Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Ingenia Communities Group FY 2024 Results Teleconference and Webcast. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation, followed by a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you'll need to press the Star key, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. John Carfi, CEO. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you all for attending today. I'm pleased to be presenting my very first result as CEO of Ingenia Communities, along with the future plans and goals for the group. I've been in the role just under five months now, and it's been an extremely busy but rewarding experience. Before we get underway, allow me to introduce some of our executive team who are joining me to present and also to answer questions. Justin Mitchell, our CFO; Donna Byrne, General Manager of IR and Sustainability; Justin Blumfield, EGM Residential Communities; Matt Young, EGM Tourism; and Michael Rabey, our acting EGM Development. Moving now to Slide four. As I've stated previously, Ingenia is a business in transition, one where the groundwork has been laid, and there is a lot of opportunity to deliver organic growth and enhanced returns. This has been and remains my core focus.
I've spoken before about the opportunities I see in Ingenia, and it's great to be presenting today's result, along with our progress in refocusing the business and driving returns, particularly from our development business. In a period of significant change, our FY 2024 result exceeded guidance. Pleasingly, this was underpinned by an acceleration in our new home settlements, as well as a solid ongoing performance from our residential communities and holiday parks. We are already seeing some initial benefits flowing from changes made to date, but we still have more work to do, particularly in development, where our returns on some projects are not where we need them to be. Our actions to date include a focus on simplification, delivery of operating efficiencies, and restructuring to reduce overhead and enhance productivity, resetting our financial targets, and ensuring our teams have clarity on our goals and strategy.
A number of changes have been made in development to improve future project returns and address cost escalation and efficiency. As I will discuss later, we have a pathway identified. The momentum we have built over FY 2024 has continued into FY 2025. We have settled 69 new land lease homes year to date, a significant increase on the same period in FY 2023, and we are maintaining high occupancy across our portfolio, with forward bookings in holidays also up on the prior year. I will talk about our pathway over the next few years later in the presentation. While there is much more work to do, and it'll take some time to see the full benefit of the changes we have made, our FY 2024 result, performance year to date are pleasing. Over to Justin to present our financial results.
Great. Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone, and thanks again for joining us on the call. I will start on Slide 6 with an overview of the Ingenia platform. The group has an AUD 2.5 billion real estate portfolio, which it owns or manages across 102 individual properties, providing a strong foundation for future growth. This consists of more than 15,900 income-generating units, delivering stable cash flows across a diverse revenue base. The key drivers that certainly underpin our business model remain firmly in place: an aging population, a housing affordability crisis, access to affordable rental accommodation, and buoyant demand for domestic travel. We have a development pipeline of more than 5,300 sites, with exposure to diversified markets and price points in Queensland, Victoria, and New South Wales.
This remains the core focus of the group and where future allocated capital will be directed. Turning to the financial highlights on Slide seven. For the financial year ended thirtieth of June, twenty 2024, the group has pleasingly delivered results above guidance. This was underpinned by solid revenue growth, increasing 20% to AUD 472 million, with strong contributions across lifestyle, rental, development, and our holidays business. Lifestyle rentals revenue increased more than 12% to AUD 86.5 million, with CPI-linked rental increases, organic investment, and new rental income from homes that we settled during the year. There was also higher revenue contributions from development as a result of settling 370 homes in Ingenia, an increase of 16% compared to the prior financial period.
Total revenue from Ingenia Holidays increased by almost 7% to AUD 135 million, with tourism revenue increasing 8%. This revenue growth has contributed to an increase in group EBIT to AUD 125.7 million, up 17% and above the high end of our guidance range. Underlying profit for the financial year was AUD 94.8 million, an uplift of 14%, delivering EPS of AUD 0.233 per stapled security, which was AUD 0.01 above the top end of our guidance. The group's statutory profit of AUD 14 million declined as a result of the impairment of goodwill, totaling AUD 97 million in relation to the 2021 Seachange acquisition, due to higher discount rates adopted and cash flow impacts from the increases in construction costs.
This was partially offset by the net revaluation increments, particularly from our tourism assets, which I will discuss shortly. NTA increased 4.9% to AUD 3.69, and a final distribution of AUD 0.061 per security has been declared, taking a full year distribution to AUD 0.113 per security. Now, moving on to Slide 8 on divisional EBIT performance. I wanted to start by highlighting some changes to how costs have been allocated to our divisions. Since joining the group last year, I reviewed how support center costs are allocated to the operating business. A revised approach has been implemented, whereby only directly attributable costs are captured in the divisional performance. I believe this provides a more accurate view of our operating business's performance and margin. Within the appendices, we have provided a summary of these changes.
Now talking to divisional results. Overall, the group has seen positive EBIT contributions across lifestyle rentals, development, and holidays. As previously mentioned, the holidays rental business has continued to deliver strong growth. EBIT increased 13.8% to AUD 45 million. Margin has improved as the portfolio has grown. However, the establishment of new communities continued to drag on this margin, together with an uplift in costs above inflation, including land tax, council rates, utilities, and insurance. Lifestyle development, which was impacted in the prior periods by construction challenges, has pleasingly seen an increase in new home settlements to 370, and an additional 92 in the joint venture with Sun and the funds business. This delivered an uplift in EBIT of 40% to AUD 59 million.
Margin overall has decreased as a result of the gross margin from home settlements declining slightly to 44%, and cost increases associated with the execution and expansion of the pipeline, including marketing costs, which is incurred of us settling homes. Ingenia Holidays continues to benefit from both occupancy and rate increases. We have selectively invested in organic growth through the addition of new holiday cabins to enhance earning streams, and importantly, maximize our investment value. EBIT increased 4.6% to just under AUD 57 million. However, the EBIT margin declined to 42.2%. This was due to higher operating and volume-related costs associated with the increase in revenue. Additionally, online travel agent commissions and marketing expenditure increased as we invested to attract new guests.
