Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Kelsian Group Limited FY 2024 results briefing. 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 will 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. Clint Feuerherdt, Managing Director and Group CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the full year results presentation for Kelsian Group Limited for the 12 months ended 30 June 2024. I'm Clint Feuerherdt, Managing Director and Group CEO, and I'm joined this morning by Andrew Muir, Group CFO, and Graeme Legh, CEO of All Aboard America Holdings, or AAAHI, as we refer to our US business. This result marks the first year of AAAHI ownership, so we invited Graeme to join us on the webinar today. Before I begin on the result, I want to say a few words on the announcement we made on Monday to provide some context. Kelsian represents a portfolio of businesses that are high quality, leading businesses in their respective markets. SeaLink, grown to be the leading tourism transport business in Australia, holding exclusive positions to iconic island destinations.
Transit Systems, the largest and performance leading public transport business that has been grown through predominantly organic contract awards. Tower Transit Singapore, as the first international operator of public transport in Singapore, this business has grown from zero in 2015 to turning over AUD 200 million in 2024, and sits at the top of the leaderboard on most metrics for performance. And the newest part of our business, AAAHI. After Kelsian's five-year presence in the United States and establishing a market understanding, we acquired AAAHI, which is now a top four motor coach operator in the United States. All of these businesses are quality businesses, leaders in their markets, and I'll talk today about their very strong financial performance over the last financial year.
We have built these businesses successfully, mostly from a very low base, because we have made the right long-term decisions to position them for growth. Over the last weeks, our final results have been coming together, along with a review of the options for investment over the year ahead. We recently finalized the review of all of the capital commitments and approved the portfolio of investment opportunities that we believe are important to set the business up for the long term. Some of them, without doubt, would be preferable to come at a different time, particularly the third-party sale of some of our key strategic bus depots and the increased investment in Kangaroo Island infrastructure. But these assets underpin the strength of our operations and are investments that will be valuable strategic assets into the future that we own and that nobody can replicate.
We took the decision on the capital plan because of the strength of the businesses and because we have built a collection of businesses by making the right long-term decisions. We wanted to update the market as soon as the FY 2024 results were firmed up and the capital plan confirmed accordingly. We are obviously very conscious of our continuous disclosure obligations, and that is the basis of the release on Monday. Today, Andrew, Graeme, and I will provide some insight into the performance of the group and hopefully address the questions you have on our performance and continued success of the collection of great businesses in the portfolio, so this morning, I'll begin by providing an overview of our business as we report on a record result for Kelsian in FY 2024. I'll outline the financial and operational highlights.
I'll then hand to Andrew to go through the results in more detail. During the presentation, you'll also hear from Graeme Legh on the AAAHI result in FY 2024, as well as his current focus areas and outlook. I will also provide an overview of expectations for FY 2025, our focus areas, and the pipeline of opportunities. Turning to slide 3. This slide clearly shows the transformational nature of the past 12 months, a year of significant growth driven by a full-year contribution from the AAAHI acquisition, which completed in June 2023, and the addition of our major new Sydney contracts. In 12 months, we have delivered over 367 million customer journeys, an increase of over 31% compared to the 280 million customer journeys in FY 2023.
Underpinning this strong growth, in summary, over 15% increase in the number of buses to 5,575, including a 51% increase in the number of zero-emission buses, now numbering 149 battery electric and 4 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. A 2% increase in the number of vessels to 115, a 47% increase in the number of routes operated, all supported by a 13% increase in the number of employees. This growth has led to a beneficial change in our diversification, and as a brief overview, in the twelve months to 30 June 2024, Australian bus comprised 52% of revenues. Marine and tourism represented 17%, and the international bus division has grown to be 31% of the group. In FY 2024, our contracted revenues represented an impressive 89% of revenues.
The majority of these contracts are defensive, long-term, government-backed service contracts, resulting in highly predictable, low-risk earnings and cash flows. Contracted revenues total AUD 1.8 billion in FY 2024. This substantial growth in long-term contracted revenue is delivering immediate and substantial new earnings for the group. Kelsian is the most experienced and expansive public transport and marine operator in Australia, and this result further enhances our leadership position. Importantly, on this slide, I want to take a moment to talk to some of the qualities in our business. Firstly, there are several mega tailwinds that support our business now and into the future. The themes of transport, decarbonization, population growth, and recovery and travel are all relevant to Kelsian and will continue to be. We enjoy excellent relationships with government and our blue-chip customers, and enjoy an unrivaled record of contract renewal.
Resilient earnings base and cash generation, both of which are highly predictable. Strong track record in growing incumbent positions. Our public transport operations are essential infrastructure, and the assets are either supplied by government or underwritten by government through our asset special purpose vehicles, and Kelsian is run by a strong, highly experienced, and motivated management team. Moving to slide 4. The growth that I've outlined on the previous slide is a continuation of over a decade of continuous growth. Slide 4 illustrates the momentum that Kelsian has in the bus passenger transport space in Australia and Singapore. If we look back over 15 years to 2009, Transit Systems, Tower Transit Singapore, has delivered revenue CAGR growth of an impressive 13.8%.
Apart from the acquisition of City Coastlines in Melbourne and regional operations in West Australia, the majority of this growth over the past 15 years was organically delivered. Clearly visible in the last year is the substantial growth of our Sydney expansion, Regions three and 13, and two and 15. Importantly, when looking forward, we are in an enviable position to have no material contract renewals in the next two years, and I'll come back to talk about the opportunities that exist for further organic growth later in the presentation. On to slide five. Having delivered 15 years of impressive growth, I want to take a moment to talk about why I believe we can continue to deliver strong growth and why this sector remains extremely attractive.
As the single largest identifiable source of carbon emissions, transport is a key focus for any government focused on reaching net zero emission status. To decarbonize the transport networks, governments need to convert their existing fleet to zero emission, while at the same time encouraging people to shift from cars to public transport by increasing public transport services. The Climate Council recommends 50% of transport budgets should be dedicated to public transport, and international analysis has highlighted that high mode shift in urban passenger transport alongside vehicle electrification is needed if we are to stand any chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees centigrade in the long term. Mode shift can only be achieved by increasing public transport networks, both to entice people out of their cars and onto the public transport, and also to cater for the anticipated increase in demand.
This translates into greater private sector participation in the delivery of public transport, and also accelerated growth within the contracts that are already in the portfolio. In addition, we are proud to have the largest zero-emission bus fleet and the largest electrified bus depot in Australia, and governments increasingly rely on us for our deep industry knowledge and leadership in this important area as all governments seek to reach net zero. On to the FY 2024 result overview on slide seven. We are very pleased with the underlying performance of the business and the contribution that all parts of the business has made to deliver a record result in FY 2024. This result reflects the first full year contribution of AAAHI, which underpinned increased revenue and EBITDA margin. Revenue now exceeds AUD 2 billion and represents a 42.2% increase on FY 2023.
In addition to AAAHI, revenue growth has been driven by the new significant Sydney Bus contracts. Improved margin flowed through in the second half of the Australian bus business, and the group continued to benefit from our broader contracted revenue base and indexation mechanisms in the majority of our public transport contracts. FY 2024 delivered a good trading result out of marine and tourism portfolio, despite some of the weather challenges throughout the year. Our business is characterized by strong and predictable cash flows. It is resilient, and we have a stable balance sheet. The strong growth in EBITDA of 64% in FY 2024 to AUD 265.4 million is particularly pleasing and demonstrates the improved second half margin in the Australian bus business and, of course, the higher earnings contribution from AAAHI.
NPAT A was up an impressive 32.3% to AUD 92.6 million, and earnings per share has increased 13.3% to AUD 0.34 per share. The FY 2024 result is a testament to the group's ability to grow organically and profitably in existing markets, into new markets using careful and selective M&A, and drive greater operational performance from our existing businesses. Moving to slide 8 to touch on some of the key highlights and achievements for the past year. There's been an enormous amount achieved across all operating segments, but first I would like to touch on some of the strategic matters that are setting the group up for success. Most notably, the group has firmed up its capital base for the future.
