Welcome everyone, thank you for joining us today for Macmahon's 2023 half year presentation. I'm Mick Finnegan, the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Macmahon. I'm joined today by our CFO, Ursula Lumes, and Donald James, our Chief Commercial Officer. As always, we know this time of year is very busy. We appreciate your time and the opportunity to run through today's presentation. We'll be happy to take any questions once completed. We will begin with the financial highlights on Slide two. You'll see Macmahon continued to perform solidly during the half. We did see some success in order book delivery. There was improvement across most key metrics. We saw growth in underlying EBITA and cash flow from the prior corresponding period.
Operating conditions remain challenging, particularly with regards to increasing costs, skilled labor shortages, and unseasonal wet weather on the East Coast of Australia. We did continue to navigate through these together with our clients, and this is reflected in the results of the half year. As with the prior financial year, we expect a stronger second half performance and are well-positioned to deliver on our full year EBITA guidance of AUD 105 million-AUD 125 million, which remains unchanged. Revenue guidance has been increased to between AUD 1.85 billion and AUD 1.95 billion, primarily due to the continuing zero-margin cost recoveries for Batu Hijau while we finalize the Phase 8 extension. Revenue for the half was up 22% to AUD 987 million from the prior corresponding period.
This was due to new work ramp-ups, the higher cost recoveries I've just mentioned, as well as higher revenue due to rise and fall. The rise and fall recoveries compensate for increasing industry costs that are outside of our control but do not contribute margin. Underlying EBITDA was up 7.6% to AUD 149 million, and EBITA up 14.5% to AUD 54 million, maintaining good underlying earnings growth despite the industry cost pressures. EBITDA and EBITA margins were 15.1% and 5.4% respectively, both down on the previous period, primarily due to the cost recoveries I've already referred to and adverse foreign exchange movements. Statutory NPAT of AUD 23.3 million was up from the AUD 3.3 million we reported in the prior corresponding period.
That included non-recurring costs, mainly related to the earn out from the GBF acquisition. Underlying NPATA was AUD 29.8 million, down slightly on the prior year, but broadly comparable to previous periods. We have provided a reconciliation on Slide 27, stepping through how we get to our underlying earnings numbers. Underlying operating cash flow was up 9.2% to AUD 105.5 million, with cash conversion of 71% marginally improved from the prior comparative period. This was impacted by some trade receivables being collected after 31 December. We expect stronger operating cash flow in the second half, which will also be reflected in the higher full year cash conversion. The interim dividend is steady at AUD 0.003 per share, unfranked.
Net debt at the end of the half was AUD 246.6 million, which is up from 30 June 2022. We expect our second half cash flows to be higher as previously experienced over a number of years. Given our CapEx budget for FY23 remains unchanged, we still expect to end the year where we originally thought. Our net debt EBITDA ratio was 0.83 times, and gearing was 29.9% at the end of the half. Return on Average Capital Employed was 13.3%, which is higher than the 12.9% achieved in the same period last year, reflecting some newer contract earnings ramp-up and a lower level of capital expenditure for the period.
We expect our ROACE to continue trending up towards our target of greater than 15% as larger projects enter steady state operations and capital employed normalizes. The order book as at 31 December is AUD 5.6 billion compared to AUD 5 billion at June 30, 2022. This is as a result of the successful award of the Greenbushes project, the Telfer extension, and the Fimiston TSF civil works, which mean we secured AUD 600 million more than our runoffs during the half. Pleasingly, we're able to announce the agreement of Batu Hijau Phase 8 yesterday, which is subject to shareholder approval. Pending that approval, we expect to see a reduction in the order book of approximately AUD 700 million due to the removal of pass-through cost recoveries that do not impact earnings.
