Good morning, and welcome to GYG's results presentation for the two thousand and twenty-four financial year. Together with my Co-CEO, Hilton Brett, and CFO, Erik du Plessis, we're proud to present our first results as an ASX-listed company. This year has been a highlight and a remarkable journey, and we are excited to share with you our progress made over the past year, which would not have been possible without our amazing crew, franchisees, guests, and suppliers. Onto the next slide, please. As you all know, our vision is to reinvent fast food and change the way the masses eat, which guides our mission to be the best and biggest restaurant company in the world. As has been the case since day one, we are always guided by our values set out on this page, which means we will never compromise on our food, our people, and our real estate.
Now, on to slide three. We close the year with a total network size of 220 restaurants, with the majority of growth occurring in Australia. As can be seen here on slide four, we've extended our track record in delivering compelling growth in restaurant and network sales, achieving AUD 960 million in global network sales this year. Reflecting on the year, there were 9 important highlights, which can be seen on slide five. The first is achieving 8.1% comp sales growth in our Australia segment, ahead of our prospectus forecast. Hilton will go into the drivers of this result later in this presentation. The second is the rollout of 25 new restaurants in Australia.
What we would like to call out is that one restaurant, forecast to open at the end of the year, was delayed by three weeks and instead opened at the beginning of FY 2025. This delay does not have any impact on our pipeline for FY 2025, and our real estate pipeline continues to strengthen. Thirdly, we also had a series of menu innovations throughout the year. For example, our 100% clean, crispy, delicious chicken tenders, which have been extremely popular with our guests. This year, we also implemented a new suite of people systems, including the rollout of new human resources, payroll, and time and attendance platforms, which will allow our franchisees and corporate restaurants to access the same secure, centralized systems. We also successfully relaunched our Clean is the New Healthy campaign, reminding guests of why they feel good after they eat our food.
The launch of GYG Delivery was another highlight for the year, allowing guests to order delivery directly through our app. In the U.S., we also launched an updated version of our award-winning mobile app, improving the digital guest experience. As you all know, our franchising philosophy centers on the belief that the success of our franchisees is integral to our own. As at June thirty, two thousand and twenty-four, we are delighted to share that our franchisees achieved a median ROI of 53%, and profitability continues to grow. Additionally, we also experienced very strong day-part growth this year, particularly in breakfast, which delivered 18% comp sales growth. Finally, our commitment to sustainability underpins our mission to be the world's best and biggest restaurant company.
This year, we transitioned our most used food packaging to PFAS-free packaging made from sugarcane, a renewable source that is certified compostable. I'll now hand over to Erik, who will talk through our results on slide six.
Thanks, Steven, and good morning, everyone. Today's results demonstrate strong guest demand for clean, fresh food delivered at high speed. The company delivered strong growth across key revenue and earnings metrics, all ahead of prospectus forecasts. Our statutory loss after tax for the year was AUD 13.7 million, better than prospectus forecast. Adjusting for the costs related to our IPO this year and other one-off costs, our pro forma net profit after tax was AUD 5.7 million. Again, well ahead of prospectus forecast. We will now go into our segment underlying results, which are on slide seven of the presentation. Segment underlying EBITDA excludes share-based payments and the impacts of the lease accounting standard. We believe that this is a critical measure as it allows you to assess the financial performance of our business and enables direct comparison to our U.S. peers.
GYG delivered underlying EBITDA of AUD 39 million, an increase of 48% on the prior year, underpinned by the performance of the business in Australia. This slide also provides a clear reconciliation of how underlying performance translated to overall earnings performance, including material growth in profit before tax. I will now hand over to Hilton to cover off the Australian performance.
