when we looked at a caseload of over 100,000 cases on the Eastern Seaboard late in the half, if you'd thrown that at me in probably October, November, first of all, I probably would have told you it was crazy that we'd get 100,000 cases, John. Even skydiving and Great Barrier Reef really did hold up reasonably well, considering that. Like that's pretty adverse conditions to throw at any business.
I think what we saw, John, particularly during January for the legacy part of our business being Skydive and Great Barrier Reef was with Great Barrier Reef. We had New South Wales and Victoria able to get into Queensland more unencumbered. Plus, you also had a bit more confidence returning for Queensland intrastate travel. Certainly with Skydive, as Alan alluded to, there was a seasonality to that. We also started to see the return of the workforce during January from those December impacts from COVID impacted staff as well. We saw that, you know, we saw that combination. Certainly Treetops Adventure has done absolutely everything we wanted it to do.
If you go back to the original thesis of the investment in that business and also Wild Bush Luxury for that matter, but not at the same scale. Pleasingly, the legacy side of our business also started to flex in January. You know, I think we sort of sit here today also saying that, you know, February is probably gone, you know, better than expected, all things considered as well.
Yeah. Thanks very much, guys. Look, the second question from me sort of relates more to as we look forward, and I guess crystal balling is obviously very difficult in the current climate, but let's assume that we look forward a sort of year or so and have a sort of living with COVID type scenario. How do you think we should think about the business in terms of the leverage inherent in it and the, you know, I guess the changes you've made, the systems and all those sorts of things? Is it... Do you understand what I'm asking you? Is the business now-
Yeah, sure. Sure
in the same shape it was before? Is it in better shape? Is the earnings leverage more, less or the same?
Yeah, that's a really good question. Obviously, I'll just park the timing aside for a moment of exactly when things come back, John. Maybe similarly, you'd be familiar with our approach around the time of the CAPA rating for the Treetops acquisition. I think how we look at it is we take the FY 2019 period, by no means the best period for the business. The continuing operations were able to generate AUD 24.4 million of EBITDA, if we take that, before we touch a thing. I think, as a result of the work we've done, we anticipate somewhere around that AUD 5 million-AUD 6 million in terms of just savings around the various approaches. The fixed cost savings.
These aren't the volume related savings, John.
Sure. Okay.
As a result of the pandemic. You obviously add the Trees and the Wild Bush Luxury on top of that. That's probably point number one. Now, in terms of when those conditions would really occur, I think we're looking at a business today where, you know, if that were to happen FY 2025 or before, we'd be very pleased. As you say, we don't have a crystal ball to exactly how that will play out.
How we look at the short term, and perhaps this is helpful, we think Australia and New Zealand will pick up again from that April sort of period, where we think we're just in that sort of pause period that we see in Australia as we all sort of park and put down our tools, send the kids back to school, go back to work in February, and then we get excited about Easter pretty quickly and from late March. In the short term, that's domestic. International, well, as you know, the borders opened the other day. John alluded to the aviation capacity coming on board. From our perspective, we're not banking on much in the second half of this financial year. There's obviously
We're obviously quite excited that it's actually heading in the right direction. The intent is there to be open for business. Maybe, John, if you wanna just add around any of the sort of evolution of international markets.
Yeah. I mean, I think what will be the key drivers to that is obviously the reopening of outbound travel from markets like Japan, particularly for the Great Barrier Reef business. Obviously China for the industry within Australia, and also New Zealand, because of the large volumes that particularly New Zealand and China provide to the Australian industry. I think what I'm probably more confident about though is that while we, you know, we can always be fixated on the nine million visitors coming to Australia and, you know, generating, you know, AUD 45 billion-AUD 50 billion a year, the numbers that I used to sort of spout when I was at Tourism Australia. I think for us, it's more importantly the type of customer that comes.
The way to think about, you know, the legacy parts of our business, you know, certainly with skydiving, it's really on that working holiday maker market. What's been very encouraging is that I think the Australian government has already issued some 35,000-odd working holiday visas. Now, that's under their subsidy program where they've waived the fee. There will be strong latent demand in that segment of the market. That is a very good thing, particularly for the skydiving side of our business. The other parts of our business will naturally flex when markets like the U.S. and also the U.K. come back into the market, and particularly that independent traveler, which is where the majority of our business is aimed at.
