Finally, I would like to advise all participants that this call is being recorded. I would now like to welcome Andrea Pidcock, CEO, to begin the presentation. Andrea, over to you.
Thanks. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for today's annual results briefing. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone of the usual disclaimers, and in particular that any forward-looking statements are based on assumptions which are subject to change. I am Andrea Pidcock, Chief Executive Officer of Fleetwood, and I am joined by Cate Chandler, our Chief Financial Officer. I will start with a brief overview of our FY 2026 highlights, and Cate will take us through the financial results. Then I will give some more detail of segment performance and outlook. FY 2026 was a year of decisive action for Fleetwood. Over the past six months as CEO, my priority has been to drive the changes needed to strengthen the business and lay the foundations for long-term sustainable earnings growth. Our financial results reflected contrasting performance in our operating segments.
Overall, underlying EBIT was AUD 35.6 million, with very strong cash generation of AUD 35.9 million, up almost AUD 9 million on last year. This strong cash performance supports a fully franked final dividend of AUD 0.095 per share, bringing full-year dividends to AUD 0.19 per share. Community Solutions had an outstanding year, delivering AUD 50 million EBIT, supported by strong project activity in Karratha. The recently announced acquisition of Red Dog Village really cements our position as a leader in accommodation villages in the Pilbara. As previously flagged, Building Solutions did not meet expectations and made a loss of AUD 8.7 million. I will go through the key drivers of this performance in more detail shortly. I will now hand over to Cate to take you through the financials.
Thank you, Andrea, and good morning, everyone. Turning now to our FY 2026 financial performance. Revenue of AUD 475 million was 6% lower than the prior year, reflecting softer conditions in Building Solutions and the planned exit from RV Solutions. Importantly, this was offset by our outstanding performance in Community Solutions, where 96% occupancy at Searipple Village drove record earnings. Reported EBIT was AUD 6 million, and NPAT was AUD 2.4 million. These statutory results include AUD 29.6 million of non-recurring restructuring costs associated with simplifying the portfolio, exiting RV Solutions, and resetting the Building Solutions cost base. Excluding these one-off items, underlying EBIT was AUD 35.6 million, only slightly below the prior year. While Building Solutions performance was below our expectations, Community Solutions delivered record earnings and demonstrated the quality of its Fleetwood portfolio.
The closure of the Smithfield factory is expected to reduce Building Solutions' annual cost base by approximately AUD 8 million-AUD 9 million from the start of the second quarter of FY 2027. Combined with an improved order book and more focused operating model, we believe Fleetwood enters FY 2027 as a simpler, stronger, and better-positioned business. Turning now to the cash flow. A key highlight of FY 2026 results was the strength of our cash generation across the group. Operating cash flow increased to AUD 63.9 million, while free cash flow rose 33% to AUD 35.9 million. This outcome reflects disciplined working capital management and strong operational execution, and the release of working capital associated with the divestment of Northern RV. The strength of our cash generation enabled us to end the year with AUD 61.5 million of cash and no debt, providing significant balance sheet flexibility and strategic capacity.
During the year, we invested AUD 7.5 million in the business, including enhancement works at Searipple Village and capability investments within Building Solutions. These investments support customer outcomes, operational efficiency, and future earnings growth. Looking ahead, approximately AUD 11.9 million of remaining cash costs associated with the Smithfield closure are expected to be incurred in the first quarter of FY 2027. However, these costs are largely going to be offset by AUD 9.5 million in proceeds from the Camec divestment and approximately AUD 4 million of tax asset recoveries across FY 2027 and FY 2028. Overall, the result highlights Fleetwood's ability to convert earnings into cash, self-fund growth initiatives, and maintain strong liquidity while returning capital to shareholders. Turning now to capital management. Our capital allocation framework remains focused on maintaining a strong balance sheet, investing in opportunities that generate attractive returns, and returning surplus capital to shareholders.