As you can see, the order book remains strong and includes AUD 1.8 billion either already executed or secured for FY23, underpinning our revenue and earnings guidance for the year. Slide three provides some highlights achieved in the half across our business divisions. For our surface mining business, contract execution was a feature of the first half, where we continued new contract ramp-ups with the King of the Hills and the Warrawoona projects. We announced significant contract wins and extensions. These included a seven-year, AUD 1.1 billion contract with Talison at their Greenbushes Lithium Project, with an option for another two years. We also finalized the Batu Hijau Phase 8 extension, which was announced yesterday. Other contract extensions included the AUD 100 million Telfer extension, which commenced on November 1, 2022 to run for approximately 28 months.
The underground mining division again performed well and contributed around 23% of group revenue. As you can see on the slide, the GBF acquisition and subsequent contract wins has positioned us as a more meaningful player in this sector and provides the foundation for the continued growth of this business in the coming years. The deflector ramp-up is on track, and there was further ramp-up with the Boston Shaker Underground project. Importantly, the tender pipeline has significant underground opportunities supporting the plan for further growth in our underground business. Mining support services work is approximately 9% of group revenue, and the division also had a busy half. The Fimiston contract was of note, being awarded during the half, and with project startup commencing in the second half.
We also have a teaming arrangement in place with another party that has a complementary skill set to accelerate growth, and are currently jointly bidding on three large projects. Turning to the outlook, we have a higher tender pipeline at AUD 10 billion that is heavily filtered to meet our strategic growth objective, which reflects increased demand and supports our FY23 guidance of AUD 1.85 billion-AUD 1.95 billion of revenue and AUD 105 million-AUD 125 million of underlying EBITA. Critical to delivering on our long-term targets is the management of people and resourcing. Slide four outlines some of the challenges we continue to see on this front and our efforts to manage these.
On the safety and well-being front, our TRIFR decreased from 4.8 to 3.99 during the half, which is also significant considering our team grew to more than 8,000 people. We delivered work, health, and safety legislation training to all leaders and continued to execute on our FY23 sexual harassment roadmap, including upskilling our on-site wellness champions. Workforce challenges persisted around COVID-related absenteeism and skilled labor shortages. In Australia, we've continued to see shortages in equipment maintenance and operators, whereas the Southeast Asian market is more balanced. As with last year, our training and development program is key to managing these challenges. We've continued to invest in international recruits, apprenticeships, skills upgrade, and new to industry training through the Grow Our Own program.
Through this, we directly employed and trained 219 new recruits, plus 138 external trainees, totaling 357 new to industry commencements during the half. This included 30 mining graduates and 104 apprentices, with 24% and 8.8% female participation respectively. Total trainee participants in half one were 742, comprising 32% female participation and 9% indigenous participation, with over 80% retention rates within this group. As was reflected in our positive EBITA numbers, some of our contract structures provide protection against a rising input cost, including labor. Approximately 43% of revenue is alliance style contracts that contain adjustment mechanisms, and the remaining 57% of revenue is scheduler rates contracts with periodic rise and fall provisions.
A key contract we secured during the half was the Greenbushes Lithium Project I mentioned earlier. Slide five provides some more detail on this project. Greenbushes is owned by Talison Lithium and is a significant project for Macmahon, given the relationship we've built with our client and it signals a first step into the future-facing lithium market. It is a long-term seven-year contract commencing on the first of July 2023, with the option to extend for up to two years. The scope consists of load and haul and crusher feed services. The project has a long mine life. And Greenbushes supplies 30% of the world's lithium and has 40% of the world's lithium resource. It is significant and one we're extremely pleased to be involved with.
As you would have seen from our recent announcement, we've also finalized the Batu Hijau Phase 8 agreement. Slide six sprovides a summary of this. The contract consolidates our position at the project and our strong relationship with AMNT. This opportunity comes as AMNT is expanding the Batu Hijau mine, which includes extending in-pit mining to approximately June 2028 under the revised mine plan. We've entered into final agreements to carry out this work. The simplified contract will provide a sustainable investment in equipment across the term with a guaranteed return on capital and an opportunity to earn half yearly management fees on meeting project KPIs. Operating margins will improve under Phase 8 with the elimination of zero margin pass-through costs.