Thanks, Erik, and good morning, everyone. We saw the majority of network sales growth occur in Australian corporate and franchise restaurants over the year, growing by 27%. We were also pleased with the growth in our restaurants in Singapore and Japan, which are owned and operated by our master franchises. Comp sales growth, as Steven mentioned, was strong, and we will go into more detail on this in the next slide. Now, moving on to slide nine. When we think about comp sales growth in our business, we believe that we have five key levers at our disposal. Throughout the year, we have made strong progress across these levers, which has contributed to our strong result in Australia. The first is restaurant capacity, which is the ability of our restaurants to absorb high volumes at quick speed.
Our Dual Linear Operating Model has allowed us to absorb incremental volume and drive growth, with 103 restaurants achieving weekly sales records across lunch and dinner. We also are not seeing any constraints to volume capacity, as can be seen in our weekly sales records of 258,000 and 248,000 in our drive-thrus and strip restaurants. Day-part expansion has also been a lever that we've been able to use to drive growth. Breakfast expansion has been a highlight, reporting 18% Comp Sales Growth for the year. This has been augmented by extended trading hours across the network. As at the end of the year, we have 5 restaurants trading 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and we are pleased with the results of this initiative.
Marketing is another strong driver of comp sales growth for the company. In twenty twenty-four, we launched Clean is the New Healthy campaign, which contributed to the improvement in sales momentum. Innovation in our menu is another lever that we have made strong progress on. This year, we launched our crispy chicken tenders, AUD 12 chicken mini meal, and Nacho Sundae, which have been very popular with our guests. In particular, our AUD 12 chicken mini meal has been gaining traction as guests increasingly search for value. Finally, we have also driven comp sales growth through improving the digital experience, launching GYG Delivery, which Steven mentioned earlier, and successfully deploying GOMEX Mondays, which allows guests to earn double loyalty points. Overall, we expect these drivers to allow us to continue to drive sales growth in the business in FY twenty-five.
The other key driver of our business is new restaurant openings, which can be seen on slide 10. We are pleased to report that we have 91 board-approved sites in the pipeline as at the thirtieth of June, 2024, of which 46 were approved in financial year 2024. This gives us confidence in our ability to continue to expand the network to our 1,000 restaurant target over time. As you know, we opened 25 restaurants, new restaurants, this financial year in Australia. Working our way down the P&L on slide 11, you can see that corporate restaurant sales were also strong, increasing 32% on prior year as a result of the levers discussed previously. Corporate restaurant margins improved significantly to 17.4%, driven by comp sales growth, improvements in the costs of food and packaging, and a shift in restaurant mix towards drive-thrus.
Franchise revenue increased 30% due to new franchise restaurants, network sales growth, and an increased number of franchisees shifting to the tiered royalty structure. We have been investing in the supporting infrastructure to establish a platform for future growth. As a result, pro forma G&A spend increased to AUD 64 million, representing a 37% increase on prior year. This landed us at a very strong pro forma segment underlying EBITDA results of AUD 45.6 million, 49% higher than last year. Our business model is underpinned by strong restaurant economics across the franchise and corporate network, which can be seen on slide 12. Median restaurant AUVs increased 6.3 million for drive-thru restaurants and 4.5 million for strip restaurants. Similarly, median restaurant network restaurant margins have increased significantly. As you all know, franchisee health and ROI is of paramount importance to us.
As Steven mentioned, median franchisee ROI for the year was 53%, an increase of six percentage points on prior year. Median franchisee franchise average unit volume was AUD 5.1 million, an increase of 13% on prior year. This has flowed down to margins as franchise restaurant margins increased to 21%. Now, on to slide 13. Our results reflect the nascency of our business in the US and ongoing investment of our restaurants. We opened one new restaurant in the US, and network sales increased 82% to $11 million. Corporate restaurant margins improved three point six percentage points, as network sales increased and operating expenditure efficiencies were realized. G&A for the year increased to AUD 5.5 million, reflecting investment to drive performance of the US segment.
Pro forma segment underlying EBITDA for the year was a loss of AUD 6.5 million. I'll now hand over to Erik to step through the cash flows, capital expenditure, balance sheet, and our outlook.