Special purpose vehicles for the ring-fenced public transport assets have been established to fuel the expansion of our fleet electrification program in a very capital efficient manner. Andrew will expand upon this later. New corporate debt facilities have been established with ample capacity to cater for growth on improved tenure and terms, including moving to an unsecured facility. Several strategic bus depots have been secured or developed that provide us with expanded control over some key assets important to the ongoing long-term success of some of the bus operations. More about this later also. From a governance perspective, there's been some board renewal, and I thank Jeff Ellison for his long tenure and guidance while he was chair, and welcome Fiona Hele as our new chair from the first of July. Fiona, of course, has been a director since two thousand and sixteen.
I also welcome Jackie McArthur and Caroline Elliott as new directors. I'm pleased to achieve these significant foundational elements in what was a busy operational year. Now on to the operating divisions. This year, Transit Systems became the largest Sydney metropolitan bus operator and successfully mobilized three new contract regions in Western Sydney, adding an impressive 700 new staff, 380 buses, and 5 new bus depots. In addition to these new contracts, Transit Systems also commenced a new large rail replacement contract in Perth and secured the Bankstown Rail replacement contract in Sydney that is forecast to commence in late September 2024.
All of this has been achieved in a tight labor market, and despite a very large increase in services, the business is fully staffed, thanks to a well-executed recruitment strategy, combined with the launch of the Transit Academy, which is introducing new drivers into the industry by training people up from a standard car license. SeaLink delivered a commendable result when considering the strength of the post-COVID demand in FY 2023 and accounting for the three of the busiest months being weather-affected in FY 2024. The business continues to deploy yield management strategies, and fare increases were mostly deployed to track inflationary cost-based pressures. The margin compression that was experienced tended to stem from the lower demand due to weather in the higher profitability months of December, January, and February.
International traveler participation is up on last year, but the second half did see lower demand from the domestic market, likely attributed to the cost of living pressures and accessibility to international travel. The expansion of SeaLink's business in the Whitsunday Islands has built out with the acquisition of Red Cat Adventures, and SeaLink now operating a renewed Hayman Island ferry contract and an additional contract to supply tours and experience to Hayman Island visitors. And finally, onto the international segment that has grown to be about a third of the group. In Singapore, the business battled higher absenteeism and staff shortages for some of the period, but exhibited improvement in the second half. The Singapore business concluded FY 2024 fully staffed, with reducing levels of absenteeism and performance incentives returning. The highlight in this segment, however, clearly being the first full successful trading year of All Aboard America.
Since owning this business, AAAHI has continued to retain all of its major contracts and has in fact renewed and extended many of the top 10 contracts in the portfolio. New significant clients have been added, which offer additional opportunities to grow and take on more services. One industrial client scaled back operations during the year while navigating its exit from a major project, but pleasingly, this now has a path for resolution, and this contract is expected to be transferred to a new client with a ramp back up expected over the coming months. The US business continued to exhibit solid double-digit revenue growth, and we are pleased that it is tracking well ahead of our investment case.
And to tell you more about this exciting part of the business, we have Graeme Legh, CEO of AAAHI, here with us in Sydney, and I'll now hand over to Graeme to expand on his business further.
Thanks, Clint, and good morning, everyone. To provide some background information set out on slide nine, AAAHI was acquired by Kelsian in June of last year, and as Clint mentioned, it is the fourth largest motor coach operator in the U.S., with fifteen hundred staff operating approximately eleven hundred vehicles from seventeen locations spread across seven states in the south and southwest of the country. I was given the opportunity to head to the U.S. last year to take up the role as CEO of AAAHI shortly after the acquisition was finalized. So I'm pleased to be able to be here today to report on a very successful first year of operations for AAAHI as part of the Kelsian Group.
From a financial perspective, the first full financial year of ownership, AAAHI has exceeded expectations, delivering both revenue and EBITDA for FY 2024 in excess of the acquisition business case. Over the same period, the business was successfully integrated into the wider Kelsian Group, with governance structures for a new operating geography put in place, including the establishment of the Kelsian USA Advisory Board. Importantly, and one of the main factors in delivering the successful integration, the key people within the AAAHI management team remained with the group, including all of the operational business unit leaders in the different markets that we operate, and this has delivered continuity for our customers, clients, and staff. Kelsian has also taken the opportunity to invest further in the AAAHI team, adding two new senior management roles over the last year.
These roles bolster the strength of the management team and position the holdings company to be able to take advantage of the growth opportunities we continue to see in the U.S. Operationally, in FY twenty-four, the business has continued to deliver for our clients, continuing AAAHI's impressive track record of contract renewal. With all expiring contracts successfully renewed, plus the addition of new contracts in our key markets that service the technology, construction, education, and government sector clients. Specifically, the performance of our top ten contracts, which deliver the majority of AAAHI's contracted revenues, is highlighted in the call-out box on the right of the slide. During FY twenty-four, four of the top ten contracts were renewed following RFP processes, and a further five of the top ten contracts benefited from pricing rate increases.
During the year, we also secured two contracts with new clients that will be additions to our top 10 contract lists moving forward. In terms of growth and investment, over the last 12 months, our Texas-based business unit, First Class Tours, successfully expanded into the Austin market from its base of operations in Houston, and is now delivering both contracted and charter services from a new facility in Austin. Kelsian made significant investments in the vehicle fleet over the last year, with new charter motor coaches delivered, plus the purchase of almost 50 high-quality second-hand coaches that now form the backbone of the fleet that service the large contracts we operate, providing employee shuttle services for the construction sector. Finally, but importantly, Kelsian has continued what was started previously by AAAHI, making industry-leading investments into delivering safer bus operations for our customers and staff.
And in FY 2024, AAAHI committed to a significant multi-year program to install new safety technology, including additional cameras, sensors, and early warning systems on all motor coaches. With these being the key highlights of what has been a successful first year of operations in the US, I'll now hand over to Group CFO Andrew Muir, who will take you through the FY 2024 financial results for Kelsian.
Thanks, Graeme, and good morning, everyone. Kelsian has delivered a very good financial result for the 12-month period ending 30 June 2024. The full year contribution from AAAHI has been one of the key drivers, increasing group revenues and improving consolidated group margins. In the majority of our public transport contracts, the contract indexation mechanisms have continued to work as intended, to shield the business from the highly inflationary macroeconomic environment. I'll now step through the results in a little more detail over the next few slides. Slide 12 provides a high-level comparison of the consolidated full-year result compared to the prior year.
The increase in revenue of just under AUD 600 million or 42%, was achieved primarily through the inclusion of AAAHI for the first 12 months, and new contract regions in Sydney, which started midway through the first half, as well as the impact of the indexation mechanisms I mentioned earlier. Like most businesses, we've seen cost increases for all our major inputs. The increase in our operating costs reflect this, as well as the expenses associated with what is now a much larger organization. KPI penalties and part of our Australian bus business for failure to deliver predetermined contract service levels, ceased in October once we had labor back to the required levels. We did continue to incur higher than normal levels of overtime. During the period, the group reported an overall increase in margin of 15.8%, which was driven by the contribution from AAAHI.
Underlying EBITDA of AUD 265.4 million represents an increase of nearly 64% or AUD 103.5 million compared to the prior period, excluding the one-off items I'll discuss in more detail shortly. Higher depreciation reflects the combined impact of new assets, both buses and vessels, acquired during the period, as well as the assets associated with the new contract regions in Sydney. In the period, right of use amortized, right of use assets depreciation totaled AUD 24.9 million, and depreciation associated with the government-backed contracted assets in the ring-fence SPVs totaled AUD 3.4 million. The recognition of customer relationships and contract intangibles in recently acquired businesses, have meant that amortization expense has increased as they are amortized over the remaining term of the contracts.
New and replacement asset acquisitions and new contracts in Sydney have given rise to higher debt levels and ultimately higher interest costs. Right of use interest was AUD 7.1 million, and the interest expense associated with SPV ring-fence borrowings was AUD 2 million. From a tax perspective, the relatively low effective tax rate is primarily driven by the benefits associated with the marine training incentives of approximately AUD 5.4 million recognized in the period, along with the accelerated depreciation benefits discussed in our first half results we were able to realize as part of the purchase price accounting for AAAHI. In another good sign, underlying net profit after tax and before amortization was AUD 92.6 million, compared with AUD 70 million in 2023. This represents an increase of AUD 22.6 million or 32.3%.