These arrangements are to take effect on receipt of Macmahon shareholder approval to be sought at an extraordinary general meeting to be held towards the end of March 2023. The purpose of slide seven is to provide a high-level snapshot of some of our key clients, related contract tenure, commodity exposure, and the cost curve profile of the projects. Whilst it is pleasing there has been the new addition of Talison, it is also important to note other long-term partners on the list that have been extremely important to Macmahon as we have reset the company over the past six to seven years. Slide eight shows some of our activities around ESG and sustainability. We know it is an important area for our stakeholders, and it is an important area for our business.
We now provide a separate sustainability report each year in conjunction with our annual report. We monitor our environmental impact and have rehabilitated 169 hectares of land in Australia and 48 hectares in Indonesia. We've also recycled 1,267 tons of tires through our recycling program. I mentioned some of our initiatives around people development through our Grow Our Own training program, and we also continue to run our successful Strong Minds, Strong Mines program, which is extended now into Strong Minds, Strong Schools. On diversity, approximately 5.2% of our workforce is indigenous, and we have 57% female participation in our executive leadership team, with one-third of our non-executive directors being female. Cyber security risk has been an important issue, and we have expanded our dedicated cyber security team, including a 24/7 monitored security operations center.
We've also invested in new technology to enhance our capability to identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover against cyber threats. I would now like to hand over to Ursula to talk about our financials. We'll return to conclude with some comments on our strategy and outlook.
Thank you, Mick. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Slide 10 shows an overview of our recent financial performance up to and including the first half of FY23. The key message here is that the business continues to perform well. Revenue, EBITA, and EBITDA were all up compared to the first half of last year, with margins impacted by the inclusion of zero-margin cost recoveries in revenue, particularly by the Batu Hijau Phase 7. Contractual arrangements for rise and fall adjustments importantly have protected our earnings from rapid cost rises, however, result in margin dilution. Margins were impacted by continued start-up and project ramp-up activities, the unseasonal wet weather on the East Coast, and negative foreign exchange impacts around $3.8 million due to the rapid depreciation of the Indonesian rupiah against the US dollar.
We have included the dotted areas on the charts to show the impact of the revenue of Batu Hijau's zero margin costs in Phase 7 and the impact of the negative foreign exchange on EBITA and EBITDA margins. Slide 11 recaps our historical performance against our market guidance. Year to date, we're well positioned to meet our full-year revenue and earnings guidance for FY23. We have increased our revenue guidance for FY23 by AUD 250 million, primarily due to the higher cost recoveries, including the timing and finalization of Batu Hijau Phase 8 that Mick mentioned. Full-year EBITA guidance has remained unchanged at AUD 105 million-AUD 125 million.
We turn to our profit and loss statement on Slide 12, revenue increased by 21.9% on the back of strong organic growth, which included new work commenced in H2 of FY22, King of the Hills and Warrawoona, and the ramp-up of existing projects, including Deflector and Boston Shaker. Revenue growth also included the increased zero-margin pass-through cost of Batu Hijau Phase 7 previously mentioned. Underlying EBITDA growth was 7.6%, with margins down due to the continuing Batu Hijau Phase 7 zero margin cost recovery, unseasonal wet weather on the East Coast, increased labor costs, and inflation-driven cost recoveries. Underlying EBITA growth was 14.4% for the same reasons, with margins also impacted by the FX losses of $3.8 million. Excluding the FX losses, EBITA margin performance would have been on par with the H1 of 2022.