Thank you, Hilton. Now moving on to slide 14. We delivered strong cash flow conversion from earnings during the year. Operating cash flows increased to AUD 54 million, driven by disciplined performance throughout the year. The majority of our IPO proceeds were invested in term deposits, which you can see in our investing cash flows. Lease payments, which include both principal and interest, increased throughout the year as we expanded our network. As set out on slide 15, capital expenditure was driven by new restaurant openings, refurbishment, and the Hola Central expansion, totaling AUD 33.5 million in gross capital expenditure and AUD 27.4 million on a net basis, adjusting for landlord contributions. This included the opening of 12 new corporate restaurants in Australia, one of which was converted to a franchise in the year. US capital expenditure also included one new corporate restaurant opened during the year.
Now moving on to slide 16. We ended the year with a robust balance sheet that provides flexibility for future network expansion, with net cash and term deposit position of AUD 295 million. Our cash is currently returning a weighted average interest rate of 4.8%, ahead of prospectus forecasts. Lease liabilities for the year increased to AUD 240 million, driven from network expansion, as I mentioned previously. We've made a repayment on outstanding debt, and as at 30 June 2024, GYG has no debt on the balance sheet. Equity for the year also increased significantly to AUD 354 million, primarily driven by an increase in the issued capital as a result of the IPO and pre-IPO processes. Looking to the year ahead, we're focused on continued operational excellence and execution and delivering on our prospectus forecasts.
Taking a look at our guidance framework on slide 17, we are on track with achieving the targets for F 25, and we will continue to update our guidance in this framework as we move forward. We continue to make strong progress towards our medium-term targets, which are opening 40-plus restaurants per annum, expanding corporate restaurant margins, organically growing the franchise royalty rate, and reducing G&A as a percentage of network sales. I'll now hand back to Steven to cover the outlook for F 25.
Thank you, Erik. Trading in FY 2025 has started well, and our sales performance has been above our expectations. Comp growth in our Australia segment in the first seven weeks has been strong at 7.4%, driven by the Clean is the New Healthy campaign, delivery outperformance, and guest demand for value items such as the AUD 12 Chicken Mini Meal. We expect to meet our FY 2025 forecast for new restaurant openings, and our pipeline continues to strengthen. As mentioned earlier, one restaurant forecast to open was delayed by three weeks, opening after the end of the period. As a result, we expect to open 31 restaurants in FY 2025 in Australia. We have commenced a partnership with a local operator in Chicago to support the growth of our Naperville restaurant. We do not expect this to have a significant impact on GYG's earnings in FY 2025.
Overall, we expect to achieve our prospectus forecast for the two thousand and twenty-five financial year. Hilton, Erik, and I would now be happy to take on any questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. We ask that you please limit yourself to two questions at a time and rejoin the queue if you have any further questions. Your first question is from Tom Kierath, from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Just be interested in how you saw the impact of the IPO on trading. Obviously, there's lots of press around the IPO, you know, for a few months there, but it might just be helpful just to talk us through what happened in the second half, just in terms of trading cadence and whether there was an impact, like a positive impact from all the media, et cetera, from the IPO process.
Hi, Tom. It's Erik here. Look, I wouldn't say the IPO process in particular has had a significant impact on our sales. What is much more important is our Clean is the New Healthy campaign and the great food we're serving in our restaurants. So we didn't see that as a significant contributor to trading momentum.
Okay. Okay, cool. And then, yes, second is, you converted, I think, five stores to twenty-four/seven. Can you maybe just talk through what happens when a store goes from kind of normal trading to twenty-four/seven? And then secondly, like, how many stores are you looking to convert to twenty-four/seven in the twenty-five year?
Yeah. So as of today, we have seven that are trading twenty-four/seven, and there'll be more to come. The great part about that is, you know, for twenty-four hours, we really just have two menus. Obviously, and then lunch and dinner and breakfast that kicks in, and as you can see by the results, the comp growth for those stores have been positive.
Is there an uplift that you get when you convert? Like, is it, I don't know, 10% or 20%, or is it more?