The net impact of one-off or abnormal or significant items incurred during the period was quite small. Combined, these totaled AUD 400,000 on a pre-tax basis, and related to transaction costs associated with the recent acquisitions and advisor fees associated with the successful bank refinance. These were offset by favorable foreign currency translation gains and the write-back of the contingent deferred consideration associated with the Go West acquisition. The fully franked final dividend of AUD 0.095 per share represents the same dividend as the prior year. This payout is at the low end of our stated dividend policy range of between 50% to 70% of underlying net profit after tax and before amortization. We also continue to offer our shareholders our dividend reinvestment plan with a 1.5% discount. To the cash flow on slide 12.
The cash flow picture for the business is very positive, which continues to support our near-term asset investment plans. It is pleasing that the growing business continues to generate strong cash flows with a record net operating cash flow of AUD 146.5 million, an increase of AUD 17.5 million or 13.6%. This was achieved despite the cash flow timing lag and first half impact of commencing the new live contract in Sydney, where payment terms are sixty days end of month and monthly thereafter, so there's roughly a one-off AUD 30 million negative working capital impact in as at 30 June 2024. Cash conversion in the second half was close to 100%, bringing the overall cash conversion for the year to 92.3%.
We invested AUD 148.5 million in new and replacement assets, including strategic land and buildings, as part of our commitment to strengthen and improve the quality of assets employed in the business. We also acquired contracted assets of AUD 105 million associated with the new contracts in Sydney, and new battery electric buses in New South Wales, which are financed and housed in limited recourse SPV structures and excluded from all covenant calculations. During the period, we acquired the business and assets of Red Cat Adventures in the Whitsunday Islands. We paid the first of two contingent installments of AUD 2.5 million to the Horizons West vendors, and there was also the final working capital adjustment payable for the AAAHI acquisition. Slide 13 provides a summary of the balance sheet. There were two significant developments for Kelsian during the period.
First, the successful refinancing and upsizing of our debt facilities, moving all our corporate financing facilities to an unsecured basis, but more on that in a minute. Secondly, the establishment of wholly-owned special purpose asset-Australian subsidiaries to own government-contracted bus assets used to service specific regions in Sydney. These ring-fence financing arrangements are supported by government and have limited recourse to the broader Kelsian Group. The ring-fence financing arrangements are separate to Kelsian's corporate debt facilities and have a tenor aligned to the expiry of the associated bus services contract, and an amortization profile that matches the residual value of the buses determined under the bus services contract. In November, a ring-fence asset financing facility of AUD 40 million was established for the purchase of 49 battery electric buses for Region Six.
In February, ring-fence assets financing facilities totaling approximately AUD 75 million were established and drawn for contracted bus assets that were acquired from outgoing bus operators in Regions 2, 13, and 15. The government-backed contracted bus assets from our old Region 3 contract were also transferred into this ring-fence arrangement. These ring-fence financing facilities provide flexibility and optionality for government at their discretion to accelerate the transition to zero-emission assets, as new replacement assets can be fully debt-funded and do not draw in any way on Kelsian's corporate group financing facility limits. The balance sheet is well supported by our strong and predictable operating cash flow. Pro forma leverage is just over 2.4 times, excluding government-backed contracted assets. Interest cover is more than 5 times, and all bank covenants are comfortably met. Slide 14 provides an overview of the recent banking refinancing outcomes for our corporate facilities.
With most of our previous banking facilities expiring 20 February 2025, it was important to have completed the refinancing of these facilities by 30 June. I think we've achieved an exceptional outcome in the refinancing. Some of the key observations to call out include. We received very strong support from not only our existing banks, but also several new and domestic and international banks, and we have expanded and diversified the banking group to support our international aspirations. We have staggered tenors with three, four, and five-year facilities, which include evergreen provisions, and all facilities are provided on an unsecured basis. We've achieved very competitive pricing with an overall improved weighted average margin compared to our old facilities. Finally, there's been no change in any of our financial covenants, and the additional headroom and flexibility of our new facility enables us to fund our short to medium-term growth aspirations.
As at 30 June 2024, we had available liquidity of more than AUD 500 million. Slide 15 provides a snapshot of our strategic freehold property assets. In recent years, we've accumulated a valuable and strategic portfolio of freehold properties. These include inner-city bus depots in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney, island accommodation and land site marine infrastructure in South Australia, Queensland, and New South Wales, as well as regional depots in Western Australia, including the Pilbara, and residential development land on Fraser Island. We also own the Westbourne Park Bus Depot, the largest inner-city bus depot in London. Combined, the book value of these assets, including the recently acquired Hoxton Park Depot in Sydney, totals AUD 156.6 million. On the next slide, I've provided a little more detail on the most recent bus depots added to the portfolio.
During the period, we opportunistically acquired the Newton Bus Depot in Adelaide, completed the construction of a greenfield bus depot at Melton, which is positioned in one of the fastest residential growth corridors in Australia, and we contracted to acquire the Hoxton Park Bus Depot in Sydney, which settled in July. All of these properties are very strategic long-term assets, offering excellent potential in terms of location, size, and ability to operate bus services in these regions. We're excited to have the Hoxton Park Depot as it's earmarked to be fully electrified in the next few years, and the cost of this upgrade will be paid for by government and add significantly to the value of the assets. Of course, in addition to the strategic value of these properties, there will also be a reduction in rental costs associated with the sites.
Turning now to slide 17, which provides an overview of capital expenditure. FY 2024 has been a big year investment in the business. This reflects the increased scale of Kelsian and the continued regeneration of the asset base to underpin growth. It includes progressive payments for the significant one-off expenditure required for the new Kangaroo Island vessels, which commenced service in July 2025, and the acquisition of strategic property assets mentioned previously. This investment helps us achieve and maintain a good standard in our portfolio of vessels, motor coaches, buses, and vehicles. We also acquired and invested in strategic property assets on Fraser Island and Russell Island in Queensland. We took delivery of a new Gladstone vessel, which was built to support the recently secured 10-year contract, and we extensively upgraded the Reef Quest, which operates in the Whitsunday Islands.
Four major vessels are under construction, two Southern Moreton Bay Islands vessels, and of course, the two Kangaroo Island vessels. All of these will be finished in FY 2025. We acquired battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell buses and motor coaches for Go West, Horizons West, and Grand Touring. Internationally, AAAHI were opportunistically able to acquire more than 40 motor coaches from one of our technology customers at very attractive prices. These assets have been earmarked to be deployed to pursue growth opportunities for both contracted and charter services. Finally, in Singapore, there were a number of bus refurbishments completed. Slide 18 provides an overview of the estimated capital expenditure for FY 2025. Looking forward, the anticipated CapEx for FY 2025 is approximately AUD 185 million. More than half of this is one-off in nature and does not repeat in FY 2026.
The acquisition of Hoxton Park Bus Depot in Sydney for AUD 31.4 million, settled at the end of July. Owning this property will save the rental we are paying. While it's not a material contributor to earnings, its real value is its long-term significant importance to Kelsian, as four bus contracts operate from this location. We do not anticipate any further purchases of property across the group in the near term. The acquisition of 60 new diesel buses for the Bankstown Rail contract for AUD 26 million. These assets will be fully utilized for the duration of the contract, which is due to commence next month, and is scheduled to run for approximately 18 months. It will make a meaningful contribution to earnings in FY 2025 and into FY 2026.
At contract end, these assets will be redistributed across the Australian bus fleet onto revenue growth opportunities and offset future maintenance capital replacement needs. This is essentially a bring forward of capital. We're continuing to invest in the growth assets for the AAAHI business, and have recently acquired an additional 24 motor coaches from a tech company for approximately AUD 16.5 million to redeploy into opportunities in the industrial construction space. These assets will make a contribution to earnings as both current contracts in this space progressively ramp up during FY 2025 and beyond. We have the remaining payments to make on the two new Kangaroo Island vessels of AUD 17 million. These vessels have been built to operate the exclusive license on this service for the next 25 years. They are an investment in future growth on this service that is currently capacity constrained.