Fleetwood finished FY 2026 with AUD 61.5 million in cash and no debt, positioning the group to pursue growth opportunities from a position of financial strength. Capital employed reduced significantly from AUD 114.7 million to AUD 8.7 million as we simplified the portfolio, divested non-core operations, and released working capital. At the same time, the underlying return on capital employed increased to 44.1%, demonstrating our strength of our core earnings base and attractive returns generated by our operating business.
The group also retained substantial capacity to support project growth, with AUD 75 million of bonding and guarantee facilities available to support the Building Solutions project pipeline. Reflecting confidence in the balance sheet and future cash generation, the board has declared a fully franked final dividend of AUD 0.095 per share, bringing the total fully franked dividend for FY 2026 to AUD 0.19 per share. In addition, we completed AUD 4.2 million of share buybacks. So backstream year.
Together with dividends declared and buybacks resulted in total capital return to shareholders of AUD 21.6 million. In summary, Fleetwood enters FY 2027 with a simplified portfolio, a high return earnings base, significant financial flexibility, and a balance sheet capable of supporting both growth initiatives and ongoing shareholder returns. I will now hand back to Andrea to take you through the segment results.
Thanks, Cate Chandler. Now to our segment results, starting with Community Solutions. I am incredibly proud of what the team has achieved in Community Solutions over the past year. Searipple continued to perform strongly, achieving 96% occupancy during the year. We see that continuing into FY 2027, where we are fully booked to the end of the calendar year. Contracted occupancy is already 72%, and we expect that to pick up given the strong pipeline of projects in the region. I am really thrilled with our acquisition of Red Dog Village. This is transformational for Community Solutions, strengthening our position from a high-performing business to an exciting growth platform. It expands our capacity in the economic hubs of the Pilbara, and together with our modular building capability, uniquely positions us to support future residential developments. FY 2026 was a challenging year for Building Solutions.
Performance was impacted by lower revenue in the first half, then margin compression in the second half. We also had AUD 2.7 million in costs associated with a historical project. In Queensland, revenue declined due to a gap between big projects finishing and new projects starting. In New South Wales, a number of tendered projects were either delayed or canceled. Coming into the second half, we had a strong order book, but as we worked through it, we found a small number of large projects hadn't been scoped and priced properly. As a result, these projects didn't deliver the margins we needed. I have reviewed our work in hand, and I don't see the same issues in the rest of our portfolio. These challenging projects will be completed within the first half of FY 2027.
I appreciate that this result is disappointing, and I want to assure investors that I am laser-focused on improving our scoping and estimating processes. I have recruited a highly experienced construction executive to lead a program of work to improve project governance and end-to-end execution. In June, I announced the decision to close our New South Wales facility in Smithfield. This will structurally reduce costs by AUD 8 million-AUD 9 million annually, starting from the second quarter of FY 2027. We remain committed to the New South Wales market, and we are confident we can meet demand leveraging our national manufacturing network. The RV segment continued to face headwinds throughout the year as local caravan manufacturers struggled to compete with imports. During the year, we closed local parts manufacturing and we divested the Northern RV plumbing business in February.
In June, we announced our decision to exit the segment completely. In July, we announced the sale of Camec. Notwithstanding the challenging conditions, the RV business made a positive underlying EBIT of AUD 1.7 million. The sale of the two businesses achieved AUD 14.3 million in proceeds, and a further tax benefit of around AUD 4 million will be realized across FY 2027 and 2028. Now to our strategy and outlook. In my first six months as CEO, I announced that we would exit RV Solutions and close New South Wales manufacturing. These were tough decisions, but I believe they were necessary to streamline our business and structurally improve profitability. We are now a simpler, more focused business with two core divisions: Community Solutions, which owns, operates, and manages accommodation villages, and Building Solutions, a leader in modular building across a range of sectors.