Effective borrowing costs of 5.2% as of 31st of December 2022 has increased compared to the 4.8% as of the 30th of June 2022. This is given the rapid rise in interest rates we have seen in the market. Statutory NPAT was AUD 23.3 million, excluding adjusting items. Underlying NPATA was AUD 29.8 million. The effective tax rate is 33.3%, which included the holding tax on cash return from Indonesia. Excluding this, the effective tax rate would be 27%. The half-year dividend was unchanged at AUD 0.003 per share in frank, equating to a payout of just over 21%, in line with the policy payout range of 10%-25% of underlying earnings per share.
Revenue and portfolio diversification is an important strategic objective for Macmahon, and Slide 13 provides a snapshot of this for the half. Diversity across our major clients remains good, while gold and copper goals still account for around three-quarters of our revenue. The inclusion of lithium, once Greenbushes commences, should improve the commodity diversification in FY24 and beyond, given the project is scheduled for commencement on July 1st, 2023. Geographically, around 76% of our work is generated in Australia, with the remainder in Indonesia, which is principally our work at Batu Hijau and Martabe. Surface mining remains our largest area of activity at around two-thirds of revenue, with underground and mining support services making up the remainder. Net debt waterfall on Slide 14 shows the major movements during the half that contributed to our net debt position as of December 31st, 2022.
EBITDA was the primary cash inflow item at AUD 149 million. Key outflows included investment in working capital of around AUD 43.8 million, which was impacted by the timing of trade receivable receipts collected subsequent to the half year, and the increase in working capital for some project ramp-ups, including King of the Hills and Warrawoona. Interest and tax payments was AUD 20 million point AUD 0.6 million. CapEx was AUD 100.7 million, which was significantly lower than AUD 152 million in the corresponding half last year. The FY23 CapEx forecast remains unchanged at AUD 194 million and comprising mainly of sustaining and extension CapEx. Overall, underlying operating cash flow is AUD 105.5 million, which was up 9.2% on the first half of 2022.
EBITDA cash conversion was around 71%, mainly reflecting the timing differences on the receipt of trade receivables payments. We expect the cash conversion to increase in the second half, as was the case last year. Slide 16 shows our balance sheet position as of 31 December. We have maintained financial discipline during Macmahon's high growth phase over the last few reporting periods, with the balance sheet and liquidity position of the business remaining strong and in line with our targets. Net debt to EBITDA of 0.83 time is below the threshold of 1 time, with net debt expected to reduce in the second half. Gearing increased to 29.9% due to the timing of the receipts and the working capital investment, but remains in line with our target of 30% or less.
Cash and available committed banking facilities at 31 December 2022 is $271 million. The return on average capital employed was 13.3% and was impacted by the negative FX movements and increased working capital. Excluding the negative FX impacts, the return on average capital employed was improved on FY22. We are well positioned to deliver on our return on average capital employed target of greater than 15% in future years with a full ramp-up of the FY22 wins, the new Greenbushes award, and the new Batu Hijau Phase 8 arrangements, with the latter requiring shareholder approval. Thank you for your attention, and I will now hand you over to Mick before we open for questions.
Thanks, Ursula. Before we talk about the outlook, I think it's important to briefly recap our strategic focus. Slide 17 shows the five areas we have and will continue to focus on to build a sustainable, diversified, scalable business. Our strategy is about delivering long-term outcomes and has remained stable during a period of significant change and challenges over the last few years. We have been in an investment phase in the business in recent years to support new contract wins that strategically created the long-term foundation for the business. This enables us to now be more selective with a focus on disciplined capital management and delivering longer-term target returns. Our CapEx was lower in the first half of FY23, and we expect our margins to improve as we progress our major new contract awards past the start-up phase to steady state.
Phase 8 of Batu Hijau is also expected to positively impact margins, cash flow, and return on capital. Longer term, we will look to continue to diversify and expand our service offering across the mining value chain with a continuing focus on lower capital-intensive solutions in surface mining and growing our underground mining and mining support services businesses. Slide 18 recaps our long-term targets and illustrates how the business has evolved over recent years. Since FY18, when 90% of our revenue came from traditional surface mining contracts, we've increased diversity of revenue, and now 1/3 of revenue comes from outside of the traditional surface mining contracts. With continued revenue diversification in a lower capital intensity projects, our ROACE will now track towards our long-term 15% target in a more sustainable way.