These vessels more than double the existing capacity and will deliver significant operational efficiencies. The multi-year investment into the new KI vessels is one-off in nature, and given the long construction lead times, will not make any meaningful return until services commence in May or June this year. We have the final payments to make on the two new Southeast Queensland vessels and infrastructure of AUD 8 million. Similar to KI, these vessels will bring additional capacity and efficiencies to the existing services, which are also capacity constrained. The SEQ boats will make a contribution to FY 2025 earnings, once delivered in October and January. The most significant change to our FY 2025 CapEx is the cost overrun of approximately AUD 25 million for landside and marine infrastructure for Kangaroo Island.
Factors impacting this outcome include the delays associated with the commencement of the new KI service, that is now more than twelve months late. The finalization of infrastructure requirements for the new vessels, both ours and the South Australian government. Major scope changes to accommodate the new vessels. The decision to upgrade the infrastructure now, that it will last for at least the 25-year term, rather than attempt to modify the existing infrastructure, and more generally, escalating price increases for construction materials such as steel, concrete, and labor. Clearly, this is a disappointing outcome for all involved, but we are confident this additional expenditure will be recovered during the contract term. FY 2026 sees the end of what will be two years of record investment in the business, and more than half of FY 2025 CapEx is one-off and not expected going forward.
Given the completion of this intensive growth and regeneration CapEx cycle, we expect some divestment of assets that have been replaced to moderately offset the overall net operating CapEx figure for FY 2025. Finally, in our government contracts, we continue to be in a good position in that any future capital deployed is not a drain on operational cash flows, as SPV ring-fence financing is in place, and government compensates us with increased contracted payments for any additional capital deployed. Turning now to slide nineteen, which outlines our current expectations for some of the key P&L items for FY 2025. Overall, the business is significantly larger than it was twelve months ago.
The impact of M&A activity, buses and vessels acquired during the period, as well as the assets brought onto our balance sheet associated with the new contract regions in Sydney, mean that depreciation and interest will be higher. The estimated depreciation charge for FY 2025 is forecast to be approximately AUD 117 million. The components of this being right-of-use asset depreciation of AUD 25 million, depreciation of contracted assets warehoused on our balance sheet in SPV structures of AUD 9.5 million, and the balance of AUD 82.5 million relating to core Kelsian assets. Amortization expense is also expected to increase as the customer relationships and contract intangibles recognized as part of the various recently acquired businesses are amortized over the remaining term. Looking forward, the estimated amortization charge for FY 2025 is approximately AUD 31.5 million.
Higher interest predominantly reflects the high debt levels, generally from assets acquired during the period, as well as the assets associated with the new contract regions in Sydney. It also includes the line fees on available facilities. The estimated interest charge for FY 2025 is forecast to be approximately AUD 59 million. The components of this being right-of-use asset interest of AUD 7 million, interest associated with asset warehouse in SPV structures of AUD 5.5 million, and the balance of AUD 46.5 million related to core Kelsian borrowings. Finally, we estimate the effective rate of tax for FY 2025 to remain low and be in the order of 20%-22%. Over the next few slides, I'll provide some comments on the individual divisional performance from both a financial and operational perspective. Starting with the Australian bus division on slide 21.
The highlight for this division has been the commencement of new contract regions in Sydney. During the period, there were some one-off startup costs and integration costs for these new contracts, the majority of which fell in the first half. Pleasingly, the new contracts transitioned seamlessly on time and on budget. From a financial perspective, we've seen an overall improvement in the margin in the second half compared to the first half, 12% versus 10.8%. This reflects the fact that there were no KPI penalties or startup costs in the second half. Overtime has begun to reduce, albeit still at higher than traditional levels, and we're starting to see some cost and efficiency benefits of the integration of the contract in Sydney. We've continued to focus on disciplined operational cost control and the benefits realized from group-wide tendering and procurement initiatives.
This will ensure the business is well-placed for ongoing margin recovery. During the period, we commenced a major rail replacement program in Perth, and we're very pleased to be awarded the Bankstown Rail Replacement service in Sydney. This contract will commence next month, and we have all the buses and all the staff, and will run for at least the next 15-18 months. Finally, we received some good news from the Western Australian Government that both our Canning and Southern River bus contract in Western Australia will be extended for another three years. Turning to slide 22, the international segment. All Aboard America is the driver of the substantial change in the division and has been a huge bonus for the business. Graeme will provide some further comments about AAAHI shortly.
We're very happy with the performance of the business in the first twelve months under our ownership, and are excited for the opportunities it provides going forward. The Singapore business continued to be impacted by labor shortages, higher levels of absenteeism, and overtime due to legislative changes relating to sick leave. This manifested in lost mileage revenue, higher overtime, and consequently, the performance-related financial incentives, which we usually achieve, were not met. These can potentially represent as much as 3% of revenue. The good news is that at period end, we have no labor shortages, absenteeism and overtime has been reducing. We've also seen some growth in our existing contracts with the new Tengah Interchange and a number of new routes added.
For FY 2025, the drivers of margin improvement in Singapore will be no lost mileage, reduced absenteeism and overtime, increasing performance incentives, and network growth with new services recently added. Recently, we were advised that we were unsuccessful in our bid for the Seletar package in Singapore. This was disappointing news for the team, but there remains a very strong pipeline of tender opportunities in Sydney that we'll continue to actively pursue. Finally, we continue to be in the privileged position of being the only operator of contracted bus services in Jersey and Guernsey, and both operations are performing well. Marine and Tourism. The result from Marine and Tourism was a good one, especially considering the strong performance we reported in FY 2023.
The impact of adverse weather experienced in the peak trading months of December to February, this impacted margins and utilization levels, and corresponding yields were well down on the prior year. There was evidence of domestic tourism demand softening in the second half, with cost of living pressures starting to have an impact. Fortunately, a number of destinations in the portfolio have not been impacted by macro conditions, and we continue to see strong demand to destinations like Kangaroo Island, Rottnest Island, and Magnetic Island. Fare increases and dynamic pricing in part offset margin compression due to inflation and softer demand, with revenue management strategies leading to increased yields in some businesses. International tourism continued to recover through the period, particularly in Sydney. However, numbers of inbound visitors are still 70% of pre-COVID levels.
During the period, more Australians were traveling overseas than international visitors were traveling to Australia, which has impacted demand for some of our services. In December, we secured another three plus three-year contract for ferry services to Hayman Island, and we were awarded the Hayman Island guest water activities contract, effective from the first of July. We also renewed the Transperth ferry contract for a five plus five-year term. In February, we acquired the small vessel cruise and jet ski touring business, Red Cat Adventures, in Airlie Beach. Our expanded Whitsundays business now incorporates SeaLink Day Cruises, Hayman Island ferry transfers, water sports, as well as Red Cat and Whitsundays jet ski business. During the period, K'gari or Fraser Island, occupancy and yield were lower than expected for both island resorts.
... To stimulate demand and create a must-do experience, we've invested in a light show initiative, Illumina, which is planned to be launched from September. This follows the success of a similar initiative at Uluru. The period ended well, with strong growth in Sydney tourism, driven by Sydney Harbor Light Show, Vivid. Revenue was up a pleasing 15% on the prior year. Looking forward, the drivers of margin recovery for Marine and Tourism into FY 2025 include scheduled fare increases across most services, the impact of dynamic pricing and cross-selling benefits of our CRM, improved capacity and efficiencies from the new vessels in Southeast Queensland, better utilization of assets in peak holiday periods, and the ongoing recovery in international tourism, particularly into Sydney. Finally, corporate costs on slide 24.
During FY 2023, we made a concerted effort to build scale and invest in people, skills, and systems to drive efficiencies and position the business appropriately for growth. This has been demonstrated in FY 2024. The group has grown significantly. Revenue has increased by more than 40%, and yet we've not seen any material change in the corporate area. The current areas of focus are finalizing the rollout of the CRM solution to improve customer loyalty and cross-selling opportunities, continuing to invest in better managing our cyber risks and exposures across the business, and commencing the rollout of a new group-wide finance and human resources management system. Well, that's probably enough from me, so I'll hand back to Graeme and Clint to talk about growth, strategy, and outlook.
Thanks, Andrew. I'm moving to slide 26 of the presentation. A significant focus during the first year of ownership for AAAHI has been to ensure the business is set up to be a platform that can capitalize on the growth opportunities that we see in the North American transit and motor coach markets. AAAHI is well-positioned in high-growth regions of the U.S. and operates in a highly fragmented industry that is entering a period of rapid consolidation. As mentioned earlier, over the last year, Kelsian has invested in the AAAHI platform, including in its people and its systems, to allow the business to capitalize on the growth opportunities it has in front of it. Looking at opportunities for organic growth, we break these down into two categories.