No, there's definitely an uplift, and it helps the shoulder hours in the restaurant. Obviously, you know, now there's twenty-four hours to enjoy GYG. So, obviously, our guests really enjoy that, and we have more in the pipeline to trade over to that twenty-four/seven timeframe.
Yep. Okay, got it. Thanks.
Thank you, Tom.
Thank you. The next question is from James Ferrier, from Wilsons Advisory. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Steven, Hilton, and Erik. Thanks for your time. Can I ask you firstly about the corporate restaurant margins? So the FY twenty-four result there beat the prospectus forecast by thirty basis points. So that probably implies the second half beat by sixty basis points. I think in your prepared remarks, you talked about what drove the margin improvement year- on- year. But could you firstly just clarify what drove the margin beat relative to the prospectus forecast?
The primary reason that we see improvement in our corporate restaurant margins is operating leverage as a result of higher sales. And as we talked about, we outperformed prospectus forecast as a result of an improvement in trading momentum above our expectations, and that has flowed through to corporate restaurant margins.
Understood. Thank you. Second question's around the comments on the first seven weeks of trading in the new financial year. One of the drivers mentioned was the delivery outperformance. Can you talk a bit about how that has translated into the contribution of delivery within the network sales? I think in the first half, it was 23% from aggregators and 17% from owned digital, so I'd assume it's increased further from there. So if you could just shed some color on that contribution. And then secondly, what share of owned digital is delivery and how that margin differs to aggregator delivery, please?
Sure. So as we talked about, delivery performance was also stronger than we expected. There's a couple of reasons for that. The first is the launch of our GYG Delivery, which for the first time allowed our guests to order delivery directly through our app, and that's powered by Uber. This has been a really pleasing initiative, and we're very happy with the way that started. Just touching on your margin point while I'm talking about that, it is a beneficial arrangement for us in terms of margin. And we're hoping to continue to drive GYG Delivery as a part of our overall mix. So we expect that to increase over time. We've just launched it, and we're working hard on it and continuing to increase it, but it did contribute to delivery outperformance.
The other reason is the significant support we continue to get from our delivery partners. We're an important partner to them, and they're an important partner to us, and that partnership is working really well at the moment, and that's contributed to delivery sales being ahead of our expectations.
Understood. Thanks for your time.
Thank you. The next question is from Melinda Baxter from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, guys. I just wanted to do a follow-up on that Kmart, Australia Kmart restaurant margin. So given the thirty basis point beat in 2024, how should we think about that in terms of the 17.8% guidance for 2025, given that obviously we're still seeing that strong sales cadence going into the new year?
Yeah. So, look, all else being equal, higher sales do translate to stronger operating leverage. It's a function of our business, and a function of operating leverage, as I said. So, our rent and our other fixed costs stay relatively constant, and our sales growth translate to improved earnings margins as we on a variable basis. However, we're just starting the year, and we're not quite. We need to work through the rest of the year to see how sales performance develops, and that's why we're sticking to our forecast guidance that we laid out in our prospectus, because we're just at seven weeks into the new financial year.
Okay, great. Thanks. And just my second question, can you just provide us a little bit more detail around the partnership arrangement in the U.S.? Is that a franchisee arrangement? And then how should we think about longer-term investment in the U.S. in terms of split between corporate and/or franchisee partners?
Yeah. So at this moment, the partners we have in the US, they're operating partners since we're not registered yet as a franchise. And what's important about that is, if I take us back to two thousand and nine, as GYG had about five, six restaurants in Australia, a family called the Marradis family were our first partners in Queensland and really put GYG on the map. And meeting our partners in Chicago, who are local, successful restaurant operators, is the same case. So we're bringing people in, know the community. Obviously, they understand what people want to eat in Chicago. They're very optimistic with GYG, and it's just the beginning of our relationship. And as all great things take time.
We're very excited to have them on our team and look forward to the progress that we'll make together.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Lachlan Holloway from Morningstar. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Can you hear me?