Corporate and support center growth has moderated compared to last year, as we focus on efficiency within the business. The increase in FY 2024 was primarily driven by one-off costs associated with the CEO transition, coupled with other restructuring costs. Now turning to Slide 9 to provide an update on our capital position. The group pleasingly continues to be disciplined and maintain a quite prudent balance sheet setting. Our LVR at 30th of June was three point two, sorry, 32.3%, well within our target range of 30%-40%. We are also well within our covenant requirements and have sufficient funding headroom for growth, with over AUD 202 million either cash and available undrawn facilities. In March, the group increased its facilities by an additional AUD 125 million for a period of five years.
We took the opportunity to extend our nearest debt maturity which was due in December 2025, by splitting and extending AUD 100 million for four years. This process was strongly supported, which is a very positive perspective from a future funding point of view, as our portfolio continues to grow. During the year, the group continued to selectively identify opportunities to recycle lower growth assets, with AUD 75 million divested. Together with the strong cash flows from our lifestyle rentals and holidays business, we remain focused on managing the capital as required for the development pipeline and incremental investment into both rental and holidays. Turning now to Slide 10 on our portfolio valuation.
In response to feedback on our disclosure, I have included in the appendices enhanced transparency on the components of fair value movement in relation to our land lease portfolio. Additionally, a breakdown of our development project metrics, including fair value, land cost components, and an allocation of community facilities, has also been provided. The table at the bottom of this Slide provides a summary of the components of investment property value. I'm also able to step through this in more detail in our one-on-one meetings over the coming weeks. In simple terms, for land lease projects, investment property is categorized between in-operation and land being developed. On the settlement of homes, value is transferred to in-operation investment property, being the completed home rental annuity stream.
Development profit is also recognized to the profit and loss, resulting in the release of embedded profits included within the development land value. In relation to cap rates, land lease assets increased six basis points to 5.04%, while our All-Age Rental Portfolio also increased six basis points to 6.19%. The holidays and mixed-use portfolio value increased by just over AUD 84 million, off the back of continued strong and consistent net income growth. This was offset partially by cap rates increasing twenty basis points to 7.76%. In wrapping up, our business remains resilient, providing a diverse asset base and growing revenue streams.
The group continues to maintain a prudent balance sheet position, ensuring availability of capital to invest in the group's development pipeline as needed, and managing capital allocation in line with targeted returns and our strategic objectives. Our five-year plan is focused on enhancing development returns and benefiting from the scaled business through further investment in our development pipeline. I will now hand back to John to discuss our development division results.
Thank you, Justin. Turning now to Slide 14. It's great to be reporting on the development segment today, an area of the business where I'm spending the bulk of my time, and where I see the greatest opportunity to unlock value and accelerate growth. The result for this business reflects an ongoing focus on execution and the initial impact of changes already made to our delivery model. New home settlements increased by 24%, and the average sale price is now sitting at over AUD 600,000, up from an average of AUD 487,000 last year. This, combined with additional JV activity, resulted in an increase in EBIT to over AUD 59 million. We achieved 462 settlements, which was in line with our expectations, despite an extended sales journey for our customers.
We have seen our average home sale margin contract, although it remains within our targeted range at approximately 44%. While I'm encouraged by this result, the EBIT margin has traced back, and we are well off delivery of our return targets for this business. We have sought to optimize returns, but we still have select projects where the ability to manage costs and enhance return is limited. We will trade out of these over time, and we'll also benefit from a refined approach and greater financial discipline as future projects commence, and we continue to drive towards greater scale and settlements, delivering efficiency over the medium term. Moving to Slide 15. We were able to materially increase construction activity this year, with 540 homes constructed. While previously a constraint, it's no longer an issue, with construction timeframes now stable, averaging 22 weeks across our portfolio.
While wet weather has impacted some of our projects, it has not affected critical path timeframes, ensuring no material impact on settlements. Our move to a more integrated development function is providing greater connectivity between customer insights and our construction, sales, and marketing activity, and is anticipated to deliver greater efficiencies and productivity gains as we further refine our processes. We have increased our inventory in line with an increase in projects, but continue to manage in line with demand. Of the June inventory of 100 homes, only 25 homes remain unsold. Year to date, we have already settled 69 homes, and we are continuing to see allocations to buyers as homes are released, supporting a smoother settlements profile in FY 2025. Importantly, into FY 2025, our projects remain on schedule and responsive to market demand.
We are well-placed with available capital to accelerate construction as needed to meet demand. We are now on Slide 16. Sales rates continue to meet our forecast, and as I've communicated before, there are clear milestones within each project that lead to improved sales rates. These key milestones include the opening of the sales suite, the unveiling of display homes, and the commencement and completion of community clubhouse. We have a range of major milestone events taking place in FY 2025, all of which will contribute to sales momentum. These include five clubhouse openings, display villages at three new projects, and three new project launches. As shown on Slide 17, we have a pipeline of new homes with over 5,300 development sites and an increase in approvals.
Settlements continue to be delivered, to be delivered across a diverse range of locations, product types, and price points. This diversity enables us to forecast settlement numbers more confidently and meet varied market demands without exposing ourselves to excessive risks in any single market or location. A large portion of our pipeline is in Queensland, a market which continues to deliver with strong sales and settlement rates. In New South Wales, the market is steady, and as project milestones progress, we expect the sales rates to increase. While we have limited exposure to Victoria, and this market is certainly slower than other states, our home settlements are comfortably in line with our forecast. Despite strong tailwinds supporting overarching demand for our homes, in the short term, we continue to see buyer hesitancy and an extended sales journey in line with general market conditions.
Our approach to development is demand-led, and as market conditions and settlement improve, we anticipate a reduction in sales timeframes. We remain focused on meeting customer need and see our model, which provides the simplicity of affordable homes and weekly rents with no exit fees, as a compelling proposition for an aging population seeking a connected community, lifestyle, and belonging. Finishing on Slide 18. We are also seeing growing momentum in the joint venture, which delivered approximately 20% of total settlements this year, and is anticipated to represent a growing portion of overall settlements in FY 25. Over to JB to take us through residential communities.
Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. Today, I am happy to be presenting positive full year operational results, which demonstrate the stability and ongoing growth of Ingenia's rental annuities. Starting on Slide 19, the Ingenia Lifestyle Rental segment delivered full year EBIT growth of 14%. The key driver of this growth was a 12% increase in revenue, driven by CPI-linked rent increases, the addition of 419 new rent-producing sites, and growing revenue from established home resales. Throughout the year, we did experience increased community operational costs due to the high inflationary environment and the fast-growing nature of the Ingenia lifestyle portfolio. Pleasingly, strong revenue growth exceeded cost growth, delivering a 1% improvement in our stabilized EBIT margin. I'll now turn to Slide 20 for more detail on the individual business unit results, starting with Ingenia Lifestyle.
Ingenia's land lease rental annuity continues to grow, with 365 new home settlements delivered for the full year. The new rent from these homes, coupled with average rent increases of 7% across existing lifestyle home sites, contributed strong annual rental growth. Solid demand for established lifestyle homes continued in the second half, resulting in a total of 237 homes being resold by Ingenia for the full year. These sales generated AUD 7 million in revenue, which supported overall EBIT growth. We continue to focus on delivering a positive lived experience for our Ingenia Lifestyle customers. Our annual resident satisfaction survey, completed by over 2,500 residents in May this year, resulted in stable average customer satisfaction levels of 79% being achieved. While homeowner rental affordability also continues to be resilient amidst the rising cost of living.
This affordability was assisted throughout the year by rising government support payments. Turning now to Ingenia's all-age rental portfolio on Slide 21. The all-age rental portfolio experienced consistently high occupancy throughout the year, finishing at 99% at year's end. The shortage of affordable rental homes in Australia continues to provide positive tailwinds for this business segment. This was demonstrated by all newly built rental homes being leased immediately upon completion and waiting lists continuing to be observed at our 10 rental communities. In addition, strong rental revenue growth was achieved from average annual rent increases of 9%. Our site intensification approach continued in the second half, with 54 new homes delivered and leased for the full year. This contributed to both revenue and asset value growth.
We are well positioned to capitalize on the favorable rental market conditions, with council approvals in place to add over a hundred new homes across this portfolio in future years. Moving now to Ingenia Gardens on Slide 22. A 12.8% EBIT reduction in the gardens portfolio was a result of the divestment of six communities in December 2023. The existing 19 Ingenia Gardens communities continued to remain resilient, with average unit occupancy consistently above 95% throughout the year. EBIT margin improvement was also achieved due to an ongoing focus on delivering efficiencies, predominantly in catering procurement. While the maximum base rent pension increased by 1.8% in March, which continues to support modest increases in gardens rental revenue. In conclusion, Ingenia continues to successfully build upon its sizable rental annuity.
The ongoing addition of new homes from development, combined with existing favorable rental market conditions, positions us well to continue this performance into the future. Thank you. I'll now pass over to our Executive General Manager of Tourism, Matthew Young.
Thanks, Justin. Good morning. I'm pleased to share with you our full year results for Ingenia Holidays, starting on Slide 24. Firstly, I'd like to share some highlights with you, emphasizing our strategic growth and densification efforts, strong financial and operational performance, and effective marketing and customer engagement. Throughout the year, we installed 52 cabins across the network, all of which are generating income in line with expectations and are aligned with our densification strategy. We acquired and integrated our newest coastal park, Ingenia Holidays Old Bar Beach , which has exceeded forecasts and has considerable upside potential with further densification. Our commitment to strategic growth has allowed us to expand our offerings and improve the overall visitor experience.
As a result, our parks outpaced the national average in Australia's caravan industry, with notable gains: 9% growth in cabin revenue compared to the national average of 2%, 8% growth in sites exceeding the national average by 5%. These impressive results highlight our strong financial and operational performance, demonstrating the robustness of our business model. We've effectively leveraged our existing database of guests to generate more stays, while using alternate channels to introduce 40% new customers. This has allowed us to successfully navigate the trough periods. Now turning to Slide 25. Customer trends and insights reveal consistent booking behaviors year-over-year, with 38% of bookings made within seven days of arrival and 20% secured more than three months in advance. The average length of stay declined slightly in FY 2024, dropping by 2%.
This trend, combined with the increase in costs, impacted EBIT margin. Our marketing efforts have also yielded promising results. Our end of financial year campaign generated online sales of over AUD 400,000, up from the same sale the prior year. This success was largely driven by targeted content execution, sharp campaign timing, and a new brand direction. Late FY 2024, we launched our new brand direction, inviting guests to come and stay the Ingenia Holidays way. The marketing campaign targets Australians in the family and mature traveler segments, highlighting the joy of staying in a holiday park with a touch of humor. We're focused, customer-focused, receiving over 19,000 views and responding to over 98% of them, which resulted in achieving high guest satisfaction scores. We do this by staying focused on the basics while looking for opportunities to surprise and delight.
Looking ahead, we are positive about the outlook for several reasons. The geographic nature of our business is advantageous, as our guests primarily drive to our locations and are not reliant on airlines. This is especially relevant given the continued uncertainty around domestic air travel, with price increases and reduced competitiveness in the airline sector, as highlighted by the recent Bonza and Rex incidents. The tailwinds are strong. Forward bookings are up 6% year-on-year. Significant future capital densification is in play, and a successful omni-channel strategy is attracting more guests to our parks. Moreover, our diverse range of desirable locations and historical industry performance makes them extremely confident in our ability to continue delivering strong results. Thank you, and I'll now hand back to John.
Thanks, Matt and JB. Before I close with our outlook and guidance, I'd like to talk in more detail about our pathway over the next five years and my goals for the business. Let's start with where we are today on Slide 27. We have a strong position in the land lease market, with an established asset base, a secured pipeline for growth, an experienced team, and we've been one of the longest operators in this coveted space. We have diverse assets by location, sector, and price point, which supports consistent recurring cash flows and underpins our returns. Importantly, the segments we operate in have attractive tailwinds to support ongoing growth. An aging population, a growing need for affordable housing, and demand for for domestic travel are all expected to continue to increase our customer base and underpin demand.