The first and biggest opportunity is going after new contracted services, and AAAHI is actively working on a number of contract opportunities in the technology, corporate, and construction employee shuttle markets. The other category of organic growth we are targeting is moving into new markets or locations. In FY 2024, we successfully entered the Austin, Texas, market, and we continue to explore growth opportunities in a select group of new charter markets within our existing seven-state footprint. Finally, in a fragmented and consolidating market like we're in the U.S., sensible acquisition opportunities will continue to be explored. Many existing operators in our market are facing headwinds, including access to insurance, access to capital, and succession planning issues, meaning there are numerous potential opportunities on the horizon.
On this front, we plan on being selective, spending our time looking at other leading operators that will enhance our portfolio and expand our presence into adjacent regions of the U.S. With that, I'll hand back to Clint, who'll provide more details on the outlook and growth opportunities for the Kelsian Group as a whole.
Thanks, Graeme. I'll start on slide 27. Earlier, I highlighted the trajectory that Kelsian has been on in delivering a near 14% revenue CAGR over a 15-year period, predominantly via organic means. The success in just the last twelve months of mobilizing contracts in Western Sydney to become the largest metropolitan bus operator in our city, the mobilization of a large rail replacement contract in Perth, and the new award of the Sydney Bankstown rail replacement contract that is yet to commence, all speak to the ongoing organic opportunities and success of Kelsian in its pursuit of organic growth. Right now, we are awaiting an outcome on the Melbourne bus franchising process, and Transit Systems is active in the New Zealand market. The latest outcome in Singapore saw no change and a re-award to the incumbent, which in a risk-averse labor environment, is not an unusual result.
What was encouraging for our Singapore team is that Tower Transit Singapore was, in fact, the most competitively priced offering, but by less than 1% under the incumbent, illustrating the accuracy of our cost model. Further opportunities for contracts in Singapore are anticipated over the next six months. One of the largest opportunities in the world for bus franchising is regional U.K., where re-regulation is bringing an estimated 10,000 buses of services to market over the next seven years. Our U.K. team is positioning themselves for imminent bidding in Liverpool and are presently re-contesting our contracts in the Channel Islands. I think what can be taken from Kelsian's historical trajectory and this suite of possible future opportunities, albeit, that is, that there is only an increasing amount of organic contracting to pursue, particularly with our expanded geographic footprint.
Turning now to the outlook for the coming year on slide 28. There's been much focus on our investment program, and I will again touch on that shortly. There is a great deal still to deliver from the existing business over the coming year. The Western Sydney contracts are still very new and indeed were only online for part of FY 2024. We can therefore expect a full year contribution to flow through in FY 2025, in addition to the gradual extraction of operational synergies and improvements. Overtime has reduced across the group following labor challenges, but there is still a long way to go. The high-profile Bankstown rail replacement contract is expected to commence in late September, and we are pleased that all of the resources, buses, and people are in place and ready to mobilize.
When this project is complete, the fleet of buses will be used throughout the Transit Systems portfolio and will replace maintenance CapEx in those areas. Graeme has spoken to the opportunities and ramp up of various contracts in the United States, and the already contracted growth in this business will flow through during FY 2025, and we are similarly set with the assets we need to deliver this growth. SeaLink also has a significant year ahead, with the mobilization of four of the largest vessels in the fleet, two on Kangaroo Island and two in Southeast Queensland. This will be occurring in the second half of FY 2025. The trading environment will closely be monitored and services scaled accordingly, but we expect the launch of the new Illumina light show at K'gari to be a key attractor of visitation to the island.
Andrew's outlined the strength of the cash flows and stability of our balance sheet. The growth that I have outlined and continuation of that we have delivered in FY 2024, clearly support our decision to continue investing in the business for the medium and long-term success. We are building and securing strategic assets that we will own and that no other party can replicate. They afford us expansion, capacity, and security. Our new Hoxton Park depot that was an integral part of our recent bid to secure Western Sydney bus contracts, will be expanded to take in more services and will be put forward for additional government investment in electrification infrastructure, further enhancing the value of an already strategic asset that sits between a Bunnings and a Big W distribution center on the edge of the M7 motorway. Kangaroo Island is a significant contributor to the group.
FY25 will see the long-awaited mobilization of the new improved KI ferry service. Considerable investment has been made in this project, and the further AUD 25 million towards key infrastructure will form part of the final investment. The deployment of this capital secures this important asset for an exclusive basis for up to 25 years. In addition, the investment delivers Kelsian a more than 100% increase in capacity on this route that is intensely capacity constrained. It should be noted that some fares on this route had not increased since 2013, and it is the volume of visitation to the island that has delivered the strong returns from this asset. FY24 saw considerable mobilization and integration of new businesses. FY25 has elements of the same.
The clear focus will be delivering on these new asset deployments so that the full benefits can be realized in FY 2026. M&A will be assessed, as it always is, only when there is a compelling case and in conjunction with our advisors, particularly as it relates to funding options. Finally, we have sought to outline in greater detail how the planned changes to the asset base translate into depreciation and interest in FY 2025, further broken down to highlight the core asset components separate to the government-funded SPV components. The combination of items that I've overviewed on this slide are expected to deliver FY 2025 EBITDA of between AUD 283 million and AUD 295 million, representing some further significant earnings growth over the strong FY 2024 result presented today.
With that, I'd like to hand back to Rachel to open the line to 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. Your first question comes from Benjamin Jones, J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I just want to focus firstly on the Australian bus business. It looks like some solid EBITDA margin expansion, particularly in the second half. You called out there that you're not seeing the KPI penalties come through. Could you sort of quantify the impact of that additional overtime, and how you're expecting that to continue through FY 2025?
Thanks for your question, Ben. Yeah, certainly the margin in that second half was much improved, and that's a combination of some of the efficiencies that are flowing through KPI penalties rolling off, and of course, the mobilization costs that we had for the Western Sydney bus contracts in the first half there. You know, overtime is still prevalent in the business. It's come down quite significantly year on year, in the order of 15% improvement, between FY 2023 and FY 2024. So obviously, still a long way to go. You know, we're talking, you know, millions of dollars.
I'm not gonna quantify the exact number off the top of my head here, but you know, there is a significant pathway there, and that will progressively kind of filter out of the business as you know, the reorganization and the efficiencies of the new workforce, and the deployment of those labor resources get spread out across the business.
Got it. That's helpful. Thanks. And then just looking at, you know, the CapEx number you've spoken to there, that AUD 180 million-AUD 190 million in 2025. You've got the leverage at the moment at that 2.5 times. How comfortable or how far are you comfortable pushing that leverage? And you could sort of remind us where covenants are or what sort of covenant metrics the covenants are assessed against.
Yeah, thanks. We don't disclose what our covenants are, but we have, you know, the, the traditional covenants in terms of leverage and interest cover, and we've got plenty of headroom in those existing covenants. Yeah, leverage is sort of around approaching that two and a half times, is likely to elevate, in this period, given the investment that's being made. But we're very comfortable with, you know, taking it a little bit higher, given the predictability of the cash flows, and the free cash that the business will generate into FY 2026 to be able to bring that leverage down to, you know, below the sort of levels we're targeting, which is below that two and a half times EBITDA leverage, excluding the SPV assets.
... Yeah, very helpful. And then just on the UK, obviously, the disappointing result in Manchester. I imagine when you sort of get into the tenders around Liverpool, you'll be running up against very similar competition. Could you sort of talk us through what gives you sort of confidence that you'll be more successful in upcoming tenders?
I think we take feedback from every process that we go into, and, you know, what we do know is that we have a very good reputation in the UK. So from a pricing, from a reputational and quality perspective, we are scoring very well. We saw around the Manchester process, the pricing was in line with, the successful operators. The area that we are focused on is covering off on any risk mitigation that the government might have concerns around, particularly with, you know, resources and mobilization, training capacity, depot capacity to park buses. One particular thing of note, though, for the Liverpool process is that all of the assets are provided, so that's buses, and depots for the major, contract packages in Liverpool.