Good morning.
Good morning. Yeah, just, quickly, one on that, on the Australian comp sales number. It looks like you'd be, outperforming some of your QSR peers there, but wanted to know, are there any divergences you're seeing, in sales growth on those sort of more recently opened stores, post that fifty-six-week trading mark for inclusion and sort of more mature, established stores in your network? Thanks.
There's always variability within a store network, but what we're really pleased with is the consistency of our store of our sales growth across the network. So we're not really seeing any significant differences between newer open stores and older stores. So we're pleased with the broad-based growth of our sales overall.
Right. Thanks very much. And just one quick one on the customer base and demographics you're seeing there. The Guzman customer skews a little younger, and from the macro data, that looks like that's the demographic that's sort of under the most pressure. So any sort of divergences you're seeing across your age groups, particularly in that first sort of seven-week trading period?
We continue to see strength in the younger demographic. I mean, obviously, 18-35 is very strong for GYG, but, you know, we all spend a lot of time in our restaurants, and the younger generation is definitely coming in, which is great for us to see.
All right. Thanks again for the question.
Thank you. The next question is from Shaun Cousins from UBS. Please go ahead.
Thanks, good morning. Maybe just a question, please, on the U.S. Can you talk a bit about how you're thinking about the mix of stores going forward, and more generally, how you go about brand awareness? 'Cause that seems, when I've been there, seems to be an area of improvement that's required.
Yeah, definitely. Well, you know, as we mentioned in the prospectus, you know, we have, you know, decided to have 15 restaurants in the suburbs of Chicago, and until they reach the economics, you know, of three million AUV, which will give them similar, you know, Australian formal margin, obviously, there won't be expansion past that point. But you're correct, Shaun. We have 4 restaurants right now that are spread apart about an hour each, and the next 3 restaurants will start to infill, you know, that area, which will give us a lot more brand awareness. And it's like how we built it here in Australia. Everything takes time. You know, we've got our team in place now, which we're obviously very happy with. We're still very optimistic, you know, we think our food's a differentiator, you know, our operating model is different.
The fact that we do minis, we have our $3 tacos, a $2.50 taco there. We have great local area marketing people in place, and it all comes down to trial, right? We need people in the restaurant trying GYG because we truly believe once they try it, obviously frequency follows next.
Great. And my second question is just around broadly on breakfast. If we think about how you grow, day-part participation is really important. You know, some of your more established peers do a lot of business during breakfast. How are you progressing breakfast? And then one that's a little bit more nascent as well is coffee. We just sort of see those as two options that actually help you drive hours trading, but then also can help you increase your weekly sales. How are you across breakfast and coffee, which is part of that, I guess?
Yeah. Shaun, that's a great question. It's a huge focus for us because I'm not sure if everybody in the call has tried our breakfast, but it's the best thing that GYG sells. Besides, obviously, the excellent quality and the value is just tremendous. And you're right about coffee. Our operations team have been in restaurants, obviously, working with the baristas to make sure our coffee is spot on, and it will be a major focus of ours in the following months to make sure that we drive breakfast sales in our restaurants, which are currently sitting at about 6%-7% of our sales.
Okay, fantastic. Thanks, Steven.
Thanks, Shaun.
Thank you. The next question is from Billy Boulton, from Morgans. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. I'm just seeing plenty of deals at the moment, and promos on aggregators. Like, I saw a AUD 5 burrito last week, which I assume was a big hit. Can you just talk to the strategy there? Is it simply that you see this as a good avenue for new customer acquisition? And are these promos and stuff all funded by GYG, or are they shared with the aggregators?
Good morning, Billy, so when I mentioned the great partnerships that we have with our delivery aggregators, this is part of what I was referring to. GYG never funds a promotion of GYG product on a discount basis. So, from time to time, our delivery partners, aggregator partners, choose to discount GYG product, which they fund.