In Community Solutions, we have high-quality accommodation villages in the Pilbara, one of Australia's most attractive workforce accommodation markets. Searipple, the FIFO village we own and operate in Karratha, and Osprey, the key worker housing village that we manage in Port Hedland, provide critically needed accommodation in these markets and strong earnings to Fleetwood. in July, I announced that we are expanding Community Solutions with the acquisition of Red Dog Village from Bechtel. This is a game changer for Fleetwood. This high-quality asset materially lifts our earnings potential and strengthens our position in the key economic hub of Karratha. The combination of Searipple and Red Dog Villages expands our capacity to supply the high demands of transient worker accommodation in the short term and positions us to meet longer-term housing needs, supported by our modular building capability.
In recent years, Searipple occupancy has been above 80%, driving exceptionally high returns. We see demand continuing for the next five years, underpinned by a strong pipeline of over AUD 30 billion in major infrastructure projects, in addition to expanded operational and maintenance activity. The Karratha region is forecasting a continued shortfall in transient worker accommodation of at least 1,500 beds for the next five years. Our strong position allows us to meet this demand, optimize yield across our assets, and evolve our offer in line with housing and workforce needs. Red Dog Village is a great acquisition for Fleetwood. We agreed to purchase the village from Bechtel for AUD 20 million. It is a large accommodation camp set on 45 hectares of Crown leased land and built in 2022.
It has over 2,000 beds and excellent amenities, including large modern catering and dining, guest laundries, a well-equipped gym, a 25-meter pool, and a range of other recreational facilities. We expect completion at the end of December and to take over operations from January. Red Dog Village is really well situated in the Gap Ridge industrial area of Karratha, being close to the airport and near the Burrup Peninsula. We anticipate an earnings uplift of AUD 10 million - AUD 20 million on an annualized basis, with occupancy ramping up from January. Searipple is fully booked to the end of this calendar year, and we expect occupancy in the 82%-92% range in FY 2027. In our Community Solutions business, Fleetwood has privileged accommodation assets in a key economic hub with sustained high demand. We have these assets because we also have our Building Solutions business.
We built Searipple and Osprey, and we were the selected buyer for Red Dog because of our ability to support both immediate transient worker demand and longer-term housing development. We believe there are further opportunities to grow Community Solutions where we can replicate this combined advantage. Fleetwood Building Solutions is a leader in modular building in Australia, with a national network of large-scale facilities and proven capability across multiple market sectors. We entered FY 2027 with a strong order book, with AUD 156 million of work in hand and over AUD 200 million in tendered projects over a diverse range of sectors. It is important to add that around 60% of the work that we do is recurring work based on panel agreements that often bypass a tender process or move through it very quickly.
As a result of the stronger pipeline, we are expecting revenue to grow in FY 2027 by at least 5%. However, I want to emphasize that we are focused on choosing the right work and making sure that it is properly priced so that we deliver sustained profitability. Fleetwood is a streamlined business with an expanded accommodation platform in Community Solutions and a structurally lower cost base in Building Solutions. We expect to complete the sale of Camec, the closure of Smithfield, and the acquisition of Red Dog in the first half of FY 2027, setting us up for more focused and profitable growth.
We operate in large markets where our ability to deliver high-quality turnkey building projects at speed solves real problems across education, housing, and infrastructure, and we have significant opportunities to grow nationally where we have proven capability. We also have a really strong balance sheet. We had a positive cash balance of AUD 61.5 million at the end of FY 2026, which supported dividends of AUD 0.19 per share for the year. During my first six months in Fleetwood, I made significant changes to strengthen the business and lay the foundations for long-term earning growth.
My immediate focus areas are, firstly, to ensure sustained profitability in Building Solutions. I have taken the first big step in lowering our costs with the closure of Smithfield, and I am focused on strengthening our foundations in project governance, improving operational efficiency, and profitably growing revenue. Secondly, to ensure we deliver value from the Red Dog Village acquisition. We have a lot of work to do over the coming months to make sure that we can complete the acquisition and to set ourselves up to operate from January. We also need to work with local operators to establish agreements and secure occupancy.