You know, I was up in Liverpool just a couple of weeks ago and you know getting an outline of the process from the government, and it is a very encouraging process in that regard, and they have set it up to de-risk the transition process themselves, and obviously providing all those assets is a big step in that direction.
That's helpful. Thanks, guys. That's all from me.
The next question comes from Cameron McDonald with E&P. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. A couple of questions, if I can. Just staying on that U.K. strategy there for a minute, Clint. I mean, how much of this is actually becoming an issue where, to your point around the risk mitigation, you know, you were missing out on contracts in the U.S. because you didn't have a local presence. You don't really have a local presence in the U.K. You've pulled out of London. Is this going to get to a point where you actually need to buy something?
Cameron, you know, we assess you know, acquisitions opportunities all the time. So and we kind of run a pretty critical rule over that, and I think, you know, we've demonstrated in the past our discipline in that regard. You know, we went into the Manchester process, obviously not thinking that we needed a physical presence, and what we do have is the best management team in the country, in our opinion. We've got a management team based in London that has run a very significant bus operation at a very high level, and we come with some very high-quality references from Transport for London in that regard.
You know, we do have a physical presence in the Channel Islands, you know, they still kind of deem that part of the U.K. So, you know, these are some of the things that we're talking to the government about all the time. But given that all of the assets in Liverpool are supplied, you know, the expectation is that, you know, a major presence in regional U.K. is not necessarily required.
Okay, thank you. If I just turn to the Bankstown rail replacement. I mean, we've obviously talked about the opportunity for this for a while, but, you know, obviously Monday we were surprised by, you know, the additional requirement for sixty buses. Like, is that actually a requirement of the contract, or is that an opportunistic acquisition of those buses off the back of the contract, effectively providing the cash flows for you to do it?
Let's just say that the physical asset deployment is not being done without, you know, good consideration for the considerable return that those assets will generate in the deployment onto that service. To be honest, that service was actually bid without the vehicles. It was bid using the vehicles that were being displaced by the electrification program, but the government's decision, you know, down the track was that because they're displacing quite a number of passengers off of a train and pushing them onto a bus, their preference was that they had a brand-new bus for people to get onto rather than a second-hand diesel bus.
You know, we've facilitated that with the government, of course, and we've done that on, you know, sort of some good terms associated with those assets. And it also obviously has the added benefit of being able to replace that maintenance CapEx in other parts of the business once that rail replacement ends.
So just, I mean, just on that, you know, so two more questions, and I'll hand it over. Just, you know, relating to that, though. So you in FY 2026, this will be a full year contribution, and then in FY 2027, it basically drops away. But you're gonna save maintenance CapEx. What's the, how do we think about the earnings impact of this when it rolls off?
This is one of a string of rail replacement contracts. So right now we're running a rail replacement in Perth, and that we'll get a you know, part-year contribution this financial year, part-year last year. Bankstown rail replacement comes in you know, in September, you know, as the first one's rolling off, and then in 2025 , we've secured the contract to do train replacement in Adelaide. So it typically, these kind of more high-margin rail replacement contracts kind of roll from one to the next. There's always some going on. You know, one of the points that I pointed out through COVID was that there was no rail maintenance.
So that was part of the small dip that we experienced or part of the business that just didn't exist through that period. You know, the rail replacement earnings typically all kind of overlap and are kind of a bit of a constant feature of our business. As far as the bus assets go, they go on to contracts, you know, that are already running, that, you know, where we can either, you know, cycle out older assets and renew the fleet. That comes with obvious benefits in maintenance and efficiency and those sort of things.
Of course, you know, the surplus vehicles that we might have at that point in time can be considered for additional charter work, if that charter work is there, before we take a decision for disposal of the older assets.
Okay, and then as final question, just on the, you know, the broader CapEx update. You know, appreciate that some of those are, you know, one-off. How do we think about the return profile of that additional CapEx, please?
Yeah, Cameron, like, as I said, all the KI investment really doesn't start to come through until FY 2026, when those new services commence. So we're going to see benefit from Bankstown Rail, we'll see benefit from or part year benefit from the new SEQ boats, with additional capacity, and operational efficiencies. You know, of course, Hoxton Park, there's a small rental saving there, but I think we've outlined quite clearly the strategic value of that depot. You know, and things like Illumina, which we're investing in, that starts next month at Fraser Island. So, you know, hopefully, we're going to reap the benefits of that this period.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Tim Chiodo with UBS. Please go ahead.
Morning, Clinton and Andrew. Just first one on the, on the EBITDA guidance range for 2025. How have you thought about, SPV funded CapEx indexation within that range? If I try and back solve it, am I right that looks like SPV funded CapEx in AusBus might be 30 or 40 million bucks based on your guided SPV depreciation interest expense? And if so, how have you sort of factored that into EBITDA? Do we assume the bottom end of the range, there's not a lot of CapEx, top end, there is some. Can you just provide some more detail on that?
Yeah, there's not a significant amount factored into that range, Tim.
But you've factored some into the SPV interest and depreciation number for FY 2025 by the looks, 'cause what the
Yeah
... FY 2024 number is only a second half number, so you-
Yeah
-analyze that.
Yeah, that's, that's a full year. The full year impact there is disclosed. So, contracts in Sydney only started in August, September, and October. But there's no massive step up in SPV assets at this point in time. That might change, and if it does, we'll have to update the market.
Right. So the FY 2024 SPV interest and depreciation numbers that you gave us, how many effective months of the year is that? Is that like a nine-month contribution from those numbers or only six? 'Cause I think the SPV-
That-
-was drawn down in February.
No, that is six months.
Okay, got it. I'll move on to the next one. Just second one around CapEx for the AAAHI business in the US. You know, there's been a bit of talk around that. You did sort of AUD 47 million odd in, I think, 2023 and another AUD 40 million coming in 2025. What's a normalized level of CapEx which allows you to, one, replace fleet, but then also target your sort of double-digit revenue growth within that business? Will it remain in that AUD 40 million-AUD 50 million range per year?
Yeah, around AUD 40 million, I think the right number, Tim.
Great, thanks. I'll jump back in the queue.
The next question comes from Jason Palmer with Taylor Collison. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. Good morning. A few from me. First one maybe is for Graeme. My understanding was that the US business, he had more of a second half than first half weighting due to seasonality. We can't see that in the numbers, when we look at first half, second half splits. Can you unpack that, please?
Yeah, it definitely does have the weighting, so that should be in the numbers once you've worked it through. I mean, I think the only thing that we did see this year versus the FY 2023 numbers was overall headline margin was down slightly. That was really driven by a changing mix for the business, so we had more contract revenue than we had in the prior period at a lower margin. So the overall margin went down a bit in the second half, but there is still that seasonality between the two half year periods.
Okay, maybe Andrew, you might be able to chime in, 'cause I mean, unless the mix has changed between the first half and the second half in terms of those mix of services, then it's hard to kind of work out why the earnings growth. There's been limited earnings growth on the first half in the international business.
I think the other factor there, Jason, which you're across, is the Adelaide client that scaled back in the second half.
Okay. So there is a bit of a headwind there from that?
Correct.
Okay. And what's your views around that particular client in your outlook statement as it normalizes back to pre-scaled back numbers by the end of the first half? Or is that why you've got a second half shape to your outlook?
It's ramping up in the back end of the first half.
Yeah.
And we'll get back to its run rate, you know, during the second half.
... Okay, so that's somewhat temporary then. Okay, I guess you're sick of talking about the CapEx and the depreciation, but if we think forward, with how the business is sort of deploying capital, and the increasing rate and the jump up in depreciation between the first half guidance and now is quite a lot. What would be a sensible jump up in depreciation every year now, at the current run rate of CapEx deployment, please?
I mean, some of that will obviously be driven, Jason, by what happens with SPV structures and funding from government for that. So, you know, a part of the increase this period is related to the SPV increase, and you can see that in terms of the numbers that are disclosed. Obviously, when the KI boats come into service, there'll be a small step up in there in terms of the investment that's been made. So, you know, those assets are depreciated kind of over 25 years. But, you know, going forward, we're anticipating CapEx for the business, sort of business as usual maintenance CapEx to be in that sort of AUD 100 million range.