The clear opportunity for Ingenia is to continue to pivot from an asset aggregator to an asset developer and operator through the accelerated execution of our development pipeline. This has meant firstly, focusing on delivering in development, where unlocking the value inherent in our land bank will not only drive value creation, but support our growth ambitions in the land lease space. Secondly, as the business has evolved, it has acquired or employed substantial human resources and expanded its focus, in particular, from moving from small infill and brownfield development to a focus on complex, large-scale greenfield projects. Tightening our focus, streamlining our operations, and embedding greater financial discipline is key. There are also opportunities to better leverage our assets and platforms to improve returns as we access strategic partnerships to release capital from lower growth assets. Moving to Slide 28.
While we have a lot more work to do to reach our optimal delivery model and returns, we have already made some progress. A new purpose and values have been launched with teams. Our focus on execution is yielding results. We met and exceeded guidance this year and have a target for further growth in FY 2025. We have streamlined our executive function to suit the future focus. This has also provided clearer lines of accountability and will contribute to productivity gains. Executive has reduced from 12 to 8 roles, and combined with other headcount reductions, will generate annualized savings of AUD 6 million. We have also been clear about our need to deliver efficiency through scale and financial returns.
We will exit the subscale funds management business in FY 2025, and continue to review our portfolios to identify lower growth assets, which can be divested as needed for reinvestment in opportunities that provide better returns. We have increased our disclosures around development value creation and our return targets to facilitate growth. In turn, these targets have been reflected in future remuneration plans, providing additional clarity and alignment with shareholders. Development has also seen structure and resourcing changes as we move to an integrated delivery model, with acquisitions, marketing, and sales now embedded within the development function. This is an important step in creating greater customer focus, alignment, and accountability. I've also taken the opportunity to review every project, current and planned, to ensure our pipeline of future projects can deliver the returns we need.
We have more work to do to further refine our delivery model, but we have made good progress. Importantly, we have ensured the business is not capital-constrained. With a full understanding of the capital required, I'm confident that funding will not be an impediment to meeting our customer demand or inhibit growth. Our capital sources include debt capacity, selling or deferring less optimal projects, divesting lower growth mature assets, and potential strategic partnering opportunities. Turning to Slide 30. These actions and our five-year plan reflect three areas of priority from a strategy perspective, which will allow us to strengthen our foundation, optimize financial returns, and accelerate growth. Firstly, simplifying the business. Secondly, improving development returns in line with targets. Finally, aligned to these objectives is building an unrelenting focus on operational efficiency and productivity, being clear on the attributes and returns we need from our portfolios.
Reducing costs and finding more efficient ways to do what we do, are key to value creation and improved returns from assets across our entire portfolio. These focus areas are reflected in our short-term objectives and medium-term targets. We have put in place a one, three, and five-year plan to steer our actions and set expectations as we deliver on this strategy and transition toward a more efficient operating model with a stable cost base, greater development focus, and a diversity of cash flows. While we have made some progress on our one-year goals, we are working to embed the changes made to date, undertaking further review of some key businesses, business areas, and are seeking further and ongoing efficiency gains. As we move into year three, we expect gains from our earlier actions to accelerate.
In particular, the work we are doing to refine the design and procurement process in development, and optimized project returns will begin to deliver results, which will flow through our future pipeline. Current early-stage projects will become cash flow positive, providing capital to reinvest within the development business. Delivery of scale, greater efficiency in development, and optimizing returns across the business will continue the pathway to our medium-term targets and strategic goals, which we anticipate delivering from year five. Moving to Slide 31. This pathway is underpinned by the work we have done to refine our return targets, providing an important management tool for our teams, who have clear accountability and the conviction to deliver these results. As we scale development, we will skew the mix between development income and recurring revenue, which will also be reflected in how we allocate capital.
Over our five-year plan, we would see development representing 50%-60% of EBIT. Currently, this sits at 35%. Our established asset base, which is delivering more stable recurring revenue, will reduce to 40%-50% of EBIT, reflecting our increase in capital allocation to development, supported by the introduction of strategic partnerships to release capital from lower growth assets. As Justin outlined, we have provided greater disclosure in our results around development value creation to assist in measuring development progress and returns. The roadmap I've presented is a culmination of our work to clarify the group's strategic focus, accelerate growth, and optimize risk-adjusted returns.
As outlined on Slide 33, we are targeting further growth in FY 2025, with settlements in line with our three-year target of 1,600 to 2,000 lots from FY 2024 to FY 2026, which in turn will increase our recurring rental cash flows. Ingenia enters FY 2025 poised for growth, with a clear pathway to enhance returns, sufficient capital to fund growth, and a simplified business that will drive efficiency and productivity. That concludes the formal presentation today, but before I go to questions, I'd like to thank the Ingenia team for their support and commitment this year and their openness to change. I'm pleased with the position the business is in, and look forward to updating you on further progress. I'll now open the call to 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. The first question comes from Solomon Zhang from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Morning, John and team. Thanks for your time. Maybe just sticking with this development segment contribution, which you've outlined to be 50-60%. You've stepped out a few of the return targets, I think, mid-teens, but are you targeting a specific development segment return on invested capital, or how are you sort of thinking about the return on capital allocated to that segment?
Yeah, look, I don't think we're that specific about any capital allocator. What we've made sure is that we can fund the development pipeline as to suit market demand. So ramp up, accelerate, or slow down on market demand, but we still expect significant growth in that and to allocate capital to it. So on the basis that it's a higher return than lower-yielding mature assets in our portfolio, then we expect that obviously would produce better returns for the overall group. Is that does that answer your question, or have I missed the point?
I was sort of saying more on a return on invested capital for that segment, say, like a 10% return on invested capital, or is there a target there?