Okay, great. I get the timing issue, which is the slight delay. Can you just talk about any internal buffers you guys have built into the pipeline for your store rollouts, in case anything goes wrong, and how we should think about that?
Hi, Billy Boulton. Yeah, yeah, so as we've mentioned before, there is always slippage in terms of restaurants in terms of timing, as we know from a construction industry perspective. So we've always got more restaurants in the pipeline than what we plan to open. And as a general rule, you'll kind of generally see there could be a delay of up to 20%. So from a pipeline perspective, we've always got a buffer in our pipeline as far as restaurants are concerned. When you look at our overall pipeline, we've got 91 restaurants in our pipeline to open, of which board approved 46 restaurants last year.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Tom Kierath, from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Okay, guys. Just a couple of quick follow-ups. Just how are you thinking about launching new products this year? I know you've done chicken tenders, which has been pretty successful, but I don't expect you to say which products, but are there new products coming, and how should we kind of think about the contribution of those?
There's always a lot of stuff happening at La Cocina, which is obviously GYG's kitchen, and obviously, we brought mushrooms back, which everybody loved, especially during breakfast. But another highlight for us is we've had a gentleman named Nate Appleman, who was the ex head of culinary and culinary innovation at Chipotle, join us. So he's moved with his family from Los Angeles, from the California area to Sydney. And we've got a lot of interesting things we're working on, which we can't tell you yet, but I'm sure our guests will love.
... Nice, nice. And then secondly, just the 7.4 comp for the first seven weeks, can you say what you're lapping in the prior period? Because I think you took quite a lot of price in May and July last year, so I would have thought that you're actually up against some pretty strong comps in the prior period.
Tom, yes, that's correct. In terms of the price increases at that time. We are not providing a breakdown of that period other than from the perspective, as you know, we, our first half comps were about 10% last year. That's what we're up against.
Okay. All right. Fair enough. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from James Ferrier from Wilsons Advisory. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity for a couple of follow-ups. Just on breakfast first, you mentioned there that the same-store sales growth for the full year came in, for that day part at 18%. So that was consistent with the first half, whereas if you look at the overall same-store sales growth, it's slowed from first half into second half. So what sort of trends, if any, obviously positive, but what insights are you gleaning from that in terms of the traction you're getting with breakfast as a day part relative to the overall same-store profile?
Hi, James. You're right that breakfast has been consistently a strong performer for us, which is part of the reason we're so excited. We think the primary reason that breakfast is going so well is because our guests are discovering this great part of our menu for the first time. And there's still a lot of opportunity in breakfast. I mean, we haven't talked about it a lot from a marketing perspective, and there's a lot of our guests who eat with us at lunch and dinner that aren't currently eating with us for breakfast. So we're excited about that day part, and that is consistently outperforming the rest of the overall network.
A follow-up there. With that breakfast day part, are you finding that your new customers, and I guess we use the GYG app as the example here because it's your own data, but are you acquiring new customers into GYG through that day part, or is the same-store sales growth primarily a function of existing lunch and dinner customers that are moving into the breakfast day part?
It'd be a mix of both. We'll break it down on the call here, but it's a mix of both, where obviously the convenience of being able to get coffee and breakfast product on the go in a drive-through environment and convenience is something that is if not unique in the market, certainly rare. That's certainly unique at the quality of the product. So that's why there's a significant opportunity for us. Then also it is quite a different product, so many of our guests are eating with us at lunch and dinner and also at breakfast. It's a combination of new guests and existing guests shopping with us.
Thanks, and then just a last one, any recent trends you can shed some color on in terms of the new store development costs, please?
What we've seen is obviously through the COVID period, you saw increased costs come through in terms of build costs. We've seen that moderate, and we've seen consistency now in terms of our build. Certainly less increases as far as costs are concerned and a lot more consistent around the cost of building our new restaurants.
Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Marks for closing remarks.
Well, I just want to thank everybody for their time today, and as it being 11:35 A.M., it's time to visit your local GYG for lunch. We'll speak to you all soon. Thank you very much.