Our longer-term target is to continue to diversify the business mix with underground, surface, and mining support services businesses representing a more even mix. This will create a more diversified, lower capital intensity, scalable business that supports us in exceeding our financial targets, being EBITDA margins of 8% and ROACE of 15%. Slide 19 shows our order book and tender pipeline. The order book currently stands at AUD 5.6 billion of work in hand and the tender pipeline at a very strong AUD 10 billion. The order book is based on an AUD to USD rate of seventy-two cents and includes Greenbushes. AUD 1.8 billion of work has already been contracted for FY23. AUD 987 million has already been completed in the first half, with AUD 797 million locked in for the second half.
We're in a secure position with regards to delivering our full-year guidance. We also have nearly AUD 1.4 billion of work locked in for FY24. Our AUD 5.6 billion order book is largely made up of high-quality clients and long-term alliance-style contracts, providing us with reliable revenue visibility over the medium term. The AUD 10 billion tender pipeline reflects strong market activity in mining, support services, underground, and surface areas. Combined with our significant order book, we are well positioned to continue to profitably grow our business over coming years, as long as it meets our strict investment criteria. I'd like to conclude with some comments on the outlook on slide 20, and then we'll take questions. Our priorities for the second half are a continuation of efforts around safety, earnings growth, and capital management. These include optimizing operations and continuing to deliver safety improvements.
On the earnings front, we need to deliver earnings and margin growth from recent growth capital investments, and accelerate ROACE growth by continuing to diversify in a lower capital intensity opportunities across surface, underground, and mining support services. Underpinning this is the execution of disciplined capital management, cost management, and maintaining a strong balance sheet. We also need to continue to manage our people requirements well to attract, train, and retain talent. Of course, we will continue investing in mining technology and digital transformation where it will benefit our business. The business has a positive outlook. Demand conditions remain favorable, and this is evidenced by a growing tender pipeline, which is now at AUD 10 billion, as I've mentioned. Skilled labor and cost management are expected to continue to be challenges, but we have in place proven programs and will work closely with our clients to effectively manage these.
We are well-positioned to deliver on guidance of revenue of AUD 1.85 billion-AUD 1.95 billion, and EBITA of AUD 105 million-AUD 125 million. We have a stable, proven strategy and experienced and talented team that has worked hard to deliver a track record of growth, a solid order book, and we have a balance sheet that can support continued progress towards our longer-term targets. With that, I'd like to hand back to the operator to open for 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 James Wilson from Jarden Australia. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. First one from me is just around that working capital buildup of AUD 44 million that you saw over the first half. Are you able to give us a bit of a sense of how much of that you're expecting to unwind in the second half, and how much you're expecting to stay?
Hi, James. Sure. Yeah, the capital, working capital was literally timing. It all clears out by 30 June, bar roughly there's AUD 3 million that's Indonesian VAT, which has got a 12-month timing on it, the rest is all cleared out by 30 June.
Okay, great. Just on your contract structures, I mean, I know you mentioned sort of that 43/57 between alliance style and schedule of rates, given that both of those aren't lump sum and have some level of pass-through, are you expecting that some of the labor cost inflation you saw in the first half that led to the underlying EBITDA margin decline, are you expecting that to come back in the second half? Any sort of lag in cost recovery, perhaps?
Hi, James. Yeah, look, we are seeing a bit of a crossover. If you look into some of the statistics we're looking at for the next year, we're seeing, where the CPI increases are higher than what we are looking at providing. Early on, what we were providing was higher than the CPI indexes, meaning that it feels like there's a crossover and it's certainly catching up, if that answers the question.