Thirdly, to lift capability and culture. We have recruited new capabilities into the business that we need to achieve our aspirations. These include an experienced construction executive to lead our transformation program, high-caliber, market-oriented regional leaders, new IT leadership to help us make better use of technology, and manufacturing leaders experienced in operational best practice. This targeted lifting capability lays the foundation for a collaborative and high-performance culture.
In summary, Fleetwood is a leading modular builder with a large national footprint, well-positioned to meet the needs of a housing shortfall and rising infrastructure spend. We have resilient earnings in Community Solutions, with expanded capacity and continuing high demand for workforce accommodation. We have a strong pipeline to growth in our key segments of education, housing, and infrastructure. We are now a sharper business with a structurally lower cost base, and we have a strong balance sheet with significant net cash and ownership of key assets. Now we have time for questions.
Thank you, Andrea. As mentioned, we will now begin the Q&A session. For those listening by phone and would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. To withdraw your question, simply press star one again. When called upon, please use your handset, ensure your line is unmuted, and be ready to ask your question. Again, that is star one to raise your hand and join the queue. Your first question comes from the line of Caleb Weng of PAC Partners. Please go ahead.
Hey, Andrea and Cate, just a few questions. On Community Solutions, you got the fully booked until calendar year-end, so that implies second half 2027 is still quite a fair amount left uncontracted. You guys also announced, I guess, the Red Dog acquisition about a month ago. Just colors on, I guess, conversations with Rio and Pertamina and Woodside and how we should think about occupancy from second half 2027 onwards.
Thanks, Caleb. Yes, you're right. As you know, we're contracted with Rio until April 2027, and they've fully booked us out until the end of this calendar year. We are starting to see now some bookings come in for the second half, but typically they only come in three months ahead of time, so we don't expect to see a lot of movement on that in the short term. In terms of our conversations with all of the operators up there, we've been predominantly talking with Rio Tinto. As you know, they've put out a RFP for their next several years of accommodation requirements. They've gone through some changes internally, so they were a bit late coming out with that. When I met with them, they were saying that they expect that to be finalized by the end of this calendar year and not really before then.
We have been having ongoing discussions about understanding their requirements and their needs. Over the next five to 10 years, they've got some quite serious requirements for accommodation up there. We've also been in preliminary talks with Pertamina and Woodside, but that was before the announcement of the Red Dog acquisition. Since that announcement, we've really been predominantly focused on making sure that we do all the work to meet the conditions precedent, but we will be continuing to talk with the other operators. When I did meet with Woodside, I've got to say, they were talking about, at that time, how they were having to delay and postpone and de-scope major maintenance works because they couldn't find any accommodation for their workers. So we're pretty confident that that work will start to come in, as soon as there is some available accommodation.
All right. Thanks, Andrea. On Building Solutions, you mentioned that the order book and work in hand at the moment doesn't have the problems that some of the large projects you had in the second half in terms of margins. What gives you confidence in that and what was the major lessons and takeaways from second half Building Solutions results?
Yeah, look, I've got to say it was disappointing as we started to see the problems unfold in some of these large projects. There were problems that stemmed out or misses in scoping and estimating that played out as the project started to be delivered, and we realized the costs were not as we had expected, and so the margins got compressed. They were tendered in the first half of FY 2026, which was a time, obviously before my time, but at times there was quite a lot of disruption in the business. We've put a lot of focus on understanding our order book. We have a lot of work that is our regular repeat work, with our regular repeat customers that makes up a lot of that order book, and we have great confidence and understanding of the margins that we expect from that work.
From what we see, we just don't see the same problems in any of the other projects in our order book at the moment. I have recruited extra expertise, and we have started a program of work to really make sure that we embed tighter processes around governance and project execution throughout the business. We expect that to play out over the coming months.