Yeah, I think that's in line with the IRR that we've
Yeah
had, which is in that, you know, around that 15%-16%, which we've targeted previously and disclosed that. We're still aiming to obviously deliver that going forward.
Yep. And maybe you called out a few of the sub-optimal development projects that you're sort of working through. Can you perhaps just step through what returns are, have been achieved or are expected for those projects and what you've diagnosed the problem to be?
Yeah, look, at a portfolio level, for the most part, we're, you know, some are outperforming and some are underperforming. We've identified three projects where we think on their current status and with the assumptions we currently have plugged in, it wouldn't make sense to continue to invest further capital in those developments, and we've made those assumptions around our lot settlement carryover over the five-year period. The work that we're doing on those is looking at whether we can reduce the cost of retaining walls, reduce the cost of clubhouses, and also get comfort around sales rates and sales prices. So there's more work to do on those. Some of those will come out unscathed and will go into delivery, and some of those we might seek to exit at some point in time.
Yeah. Great. Maybe just the final one. There's been some negative media attention for one of your listed peers. Have you seen any sort of flow-on impact, whether positive or negative, to, I guess, inquiry levels or conversion levels, particularly in Victoria?
Surprisingly, no impact whatsoever, which, you know, you would think there'd be a broader market impact. We've not seen anything in terms of inquiry levels. We've not had any customers approach us on that issue specifically. And, as, you know, you'd be aware in the stuff we're producing down there, we have no deed methods of simple transaction with no exit fees.
Yep. Thanks for your time. Cheers.
Thanks for your question.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Suraj Nebhani from Citi. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi, good morning. Good morning, John and team. Good result. Just a few quick ones from me. So firstly, on the medium-term targets, obviously it's good to see, you know, five-year growth target of 10%-15% in settlements. Can you just clarify how you would fund that growth, I guess? And, or maybe have you looked at what sort of capital is needed to fund that growth?
Yeah, Suraj, Justin here. Maybe if I take that in the first instance. Obviously, as we've demonstrated over a period of time, and, you know, as John alluded to, there are a number of different levers for us to fund that development pipeline. You know, over the last few years, we've certainly invested a lot into new projects, and I think it's important that, you know, a lot of those projects are starting to actually deliver settlements now, so they're turning income generating. You know, we're also looking at projects that we can defer as well, particularly those that are underperforming, and we'll obviously start with that as a mechanism, and there are continued recycling opportunities.
We'll look at those lower growth assets where there's opportunities to divest, to fund that pipeline, together with the fact that, you know, as we grow and we fair value our assets, you know, we're able to leverage and draw down more debt, and as I said, we increased our facilities in the last few months, an additional AUD 125 million, which was well supported, and I expect that continued support to continue.
I think the point I would make, just to cap that off is we have assumed our development pipeline is being developed as fast as possible on the basis of consumer demand. So, obviously, we know what sort of sales rates we can anticipate at a project level, and we have the capital to fund that. If more sales arise and more opportunities arise, we'll accelerate that platform and deliver higher lot settlements, and we have plenty of opportunities to source sufficient capital in order to fund that, and also continue to restock the pipeline. So it's important you come away from today understanding that there is no balance sheet constraint for the execution of that development pipeline.
But if you were to expand it, for example, if conditions become better, you're saying there may be some sort of constraints-
Yeah. So
in the future?
No. We've got enough levers within the business to be able to source
Yeah
t he funding. And I mentioned it in my presentation or whatever, to be able to fund an accelerated platform. And trust me, we've modeled that as well to see what that looks like, just to make sure we're not guessing.
Thanks. Thanks for that. No worries. That, that's helpful. On the cost-saving side, you announced, you know, AUD 6 million per annum. From here on, is it fair to say that it's more around return optimization at a project level, rather than any further cost reductions at a corporate level?
Yeah, correct. So the corporate reductions, obviously, that it's pleasing and it's a good number, but it's obviously recurring. Most of that's driven around getting better alignment on roles and responsibilities and making sure accountability is there. So think of that as more a production measure, but obviously resulted in a significant saving, which is pleasing. The main focus for us is cost outs and better opportunities and at a development level. And if you look at the stuff we've done to date, I'll give you an example, but down in Victoria, we've changed our slab design, which has resulted in a cheaper building.
It's taken us away from a monopoly by a particular provider of housing frames, and it's reduced our civil works cost significantly because it's brought the civil works down ninety millimeters across a site of over 10 hectares. So there's one example that'll flow through the future developments. Procurement savings that are already flowing through or will flow through over the next 12 months. Then, but more importantly, over the medium term, there are design changes we are making now for things that will go into production in the next 12 months and be produced over the next two to three years. That's where you'll see more significant savings. It's unfortunate, but the gestation period for some of these things is quite long.
So there are things we are producing now where, you know, I almost, you know, hang my head in disgust because we're building something I know is inefficient, but, you know, you can't stop. We've made representations and those things are underway. So you'll see a significant transition over the next two to three years.
So just one thing I wanted to clarify just on your comment around savings. That six million, just to be clear, is not all in corporate. That's across our business, including development, marketing, and a large portion is definitely in the corporate. I just wanted to clarify that.
How much, how much of that would be corporate adjustment?
Probably around two to three million.
Okay. All right. And then finally, on the development margins, the gross development margins, I noticed, like, the target on that is 40-50. That's a pretty wide range. Obviously, historically, that number has probably been closer to 50 than 40. So can you talk to, I guess, what needs to change to go towards the top end of that range?
Yeah, sure. That's a good question. And look, obviously, it's a little bit hard because it will come down somewhat to mix of projects, remembering that, you know, margin is one element of value creation for us. You gotta think that a lot of it is the asset we actually create at the end as well, which comes through fair value. And I guess, you know, as a lot of our peers in the sector, more broadly, we've been susceptible to construction cost increases as well. So I think it's a combination of factors that have driven that, some of it mix, but obviously just general increases. You know, to give you a bit of sense going forward, we expect that FY 2025, that we'll be able to keep margins probably consistent with what we delivered in FY 2024.