Great. Yep, that does. Just two more from me, guys. Just on the CapEx sort of profile heading into next year, conscious there's not a whole lot you can probably tell us on this, but given that you've got the Telfer extension and now also Greenbushes, are you able to quantify a little bit for us how you're expecting that step up for those, for those projects?
Look, I can probably answer that in a way that you know, you can back calc what the sustaining CapEx is probably, especially now that the extra information from Batu Hijau Phase 8, now that that's gone out. Our intention is to have a number of years where there's very low CapEx spend, and the focus is on margin enhancement and that low capital intensity work. We feel that we've had a period of big investment in the business. It's now time to get those returns out. I've been saying for a while, I think it's stalled a little bit because of COVID and the consequences of that, maybe the wet on the east.
We see the underlying business coming, and I think it's important we get it to the point where that can drop to the bottom line. We'll be very selective where we put CapEx moving forward. If you're looking at that pipeline, that reflects that. Some of the surface work that's in that pipeline is a way out, and that's about replacing the foundation that we've built. We wanna get in early and work with clients there. Some of the surface work is low CapEx surface work, so that model, the traditional surface model, is shifting a bit in some cases. The rest of it is obviously the underground and the mining support services work where it's low CapEx.
We can't give a guidance on it yet, as you said, but you can see where the sustaining is and please rest assured every dollar above that, will go towards enhancing that return on capital employed. We've said for a while now we need to be a 15% plus business and we think we're getting over the growth spurt we've had and expect to see that near term.
Great. Okay, guys. Just one final one from me. Just on the contract sort of announcement that you guys had yesterday for Batu Hijau, I saw something in there about third-party finances for CapEx, which sounded a bit, I guess, like factoring. Are you able to talk to maybe what the quantum of that would be per year if you guys are intending on doing that?
Yeah. Look, in terms of factoring and bringing receivables in before we've done the work, we wouldn't do that. That, that's not what it is. I think the best terms we got are 30 days, Ursula?
Yeah.
What we're talking about there is an off-balance-sheet solution where, there's a put and call put in place, and it includes a counterparty participating, so the finance provider has confidence in the security of the counterparty. What it means, if you cast your mind back to when we first did that job, one of the biggest risks that was brought out by investors was any investment we put into assets that go to that island is at higher risk because by the time you've removed those assets, if something went wrong, you've eroded all the value that's in them. There was always concern that we had a put and call or a security mechanism where the client had to buy them at an agreed price.
This is an extension of that, and it actually gives us a benefit because we get 15% return on capital on all assets. Obviously, what our balance sheet provides and the off-balance-sheet solution, which has security behind it being the client. It actually inflates the base margin, if you like, on what we provide from our balance sheet. Ursula, you add to that, if you like.
Yeah, no, that's actually spot on. James, if you go look at our accounts, you'll see the agency policy. This just falls under that. It's a tripartite agreement.
Great. Okay. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Jon Scholtz from Argonaut. Please go ahead.
Morning, all. Question on Greenbushes. That capacity increase you flagged in 25 and 27, does that make up part of the base case $1.1 billion contract?
Sorry, John, just say that again, mate.
Yeah. Is the contract, you know, based on the 1.5 million tons per annum, or does it include the provisions for an increase in the capacity by half a million tons, in 2025 and 2027?
No, no. The tender, the AUD 1.1 billion's been based on that increase if I'm almost certain that is a mine plan that the tender was based on.
Okay, excellent. At Batu Hijau, the zero margin, sort of pass through that you have, once Phase 8 is hopefully approved by shareholders, when does that sort of kick away and the full margin kick in for Macmahon on that? One moment.
We expect to have the extraordinary general meeting late March. Jon, once that's done, it would mean assuming as you say, that we obtain shareholder approval to be a 1 April commencement.
Okay. Excellent. Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. We'll pause for any further questions to register. Your next question comes from Tony Greco, a private investor. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Just a couple of questions. One, just the dispute with Strandline Resources. I mean, I know it's only from last month, but as sort of the, think it's about AUD 13 million. How are those numbers reflected in the results?