Yeah. Thanks, Andrea. The final one from me, just thinking about reinstating dividends since I think you guys put it under review about two months ago, and now you guys came out with a declared a final dividend.
I'll let Cate speak to that.
Thank you. Thanks, Andrea. I'll take that one to the team. At the time, we were guiding the market because as you would know, we had a very clear dividend policy at the time to pay 100% NPAT for the current year. Obviously, at the scale of our restructuring costs, we had consumed all of our NPAT for the FY 2026 financial year. However, when the board took a look back at some of our historical earnings and our fabulous way that we've managed cash and the balance sheet, they recognized that they should return some more capital to shareholders in the way of a fully franked dividend, which we had the capacity to do so, and the board resolved to do that, and to reward our shareholders for that.
We believe we set the business up for really good growth next year, and we don't feel like we should punish shareholders for the decisions we've done to set it up for the future. That was essentially the thinking in that space.
Thank you, guys.
Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Chen of Moelis. Please go ahead.
Morning, team. Just wanted to ask about the trajectory of EBIT in Building Solutions over the FY 2027. Thanks.
Thanks, Matt. I was going to say, obviously I am new to the business, but when I was looking back at the historical EBIT, it has bounced around quite a lot. Last year, sorry, FY 2025 was obviously a really strong year for Building Solutions off the back of high revenue and some really high-margin projects that then closed out in the second half of FY 2025. To me, that bouncing around is part of the reason behind the decision to close Smithfield. Because to me, we just have to structurally reduce our costs. That sets us up to have a higher profitable base, from which we can then grow.
As I said, one of the things that I noticed when you look at the variation in EBIT over the years, my understanding is that there is underlying core of profitable project work that is really repeat business that we can depend on. Then every now and then there is a project or a set of projects that then have a negative impact on profitability. That is certainly what we saw in FY 2026. That is why we have engaged this experienced capability to really drive a program and improve our internal processes to make sure that we do not make those mistakes again.
I might just help round that out, Matt, is if you take a look at some of the pieces of information we have provided you today. The reset of the Building Solutions cost base on a true quarter value of that is AUD 6 million- AUD 7 million. You can add that back. So that is another breakeven, so that is setting us up for next year. We also do not expect to have a repeat of the legacy projects from yonder year of just under AUD 3 million. You can add that back to the mix. We also do not expect to have a full six or seven-month impact of core projects. So you can add that back, plus we also see revenue growing. So we do see us getting back into a positive territory next year.
Yep. Great. Potentially as quickly as in the course of the first half?
Well, the first half is going to be impacted still because we still have our Smithfield in the first quarter, and we still have these projects having an impact in the first quarter as well. They will be largely complete by the end of the first quarter, but will flow in a little into the second quarter as well. So at the moment, we would say that the first half will be breakeven to slightly positive. We see that all of the benefits from the structural cost reduction and those projects being completed and the strong order book should flow into the second half.
Great. Just wanted to clarify the Searipple expected occupancy of 82%-92%. Does that expected bookings include Rio renewal?
No, it doesn't, Matt. I'll take that one for Andrea.
Yep.
The reason we've given you a range is we do today, we have contracted occupancy of 72%, and that's up 17%-
Yep.
... from when we last spoke to you in February.
Yep.
We are full at the inn until the end of December.
Yes.
We expect, based on the run rate of the last two years, to have occupancy, booking additional bookings from Woodside, Pertamina, and Rio across that second half of 10%-20%. It does not actually include the Rio contract as we knew the one that was released to the market a few years ago.
Yeah,.
They are continuing to book rooms because they have projects going on at the moment. Normally we only talk about contracted rooms, but we are so confident in the demand in the region that we were happy to say that we expect a 10%-20% uplift, hence the range of 82%-92% for Searipple alone. That does not even contemplate Red Dog yet.
Great. Thanks. That's helpful. Thank you.