Skydive's a very independent traveler, even from markets like China. We don't rely on those big volumes out of China. It's more that, you know, that independent traveler and that international student. For us, we think, you know, certainly we're not fixated on the nine million. It's what parts of that nine million are gonna come back into Australia and from, and certainly from when. I think you'll see the return quicker of that independent traveler, particularly that high-end traveler, so that's very good for our premium adventure business, and then also the working holiday maker, which is, you know, very important for skydiving as well as the labor force for us, the solution to the labor force issues that we currently have.
Thanks, John. Alan, I'll leave it there and give someone else a chance to ask some questions. Thank you.
Thanks, John.
Thanks.
Your next question comes from Allan Franklin from Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open.
Yeah, morning all. Hey, John. Hey, Owen. How are you going?
Hey, Allan.
Hey, Allan. How are you?
Yeah, good, thank you. I hope you are too. Great to hear you're up in Cairns. Some lucky ones. A handful of questions if I may please. Just clarity on propensity to spend, if you can sort of strip out how you're sort of finding, you know, people are actually booking in and to what extent they're spending and/or taking up marketing offers. Just sort of, you know, maybe we can step through some of the different businesses and how you're sort of finding the price points and realization.
Yeah.
Yeah, sure.
Well, certainly what we've seen, you know, within skydiving, we've certainly, you know, when we came out of the pandemic, we kept our pricing. In fact, we increased our pricing, and that seems to have stuck very well. I would say the same up on the Great Barrier Reef, also, albeit, you know, when borders are shut, there's more of a local market, and they tend to operate within, you know, the operators, including ourselves up here, have local pricing for locals. Once we see the return of that interstate market, they start to again, you know, purchase as per the recommended prices that we have.
The Treetops Adventure, it's a AUD 25 price point, so it's probably a bit different to the question you're asking. Turning to the premium adventure side of the business, again, we're certainly seeing price stickiness, if you want to call it that, for that, you know, for that higher price point. We've certainly seen, you know, particularly in Maria Island, an increase in the price per price per walker, if you like, you know, holding very well. The domestic market has shown throughout the pandemic really a propensity to spend, particularly on experiences. We think that the international market, the international market as it comes back will also hold to that.
you know, we're feeling very confident about the pricing and the willingness of people to spend.
Yeah, no, perfect. Thank you. Just sort of thinking through the pontoon, any additional sort of costs that we should be thinking about as a result of that coming in the current period and just in terms of how we should think about the ramp up, and/or does that just, you know, essentially sub out what would otherwise have been the case with the existing setup in the near term? Obviously cognizant-
Yes.
In the sort of outer years, you can
Allan, I think the right way to think about it in the short term certainly is almost a direct substitution. There's certainly no incremental costs of scale that we need to ramp up or anything like that in the short term. In the longer term, we are positioning it as that higher price point product, and necessarily a higher margin product. That would largely be flexing with international recovery as well.
Yeah. No, perfect. Thank you. Perhaps just a little bit of detail on your COGS. It looks like it's been either broadly flat for the last three halves. I guess the margin there is down, given obviously revenue's down and, you know, obviously
Yeah. A bit of mix at play as well. Yeah.
Yeah, just hoping for some context there, please.
That's a challenging one at the moment. It's one, as you can imagine, you have to sort of go through the various P&Ls to actually get a sense on it. At a high level for the audience today, it's largely a mix effect of in the period, obviously Skydive's a higher margin, and it did less. Whereas then you had, the GBR business taking up a larger percentage share. I wouldn't read too much into that. I guess the one thing we can say, there hasn't been too many big structural changes in the margin potential of the business. If anything, probably a little bit better now looking forward.
At the moment, I'd expect that trend, Allan, will bounce around a bit, as we move through the mix of business, as each of the markets open up.
Yeah. Perfect. Thank you. Last quick one, if I may, just on CapEx, any sort of additional detail you can sort of provide in terms of where that H1 spend went? Just looking, I mean, just cognizant the CapEx is running, you know, well below, say, D&A, just as a rule of thumb.
Yeah.
How does that sort of bounce back in the next couple of periods?
Yeah, I think the CapEx for us. Well, I'll take it in turn. The first part is a lot of the CapEx has been either around fleet and just getting things ready while the volume's a bit lower. That could be anything from planes and bringing forward some maintenance that we do. Then you also have some bits where just the volume and the timing of things, Allan, playing out. Similarly on the reef up here with our fleet doing something very similar. Then probably the other element is some of the preparedness stuff.