Yeah. Look, it's a good question actually, Tony Greco. We got very little exposure to that. You know, what we feel, and it's our opinion, that it's pretty cut and dry, and we think it's the right thing to do for our shareholders to pursue that. We're not in the business of putting big risks on the balance sheet for this sort of thing. We think we've built a good road. We think the team did a good job in trying circumstances with a change in sequence and methodology. We're pursuing that, but we're not reliant on it.
It's not actually accounted for as profit yet.
Oh, there's a very small amount in there, mate.
Okay. Okay. If, you know, worst case, it gets thrown out of court or whatever, there's no sort of. Not much to write off, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.
No, it's not material, Tony. Look, I mean, I'm happy for that project. I think they're doing well now. That's pleasing. This isn't an emotive thing. It's just we've got to do the right thing by our shareholders. If we're right, great. If we're wrong, we're not relying on it.
Okay. I think this question was probably asked six months ago at the last presentation. The level of franking credits, when do you think we'll be at a level where we can start franking some of the dividends? I know peoples asked before.
All good, Tony. We'll only start franking them when we start turning Australia into a profit. With the government extending that immediate deduction on the CapEx, we were hoping it would have been 2024, but it's more likely now to be the back end of 2024, the beginning of 2025 when Australia will go into taxable profits.
Okay. All right. I guess, and Mick, you sort of covered a little bit saying that, you know, we're sort of hoping to get to that extra bit of profitability, soon. I guess until you get to that extra profitability, the dividend's not going to increase too much more or have you got a bit of an idea of when that can increase given 2024, 2025 is when the franking will start up, maybe?
Look, I mean, if I could answer that in a step away, Tony, and I'm not diverting from your question, but, you know, internally, we can see the margins in the business coming, and I know investors don't wanna see a plus this, take this. For us, if we remove that pass-through revenue and we look beyond the FX, we can see a business that's at, you know, nearly 7% EBIT. If we can just continue those ramp-ups, we have a bit of luck with the wet. I know wet comes and goes, so that's what we're looking at, and we're keeping that team motivated. Finish getting underground to scale and have that rise and fall catch up. We can see a clear pathway to 8%+ EBIT internally. That was what we're trying to represent in that graph.
I know what reality is. We think that will push us towards that free cash flow business that I know we want and I know investors want. At that point, that's when you'd revisit the view on dividends. It should coincide, I imagine, with when we're we have taxable profits as well, Tony.
Mm-hmm. Okay. No, thanks for that. We'll be patient.
Thanks, Tony.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Cameron Bell from Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good day, guys.
Hi, Cam.
I actually missed the last question. It might have been asked just then. Just on the pass-through cost. I guess firstly, am I reading it right, that's AUD 140 million in the first half? Then secondly, in the guidance, like is it just you've included nine months on the same run rate, so let's call it AUD 175 in the guidance?
Yeah.
Sorry, AUD 210 in the guidance.
Sorry, Cam?
I just said. Sorry, AUD 210 in the guidance. I was doing it on the fly.
Yeah. The pass-through cost in December was AUD 150, which we've drawn out on that graph. It is already included. We've upsized the revenue guidance because January, February, March, we will still incur that pass-through costs.
That's pretty much yes, Cam, to what you said. That increase in revenue guidance is primarily or effectively what you just said that pass-through cost.
Yes.
Okay. Thanks.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Finnigan for closing remarks.
Thanks, Harmony. Look, we appreciate everyone's time in what we know is an incredibly busy period, and we hope to catch up with as many of you as we can in the coming weeks and answer any of your questions. We obviously always appreciate your support. Please, if there are any questions and we don't have a meeting, feel free to give us a call between Holly, Donald, Ursula, and myself, and we look forward to meeting the ones we've got a plan to make. Thank you for your time this morning.