So all things remaining equal, does that mean that assuming that there's no further SPV assets which are in and out in EBITDA and depreciation are somewhat irrelevant, the PP&E depreciation will start to flatten out in 2026, so we won't see these wild jump ups?
That's correct.
So is a sensible number in that 5-10 million range per annum incremental growth, or is that too aggressive?
No, I think that's sensible.
Okay, and this is my last question to Clint, please. An observation is the amount of capital the business has spent over the last three or four years with quite limited, negligible, EPS growth. I think at around about AUD 700-800 million, depending on what you look at, above depreciation has been deployed in CapEx, excluding SPVs and M&A. Appreciate your investing for the longer term. I'm just trying to understand how long dated these assets are from a growth profile and whether there is this great growth trajectory coming through, or whether interest rates have just moved against the business and crimped some of those earnings. Thank you.
As we've kind of outlined, Jason, a lot of the investment, particularly over the last two years on the Kangaroo Island services, you know, you're investing in that service for a point in the future, and the money's going out the door. You know, thankfully, FY 2025 sees the end of that, you know, mobilization. And of course, then the earnings go through. You know, it's worth noting what we're buying with that capital deployment. I mean, you probably know because you've covered the stock for a long time, how significant Kangaroo Island is to the group. And you know, we haven't had some fare increases on some parts of that service since two thousand and thirteen. There is a huge volume driver that goes to the island, and the service is severely capacity constrained.
I mean, not only do we get a 25-year contract there, but we get an increase of more than 100% capacity on that route. You know, so you can make your own assumptions about, you know, how much will continue to flow out of the box and how much will grow over time, but we've got significant flexibility and growth on that service. So, you know, we're very comfortable with the level of return that can be derived, you know, on that capital investment, notwithstanding, you know, that that's an investment for 25 years. You know, there has been some investment in the United States opportunistically. You know, we mentioned, you know. Well, you mentioned the $40 million or $45 million of CapEx that has been deployed there.
I might say that we've got a lot more buses for that amount of money than we ordinarily would get, so there is a lot of growth in that. Andrew outlined that there's about AUD 40 million a year of kind of maintenance CapEx for that business, but spending a little bit more than that over the last couple of years has delivered a significant amount of growth in the fleet, and that growth is contracted, so that will obviously start flying this year and into next. So, as we've outlined, you know, over half of the CapEx this year is stuff that doesn't repeat, you know, the kind of level of CapEx that it kind of drops back to.
All of the investments that we've made, we've made with an eye to return on invested capital, and they exceed our forecast. There are obviously the strategic ones, which are the bus depots. They will value enhance in their own right as a property asset, but they are hugely strategic. Hoxton Park was critical in the bidding and the award of those Western Sydney bus contracts, and, you know, when we struck the deal, we put first and last right options into the lease, when we struck the lease, and in this instance, we exercised our last right up against another potential acquirer of that asset to secure it.
So, you know, I agree, not ideal timing on some of these things, but fortunately, we have the strength and the capacity to be able to do it and not lose one of those strategic assets to an unknown party. You know, the bottom line is, we have an eye to return on invested capital. It's all made with a sensible deployment of capital, as we've done over a 10- or 15-year period, to get the business to where it is now. And I think we're very fortunate in the sense that we do have capacity to make those decisions and set the business up for the long term.
... Yeah. Okay, can I just maybe ask one more thing around that? Like, is it just that some of the near-term benefits from this investment, these investments aren't being seen because interest rates have gone against the business case? I know that RE are performing above business case, but in terms of the underlying pre-RE business, it looks like some of the returns have gone backwards, so, otherwise the EPS would be up. I'm just trying to sort of understand that.
Well, the point of these assets, and I, you know, might look at Bankstown railway for assets, you know, they're, you know, the returns on these assets are significantly above interest rates, significantly above our weighted average cost of capital. EPS has gone up by more than 13% this year. Yeah, so all of the investments that we're making are on track to deliver the required return, albeit some of the investment needs to be made before the return flows through. And like I said, the only exception to that is obviously the property, the strategic property assets, which are obviously a very long-term investment for the business.
Okay, thank you. Appreciate your comments.
The next question comes from Aaron Iavrissi with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Just a few from me, please. First one, in the accounts, there's about AUD 9 million, AUD 9.8 million dollars of other income booked, which looks to be for reimbursements for leave entitlements in Sydney regions. I just didn't see that getting backed out the adjusted numbers. So can you just clarify or confirm, like, was that a AUD 9.8 million dollar net EBITDA benefit in fiscal 2024, and will that obviously unwind in fiscal 2025?
No benefit, 'cause that's the corresponding side of that entry is the expense to recognize the provision.
That's perfect. So there's no net benefit in 2024?
None. No.
And then just to clarify your comment earlier, with the prior questions, are you saying FY 2025 depreciation will be AUD 117 million, and then beyond that, every year, we should add another AUD 5-10 million per annum?
No, because there's gonna be the capital that's deployed, there's growth capital. So if there's, you know, new and additional capital deployed, then depreciation will go up. Sustaining business capital is around AUD 100 million. And there'll be a slight step up in FY 2026 with the redeployment of Kangaroo Island, so it's gonna be, I think, at the moment, around AUD 120 million.
Okay, so AUD 120 million cap and a depreciation for FY 2026, and then it should be pretty, like, not that much higher thereafter-
Correct.
Unless you-
That's right.
Then how much, I mean, you can probably not blame investors for thinking, asking this question, but like, the CapEx plans or have changed a lot in six months. For example, the Southeast Queensland sort of upgrades or fleet renewal that we sort of didn't know about. So how confident are you that fiscal 2026 CapEx is gonna be AUD 100 million? Like, and beyond fiscal 2026, like, are there any major renewals or CapEx cycles that we need to consider so that we don't plug in AUD 100 million per annum thereafter and actually factor that step up moving forward?
Yeah, so we're confident on that number to be existing business, obviously. That's all we can comment on today. But if you look at the breakup of that AUD 100 million, the way we kind of generally describe it is, you know, AUD 40 million to the United States, AUD 20 million to Transit Systems, AUD 20 million to SeaLink, and AUD 20 million, you know, of other things here and there across the business. So generally, you know, with the ebbs and flows in the CapEx program for things like the Southeast Queensland buses would either fit within the Transit Systems portfolio or, you know, or in the other AUD 20 million bucket. What we do know for FY 2026 is that we have no plans on the table at the moment for any new vessels.
So the SeaLink CapEx component will be very low in that year. And then obviously for the Transit Systems component, which is generally, you know, replacing old buses in various parts of the group, we've got the Bankstown Rail Replacement buses coming out of Sydney and being redistributed. So, you know, barring any changes to the profile of the business, where, you know, we would expect additional earnings to flow, you know, we can be pretty confident on that number.
Okay. But the AUD 20 million for Transit Systems that you provision, that includes the typical bus replacement anyway, doesn't it? Or-
That's right. Yeah. So, well, some of the buses will be compatible with the ones out of Sydney, but then we'll have, you know, mining-specific buses, for example, replaced in the Pilbara, which a route service bus in Sydney is not going to be compatible with. So there's only parts or certain areas of transit systems that we can, you know, replace our maintenance CapEx. Melbourne is a good example. We've got an aging fleet down in Melbourne. We expect a lot of those Bankstown buses to head down to Melbourne onto those services. So, yeah, there still will be some CapEx in transit systems in FY 2026, but yeah, depending on the timing of the Bankstown, yeah, some of that can be probably replaced.
Got you, and can you please quantify what the revenue and EBITDA was from AAAHI in fiscal 2024? I think there's a bit of confusion, 'cause on the call you sort of mentioned that you're still growing double digits or in the AAAHI business. And I'm just wondering whether the comment previously around the second half not being higher than the first half for international is because of Singapore, where there's a second-half skew, first-half skew in Singapore, and that's why that offsets it. So, I mean, in first half 2024, I think you mentioned revenue was up 11% in AAAHI, and EBITDA margin sit at 25.5%. Any color there would be good, please.
... Yeah, so I mean, disclosing the segment re-report there, Aaron, is the breakdown of revenue in the U.S. So, you know, AAAHI did achieve double-digit revenue growth in the period. And as Graeme alluded to, you know, there was some change in composition of mix, with some contracts that were renegotiated and the large industrial contractor client that we mentioned, you know, there was four months of much lower contribution. So, you know, that did pull the margin down a little bit, but it was still, you know, in line with historical levels.