With the lower volumes going through the premium adventure category, it's given us the opportunity actually to sort of tidy up some of the housekeeping drill with, you know, some new vehicles and some infrastructure on site as well, which obviously the best time to do it is when you don't have people in the site. Then I guess looking forward, will it sort of approximate depreciation? I think that's a good rule of thumb to have. Obviously we'd have to take out the right of use assets from the D&A line as well, which is obviously a bit confusing with AASB 16. Looking forward, I think we still are looking at that sort of AUD 5 million-AUD 7 million if I take the continuing business of the Reef Magic and Skydive.
As we add in the trees, and I'm talking maintenance CapEx here, Allan.
Yeah.
As we add in the Treetops and Wild Bush Luxury, I think you could probably safely put AUD 1 million on top of that, and that'll give you plenty of room in terms of the maintenance CapEx sort of budget for the combined portfolio. What we're spending a lot of time on internally at the moment and as you'd imagine is sort of just the growth options. We are considering sort of how best to deploy capital, so we're also looking at that. That'll be just targeted on usual metrics of returns, Allan. We'll try and split that out going forward.
Yeah, makes sense. Very helpful. Thanks, guys.
Thanks.
Thanks, Allan.
Your next question comes from Cameron McDonald from E&P. Your line is open.
Hi. Good morning, guys. Two questions from me.
Hi, Cameron.
You've highlighted just the organic, you know, opportunities within the portfolio and in particular, you know, even when you acquired Treetops-
Yeah.
There were two other sites that were planned and you've highlighted that you've got some additional sites in 2023.
Yeah.
You also said that you're looking, you know, you're looking to expand the opportunities at Bamurru and Arkaba.
Yeah.
with new organic opportunities identified there. What sort of things are you looking at there and how many sites in Treetops are you looking at in 2023?
Certainly with Treetops, look, I think as consistent with when we took the capital raise to the market, what we're looking at, you know, I guess over the next two to three financial years is probably another two sites per annum. That seems to be the best operating rhythm for that business to be able to get those sites going, you know, planned for, approved, and constructed. The two for this financial year are Ku-ring-gai and also Daintree, and as I said, Daintree will be late June. And then we're thinking, you know, confidently thinking of two sites in FY 2023 from that portfolio. With Bamurru and Arkaba, Cameron, what we're looking at there is how do we increase the capacity?
We've just seen an amazing surge of demand both domestically and also internationally for both of those products. Certainly with Bamurru, you know, from pretty much April of this year through to October, which is the prime season for that business, there's literally no more capacity there. We're looking at increasing the capacity in Bamurru and then the same with Arkaba. More so that we can get the walk in Arkaba to a daily departure. They're the types of capital deployments we're thinking about, you know, for those two businesses.
Great. Thank you. Can I just ask what's been going on or what happened in, at the corporate cost line? If I look at the contribution to EBITDA, it was minus nearly -4.1 versus -2.8 in the PCP. What was going on there, and what's the outlook for those costs please?
You're turning to the segment line there, Cameron?
Yeah.
Yeah. It sounds as if that those numbers though just in terms of that sounded a bit different to sort of how I think of them. Let me just work through them. Oh, yes. Yeah. 'Cause we put the corporate through, so the transaction costs and things like that at the statutory level, Cameron. If you sort of go to the underlying EBITDA line there, you have about AUD 2.5 million for the half, if you can follow me.
Yeah.
2.6.
Okay.
Yep.
Yep.
That's probably the easiest way of comparing it. The increase then on the prior year, that corresponding line is largely due in the prior period, we did have some staff abatements, if you will. The senior executive and board took a haircut in that period at the initial stages of the pandemic. Now moving forward, I think at that line, you know, probably as we sit here today, you're sort of at that AUD 5 million-AUD 6 million probably. Let's call it AUD 6 million just to give a bit of rounding there. I'm not anticipating a significant growth from there, but where we do have growth would be to be accretive growth around we'd only look to increase the scale if we think we can increase the you know, the earnings capacity of the business.
Okay. That's great. Thank you guys.
Thanks, Cameron.
There are no further questions at this time. Please continue presenters.
Well, thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your time for our results presentation for the H1 of FY 2022. We know that we'll see a number of you on individual meetings during the course of the next few weeks. Thank you again for your time and your support of the business, and thanks again for today. Thank you and goodbye.
Please conclude today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.