Thank you, and just one final one from me. On the three-year guidance, good to see that it's been maintained, 1,600 to 2,000 . Yeah, should we just use the 10%-15% as a base number in terms of, you know, growth built into those expectations, or is there, like, a ramp up in 2025 or 2026 that you're anticipating?
No, I think you'll see, you know, obviously fluctuations from year to year, depending on the market and where each project is. But over that five-year period, I think that'd be a safe assumption. The caveat we put on everything is obviously the underlying market. There is structural undersupply in the market, but at any point in time, if settlement wanes, it'd be very prudent of us, and we should be, to reduce production in line with demand. And, and if that starts to occur, you'll get every signal well beforehand, but we've based our assumptions on what we think the market will absorb on a through-cycle basis.
Thank you. Thanks for that. I'll jump back in with you. Maybe I can circle back later. Thank you.
Thank you for the question.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Tom Badr from UBS. Please go ahead.
Good morning, John and Justin. Just a question around the sort of non-core disposals. You're talking about it as though it's going to be a case of asset by asset, selling off the lower returning parts of the portfolio. Is that the right interpretation of your comments, or would you consider selling, you know, Ingenia Gardens or the affordable rental parts of the portfolio wholesale?
Yeah, I think it shouldn't be interpreted that way. So there are two factors to it. One is if a portfolio is low growth and we don't see opportunity in it, then, you know, certainly that's something we should and would look at disposal of. But importantly, one of the bit of work that we've been doing, and maybe JB can touch on it a bit more detail, is also obviously, we've grown through acquisition. Sometimes we've been prudent buying, maybe other times, you know, we weren't. So looking at our portfolio and sort of suggesting what are the key attributes of something we would like to own and think of that as being a green, in the green box.
What are the assets that could get there with a little bit of CapEx that are in the amber box, and there are assets that are red, which no amount of CapEx is going to fix. So we've done that so that we can prudently invest where we need to, but also dispose asset by asset if we needed to. And it's all about being an active portfolio, managing and recycling within portfolios. But we, you know, we're agnostic to whether that's a portfolio or an asset level.
That's very clear. So some of those portfolios, though, is there a minimum scale that you need to be to kind of for it to make sense to be doing those activities?
I think that's probably a logical conclusion, and the other thing is, with some of our assets, there's some efficiencies in operation. So in some cases, we might have a, call it a low-growth asset that's next to two core assets that just makes it an efficient operation for us. In some cases, there might be a low-growth asset that's isolated that doesn't make sense, but it might be near another operator who could gain efficiencies out of it or operate it differently.
So the important. I think the pivot we'd like to emphasize is that we, rather than assessing capital needs on the opportunity to sell things, we've assessed capital needs off the back of what it is we need to do to accelerate the development pipeline, which means everything else above that is more opportunistic, or if we want to accelerate, if there's an opportunity to accelerate further, a divestment.
That's, that's very clear. Thanks. Now, I just also wanted to pick up your comments around not having an exit fee or a deferred management fee on your new product you're selling in Victoria. I do note that there's some legacy DMF product across the Ingenia Federation villages. How comfortable are you with that in light of what we've seen in the media recently?
Yeah, absolutely. I'm just gonna throw it to JB to answer that.
Yeah, thanks, Tom. It's a good question. We've reached out to our homeowners associations in each of those communities, and they're totally comfortable with where that DMF is sitting at the moment, and given the pricing of those assets compared to other homes within those markets in Victoria. We'll obviously continue to monitor that over time and see what happens and plays out with the Lifestyle Communities . But for us at the moment, yeah, there's no impact or issue that we're having in that respect.
And it's also the interesting thing there as well is in terms of our overall portfolio, any impact that would have would not be material to us.
Is it worth just sort of moving on from the DMF structure just to simplify things if it's not material?
Yeah, look, not in the public realm, but we certainly have a plan to transition out. Obviously, we've got to deal with customers, so I'm not happy for that to be overly public, but we've got a plan.
Okay, great. Thanks. And then, look, thanks very much for the additional color around the development revaluation. I'd just be interested in understanding how you consider the AUD 106 million negative reval within the development division that you've put into the appendix in the context of the overall project returns. Is that part of your mid-teens return, that negative there on the
No, it's not. It's really just the realization of profit into the P&L, but Tom, I'm happy to. I know we're catching up later today. I'm more than happy to step through it in a little bit more detail once you've had a chance to digest it.
Great. Thanks very much.
Thanks, Tom.
Thanks for your question, Tom.
Thank you. Your next question comes from James Druce from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good morning. Do you mind just talking through some of the demand trends you're seeing in the various markets?
Yeah, look, it's interesting, and as I outlined earlier, depending on the stage of the project, you have an uptick. Queensland has been really, really buoyant. It's obviously a buoyant market. You're getting a lot of interstate migration through Victoria, filling that market and obviously a lot of growth due to public spending and what have you, relating to the Olympic Games and the other infrastructure stuff. So it's been a great buoyant market, and we're sort of, you know, pressing ahead as quickly as possible those developments to meet that demand. New South Wales has still been a pleasing market. We're seeing great momentum in new developments up on the Central Coast into the Hunter Region, particularly our new project at Morisset.
So nothing alarming in any of that, although, you know, some of the sentiment stuff you get in the news on a daily basis is always concerning, but we're not seeing anything on the ground. Interestingly, in the markets we're operating in Victoria, we're very, very comfortable and seeing good, strong demand in those locations. Some of that's been buoyed around the delivery of clubhouses and what have you. Although we monitor that market carefully, and we certainly be really cautious about, you know, overreaching with production in those markets. But look, nothing to be alarmed about to date. We're just, I suppose, cautious on Victoria, but, and, but very optimistic around Queensland, if we can increase, ramp up our, or accelerate our execution. I've just got Michael Rabey on.