Before we move on to the next question, a reminder, if you would like to join the queue, to press star one. Your next question comes from the line of Gavin Allen of Euroz Hartleys. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Andrea, and good morning, Cate. Thanks for taking the time for this call. Just quick ones, just in fleshing out some of the earlier comments or questions by the others. Around Building Solutions, do we have enough flavoring here to backward engineer a little bit into the levels of revenue that see you break even so that we can be thinking about what incremental revenues are adding to EBIT at GP? I think I can kind of do it from the conversations we had about the AUD 3 million with the legacy EBIT that you had before. Are we now at AUD 300 million worth of revenue is breaking even pretty happily, or is there a way to think about that?
At this level of revenue that we're guiding, you should be thinking about the incremental revenue at a very high double-digit margin.
Yep.
That is incremental to our earnings, yes.
Incremental to the AUD 323 million but.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
You talk back to AUD 356.2 million we did in FY 2025, that was on revenues and that we did very well. It really does become very incremental very rapidly.
Yeah. But the point being that your revenue required to break even is a fair bit lower as a consequence of taking these fixed costs out, I think would be fair. Is that fair to say?
Correct. Yeah. That's correct. Taking out New South Wales is lower. And we get two benefits from the closure of Smithfield, is that we don't have another factory to have manufacturing variances. We don't have those costs, and we can do that work from other states and ship it in. And we believe that the incremental cost of transport will be less than the holding costs and manufacturing variances by a long way. By a lot, honestly.
Yep, got it. That makes sense. And just one more for me. Just again, just fleshing out Red Dog. So that 10%-20% target, I guess it's hard to know exactly what the timing might look like. But in terms of the projects, in your mind, is that more to do with things like further D-cell plot projects or stage two there or expansion at Dampier Port or even Andover Lithium, these sorts of things, or is there enough sort of horsepower in the current activities of Rio Tinto and Pertamina and Woodside Energy to see that 10%-20% sort of show up, do you think?
Well, we believe that we will be starting to take some bookings, and we've had some inbound interest for rental already. Okay, so-
Yeah, okay.
We are guiding 10% - 20% because we are being incredibly conservative, and that is sort of set around an occupancy range of 25% - 35%. It is very low. That certainly wasn't what we did the business case on. Pertamina, they want extra rooms, but there just aren't any there. We are really confident that [Vickers] will be seeking to contract rooms in the second half as he is closing up those projects.
Yeah, gotcha. Do you have scope?
Rio's also piqued their interest as well, because it is closer to Dampier, the [inaudible] .
Yeah. Do you have scope to sort of line them up prior to your takeover? Or do you have to ramp up from day one? Or can you put people in on day one, I guess is the point in meaningful?
We already have Bechtel in day one. I was going to say, Bechtel asked to have 150 rooms for themselves from day one, for a few months, because obviously in the handover of Pluto Train 2, there is going to be some carryover work. We have had a lot of interest, but at this stage, because we have only just started the process of doing the work to get the conditions precedent met, we have not really been engaged at a commercial level at all. But we do also know, Woodside Energy is particularly keen on understanding what is going to happen with how we can support their potential Browse LNG project, which would be massive-
Yeah, of course.
... starting in a couple of years' time.
Yeah, look, the focus of the last six weeks since the announcement, it has been a busy few weeks, has been firming up the projects and our understanding of the market in the region to enable us, and Bechtel, because we are doing it jointly, to get the DA extended for five years. That is the first thing we have to do. I know everybody is getting very excited about why have not you contracted, but the most probably first base is get that DA and get the council convinced that the region really does need additional transient work accommodation.
Yep, got it. Okay, thanks very much, guys. Appreciate it.
Thank you. Is there anyone else on the line?
There are no further questions at this time on the phone. I will turn the call back over to Andrea.
Okay. Well, thank you very much. In closing, I just want to say that I am confident the changes I have made over the past six months will support profitable growth for Fleetwood in both Community Solutions and Building Solutions. Thanks for your time this morning and for your continued support of Fleetwood.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for joining us. You may now disconnect.