Okay. So, the second half skew then on the EBITDA, or sorry, the sort of explanation for the first half, second half skew is international ex-AAAHI, so Singapore. Is that always a big first half contributor? Like, I think first half 2024 was AUD 5 million in EBITDA, and second half it was no contribution. So is that sort of the typical skew in that business?
No, it's pretty steady. I think, you know, the industrial contract in the U.S. was probably the one that pulled the AAAHI result down a little bit. So, you know, Singapore was reasonably flat. I mean, we did continue to have, you know, high levels of overtime and absenteeism in Singapore in the second half. But, you know, that was fixed by period end, so, yeah, that's about all I can comment, I think.
Okay, and last one. When you say second half, so a second half skew for guidance, what do you mean by second half skew? Is it sort of like 45-55, or a bit less of a skew than 45-55?
Oh, look, I think where we are at the moment, it's in that order, so you know, we missed out on a lot of the marine and tourism business. You know, it depends a little bit as well in terms of the ramp-up of the contracts in the US, and similarly, the commencement of Bankstown rail as well, but you know, at this point in time, that's our expectation.
So did you grow the U.S. by double digits in FY 2024 EBITDA, and is that expectation for fiscal 2025?
No, the EBITDA did not follow the same profile as revenue, so you can work out the growth rate in the revenue. And as Graeme and Andrew outlined, there was margin reduction because of the mix and also that industrial client.
Yeah. Okay.
So-
In fiscal 2025, are you assuming double digits or?
Yeah, I think once the industrial client gets back to the full run rate, we've got two big industrial clients that are ramping up at good margin, and obviously, we get the normalization of the new government contracted work that we're bringing online. That'll start to stabilize and, you know, go back to kind of tracking revenue.
Gotcha. Perfect. Thanks, guys.
The next question comes from Owen Birrell with RBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah, I'd just like to follow up on that, the previous question around the RHE growth profile as we lead into FY 2025, and I think you sort of highlighted that you think you'll get back to that sort of double-digit revenue, or we can maintain that double-digit revenue growth rate, with some of those new contracts you just mentioned. But can I just get a sense of, in terms of that incremental revenue growth, how much of that do you see, I guess, proportionally coming from the, I guess, the different growth options that you've got here? So firstly, just how much comes from, I guess, rates and volumes on existing contracts versus new contracts in existing markets versus, say, some of these new markets that you're approaching, like Austin and Sacramento?
Yeah, I can cover that. I think you can probably generally assume for the steady state businesses, CPI-like rate increases. That's what we are generally able to negotiate on the contractor side for contracts that are, you know, mid-period and not being renewed. And then on the charter side of the business, we've got more flexibility around pricing, but generally, you know, you're restricted to some extent to increasing pricing much more than CPI-like prices. So for the existing businesses, that's the type of growth that's coming out of them. And then the incremental upside growth is the move into new markets, the new contracts, and the growth of the service levels in some of the contracts that we have.
So, so just trying to understand. So that new growth, the incremental new growth, you think that's mostly gonna come from new contracts in the existing markets? Or how much do you think, you know, the new markets like Austin and Sacramento will be contributing into the next twelve months, or, or is that very, very early stage, and we have to wait a little bit longer?
Yeah, it's probably a bit early. I mean, especially on the charter side of the business, it takes time to build up the earnings. You've got to get a presence in the market, build up a client base before you start seeing meaningful returns come back from those businesses. But they're also, you know, relatively small in the grand scheme of things, so, you know, I don't think the charter business in Austin is gonna move the dial materially, but we are expecting that to build up over the next 12 months.
So, Owen, what gives us confidence, so in the U.S., about the growth are the industrial clients that we have and the contracts we have there. So we had a delay in one contract this period. That project will continue. It's probably gonna go for longer. It's just gonna take a little bit of time to ramp up. We've secured another big project in that market, and that's progressively ramping up. And then, you know, beyond that, there's a number of other opportunities to pursue. And then, you know, kind of overlay that with one of our government contracts in Denver, which, you know, we've renewed and extended, and that's grown significantly in terms of the scope and the number of services that we delivered there.
... And can I understand on the margins, how much reversion back to the previous mix of contract versus charter should we expect for the next 12 months? Are we going to get back to where we have historically been, so the margins revert back to where we've historically been? Or is this more of a structural step down in the margins going forward?
I mean, I think the margins this year are pretty indicative of where we think it's going to be going forward. You know, we're gonna chase more contracted work because we like it. You know, the contracts that we have in place, you know, already are growing, so that's going to inherently mean we have more contracted earnings coming through. So my view is that the earnings this year are pretty indicative of where they should be going forward.
So just to confirm that the margins you're saying are indicative, is that the full year margin or is that the second half margin?
The full year.
Full year. Okay. And just one final question from me, just on marine and tourism. You know, during the half, you saw inflationary pressure, not offset by essentially the revenue and the pricing. Just wondering if we assume the market in terms of volumes is relatively steady state into the next year, do you think that the pricing increases that you're putting through and that dynamic pricing will more than sufficiently offset your expectations of the inflationary cost pressures?
Yeah. So we managed for the last 12 months to recover all of the inflationary pressures through those fare increases. Where we missed out, though, obviously, on the volume side, you know, if we don't get the number of people turning up that we usually get to turn up, which is, you know, the additional people are just pure profit on the fares, then obviously that goes to margin because you've kind of underwritten the cost base of delivering the service. So it's the fact that we missed out on a lot of volume in December, January, and February, which obviously flowed through to impacting that margin. But, you know, historically, we've been able to recover any inflationary pressures through fare increases.
Obviously, our preferred position to most of the destinations kind of make that a bit easier.
Understood. Thank you.
Next question comes from Brian Han. Please go ahead.
Hello. Just a couple of questions, if I may. On AAAHI, are there any events or contracts that we should be aware of that could result in more coach purchases or other capital outlays in 2025?
I mean, there's nothing imminent or that we're aware of at the moment, but we're actively pursuing new contracts, and some of those contracts do come with new vehicle purchases, but they will come with incremental revenue and incremental earnings from what we're expecting at the moment. So, I mean, there's nothing we're expecting unless something new comes down the pipeline this year.
Okay, thanks. And Clint, on the Kangaroo Island contract, was it a belated discovery on your part that there was going to be a mismatch between, you know, the ferry infrastructure and your new vessels? Or was this mostly at the behest of the government that you're forking out the extra AUD 25 million?
Oh, I think both the government and SeaLink have been, you know, victim of construction material increases, delays and challenges in mobilizing, you know, construction projects, particularly in South Australia, where it's a pretty tight market. So I think that's part of it. The scope did change on the infrastructure, and part of that scope change actually related to efficiency of the service. So, you know, adding some things to the scope, for example, you know, a turning dolphin, which is about AUD 4 million of the AUD 25 million, to allow the vessel to come in and depart much quicker by leaning up. Probably too much detail for you, but leaning up against the dolphin, you know, and that allows us to deliver more services through the course of the day.
You know, so there is some efficiency benefit to some of the decisions that have been made around the scope. But generally, you know, a lot of the impact has simply been a delay between putting the tender in and pricing it, and actually having a moment where the government had finished their scope so that we could define ours and then go to contract.
Right. So out of the extra AUD 25 million, the scope change is a very small proportion of that?
Oh, I wouldn't say small. You know, that turning dolphin is AUD 4 million in its own right, you know, so there's probably a, you know, a few more million than that on scope, but, you know, significant price increases in steel and construction labor is contributing a lot of it.
Okay, great. Thank you.
We've come to the end of our Q&A session. The company will contact the analyst wanting to ask follow-up questions. I'll now hand back for closing remarks.
Thanks, Rachel, and thanks everybody for joining the call today. I appreciate there's been a lot of, you know, a great deal of additional information today, supporting, you know, what we think is a very impressive 24 trading result and how we're securing some important assets for the long-term ongoing success of the business. All of this is not possible without the support of our shareholders, and I thank you very much for that support. And importantly, the hard work of our more than 12,000 employees who continue to impress with their professionalism. Thank you all once again, and have a great morning.
That does conclude our conference call today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.