I'll just say, Michael, is there anything to add to that?
No, I think you've covered it, John. I would say, yeah, Victoria has been steady and look, days on market, it's probably the slowest market that we have. However, we haven't had, you know, there's no there hasn't been any settlement risk that we've encountered in the last financial year or in current allocations.
All right, thank you. And then maybe just talking to FY 2025 guidance, what sort of run rate for corporate costs and just the price point for your settlements coming through for 2025? Can you give a feel for that?
Yeah, sure. Justin here. James, just a couple of points, and just to emphasize that obviously we see a skew in FY 2025 from the joint venture. So we're seeing quite a lot more developments expected to come through that. So probably about 30% of our settlements will come from the joint venture, so not all flowing directly to Ingenia. So far as price points, we're seeing probably a slight uplift in what we expect on average prices, both across Ingenia and the joint venture. Probably around that 5%, predominantly mixed, et cetera, coming through. And on the cost front, I expect costs to moderate more in line with inflation. So taking out some of the one-off costs that we had, certainly in corporate, is...
So that, taking that off, probably growth from there would be probably more consistent with inflation than that is probably consistent across the broader business as well. So cost starting to moderate quite a bit there.
Okay. Why is the margin flat then, if that's the case?
The margin in 2025?
Yeah.
We haven't given any guidance on margin for 2025. Are you talking about the I'm talking about the gross development margin, is what I was
Okay.
If that's what you meant? Yeah, sorry, that was the gross development margin.
Okay. Okay, and then, just one for John, just on the same subject. Putting all this focus on development and efficiency, do you think you'll see When will we start to see an improvement, I think, broadly across margins from that focus?
Yeah, you'll see some improvement coming through, but it's compositional. Obviously, there are some projects that are never gonna get to where we'd like them to be, and some that are outperforming. So depending on the settlements coming through from which one, when or whatever, you'll see different things coming through. But we're already seeing some of the benefits of the work we've done flowing through, which will flow through in FY 2025. As we go, as I said, probably more into year three, you'll see significant benefits flowing through. The other thing, once you get to year three, is you'll also get some scale benefits as well. So our overhead remains the same, but we're able to produce increased product. So you know, think of it over a three-year period. But what we're not saying is it's a hockey stick, right?
You don't get it all in year three. You'll get it progressively from now right through to the end of year three. Year five, and then you get overall scale benefits at a group level. If we're able to grow the asset values and grow the organization and your activity over that period, then same overhead, you know, amortize over a greater number of months of reduction. So, you know, you'll see it progressively coming through. There's no magic moment, but equally, there isn't, you know, wait for three years and we get there.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Scott Hudson, from MST. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon, everybody. Just a couple of questions. John, when you said you've modeled your sort of capital requirements, I guess, have you had initial discussions with any potential capital partners?
No, we haven't. We've been approached by a great deal of capital partners for assets that they are interested in, and they're all, you know, generally organizations you'd be very, very happy to have a relationship with. The important thing for us was not to get distracted by that and focus on our capital needs, and that's what we've done. Now that we understand our capital needs, now that we've been able to set portfolios and determine what we consider to be low growth and potential sales down, and also understanding when we need that capital and the source of structures, now we're happy to reengage with potential long-term partners.
So an example might be, if we want to sell down a portfolio, but we want to maintain, you know, a recurring income versus volatile earnings over a period of time, we might seek a partner where we can engage with them and sell down over a period of time, or where we enter into some sort of other relationship through a fund. So everything's open to us. We just wanted to make sure we understood our capital needs before we engaged.
I guess, in terms of those potential capital partners, it sounds like it's gonna be more on the rental side of the business as opposed to the development side of the business. Am I reading that correctly?
Yeah. Well, I think that, that's, you know, a really good question. You know, we're very happy with the joint venture we have with Sun Communities, and they provide a lot of benefits to us. But arguably, we've got a capital partner in the one part of the business where the market wants us to invest more capital, where we can create more value. So we certainly won't be seeking to do more things in that space, but we'll comfortably sit alongside Sun Communities. We think there's a lot of benefits in having them as a partner in what we've got.
Thanks. And just on the funds management exit, is that just a closing down of that division, or are you looking to sell the
Yeah. So that fund is winding up. We're in the process of winding it up, and that'll be conducted before or certainly during this financial period. It's obviously subscale, and we'll seek to get out of it, and there's no anticipated rolling or doing that again.
Okay. Then lastly, just on tourism demand, I guess, are you seeing any signs of impact of cost of living pressures on demand, whether it be across the cabins or camping sites?
Oh, hi, Scott, it's Matt here. Look, no, at this stage, like, our bookings are up 6% compared to the prior year. And I suppose one of the advantages of holiday parks is that you've got a broad, product range from sites through to cabins and, you know, everything in between. So we're well positioned. What we are seeing is a little bit of, a reduction in length of stay, but then that's being backed over by more customers coming through and, you know, our omni-channel approach, to broadening our distribution channels. So no, not, not, not at this stage. It's all looking very positive.
Appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Suraj Nebhani, from Citi. Please go ahead.
Oh, sorry, all questions have been asked. I'll jump back out.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Rushabh Piya from Ord Minnett. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, John and Justin. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a couple from me. Just regarding maybe just starting on the development side of the business and the integrated model you now have, and I guess the sales efficiencies you're targeting. Can you maybe just provide a little bit of color on, I guess, current sales rates, you know, where they are or maybe where they are relative to competitors, and where you think they can get to, just to, I guess, contextualize what you're targeting in that side of the business?
Yeah, okay. I'll just touch on the organizational changes, then I might throw to Michael Rabey, just to give some color around customers. So you know, in reality, across the business, not just in development, the first thing that struck me was that it wasn't clear who was responsible for what. And even if it was clear, it seemed that a lot of people who had accountability for things didn't control all the things they were accountable for. So think of that as pretty simple business 101, and included in development. In order to look at the development head and say: I need you to deliver this outcome over this period of time, what are all the things that that person didn't control? So effectively, we wrapped all that up and said, "You now control your own destiny.
You can hire and fire, you can do whatever you need within that to be able to deliver." So it's really as basic and fundamental as that. And we'll continue to do that across the business, although I think, you know, we've made good inroads, and I think we're as good as we need to be. There's absolutely clarity around responsibility, and accountability is absolutely clear, and authority, importantly, is clear. The other thing we've done is looked at our limits of authority to make sure that where we've given people the authority and the responsibility, that they actually can spend the money, make the decision necessary in order to act that, with all the, you know, good business principles in place.
In terms of further opportunities in development, we wanna probably push ourselves up the procurement curve a little bit more and investigate where on a risk and opportunity or margin linkage basis, where are the things we can further delve into. We have the internal resources with the capability and the capacity to do that, but once again, that's more of a three-year play than year one or year two. So Michael, I'll throw to you just on that customer question.
Yeah, sure. Thanks, thanks for that. Look, generally speaking, in terms of our competitors, you know, I think most of our competitors, including ourselves, are finding the market favorable for our product. It's. Look, it is sensitive to you know, the amenity that's provided in that community at that time. It's sensitive to, you know, even coming down to things like having display villages launching can alter that picture. I think what we're finding is that the product is. It remains popular. It's probably growing in popularity, and definitely within terms of you know, general supply for age-appropriate accommodation in the market remains low, and some of the alternatives aren't as palatable, i.e., the DMF models.
That has really sort of solidified our market for ourselves, and we do keep. Look, although we compete, we are very close to our competitors and, you know, discuss the market and ways to improve it jointly.
I think the agenda of that
Okay, great. Thanks.
The important thing with this industry, I mean, I'm used to selling AUD 500 million worth of stuff in a weekend and spending no more than 20 minutes with a customer. This is a very different customer that and it's a slow burn, and very dependent on selling their house in order to fund themselves into our product. You know, this is not a, you know, magic market launch where people are lining up. It's a very different market.
Great. Thank you. That's understood. Apologies if I missed this earlier, but in your guidance statement, you have called out changing regulation as a risk. I know Queensland has recently changed some of their laws in regards to the sector. Can you maybe just outline where, I guess, what regulatory risk, I guess, on the horizon and how that might impact your business?
Yeah, look, I can answer that one. We have seen the change in the Queensland Government's regulations, which is limiting our site increases in Queensland to the higher of CPI and 3.5%, and our contracts are currently at CPI plus 2% in Queensland. So you can sort of assume moving forward, when CPI is at the band of 2%-3%, we'll be getting that floor of 3.5%, and then when CPI is higher, we'll be obviously following CPI as it goes up. That's the only state at the moment that's putting any caps on our rental. In New South Wales, they're making some changes around the type of increases you can do, being one fixed mechanism, which we're working through.
And then in Victoria, they're currently working on probably catching up to the other states and putting in standard forms and regulations, which are a little bit behind the other two states. So, look, we anticipated that this sort of regulation change was gonna come in with, you know, the market and more sectors coming into this space. So we'll continue to work with the governments on this, but we don't anticipate any of the changes to have any material impact on our business models.
The other element of that is once the lease terminates and they move on, we mark to market.
Yeah, that's in Queensland. That's right. So in Queensland, they've made changes or making changes to the way that when we sell an established home, the underlying sort of rental agreement, we can actually adjust the rents now, whereas previously you had to assign that rent. So there is opportunities both ways, and we do welcome some of the changes as well, that the government's making, which is gonna help out transparency and overall, probably customer satisfaction. So yeah, whilst those changes are limiting in Queensland, and there is a review of that in three years' time, and we are working with the governments on both sides as to that review. But as I said, on the long-term averages of where our rents are, we don't see it as being a material impact to the business.
Great. Thank you very much. And just one last question on the holidays business and the margin outlook there. I know you've commented the demand. You're not seeing any particular weakness from a demand perspective, but I guess the types of stays are differing, which could be impacting your cost base and margins as a result. Can you maybe just provide a little bit of commentary just regarding your outlook from a margin perspective for that business?
Maybe if I start. It's Justin here, Suraj, thanks for your question. You're right. I think one of the key drivers of our margin has been shorter stays, and what that does is drive uplift to volume-related costs, you know, linen, housekeeping, that kind of stuff. That does have an impact. The other thing we have been investing in is around marketing and certainly in the omni-channel that Matt mentioned before, things like Airbnb, et cetera, that come at a cost. As we try to attract new customers, you know, we have seen an increase there.
But look, looking forward into FY 2025, I would hope that we would see an uplift in our margin, our EBIT margin, through just scale and some of those cost growths moderating in FY 2025.
Yeah, and just to add, the employment market's improved, you know, from two to three years ago. So what we're starting to see now is, you know, making sure that in those regional areas, we're not having to rely on staff and reducing the overtime. Also, looking at where we can actually contract, you know, linen costs are quite significant cost to the business. So, yeah, getting long-term contracts in and reducing the overall cost per item.
Great. Thank you. And sorry, I might just sneak in one last question on the development margin, Justin, that you mentioned that you thought it might be flat in FY 2025. Just given, I know you mentioned mix shift, but just given the current market conditions, and I know Ingenia previously using incentives, do you anticipate any change in the use of incentives in terms of the quantum, or how should we be looking at that?
No, we wouldn't. Look, if anything, we're trying to moderate that, if anything, but no, in simple terms, I wouldn't expect any dramatic change in incentives.
Some of our incentives in prior years are on the basis of production issues e ncouraging customers to ignore the production issues. We have no production issues, so certainly that won't be a factor.
Perfect. Thank you very much. That's all for me.
Great, thank you.
There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back for closing remarks.
Terrific. Thank you for all your attendance, and interest. Justin, Donna, and I look forward to meeting with many of you over the coming weeks, and we'll be available for any additional questions. So thank you once again for attending today. I'll conclude the call.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today.