I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Rob De Luca, MD and CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Rachel. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for the McMillan Shakespeare half-year results presentation for the 2025 financial year. My name is Rob De Luca, and I'm the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of MMS. I'm delighted to be joined today by our new Chief Financial Officer, Paul Varro, who joined MMS at the start of January. I would like to start by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the lands on which we meet today and pay my respects to their elders past and present. As we move through the presentation, we'll be referring to the slides that were released with our results this morning, and both Paul and I will be happy to take questions at the conclusion of the presentation. Now turning to slide four. In the first half of FY25, MMS continued to progress its strategy focused on delivering long-term sustainable growth.
The company grew normalized revenue by 2.4%, with growth across all three segments, while continuing to provide valuable support to Australians amid ongoing cost-of-living pressures. We made strategic investments to drive customer growth and ongoing efficiencies reflected in our operating expenses, with the half including AUD 4.4 million in non-recurring costs. Our Simply Stronger program is on track and is already delivering on its objective of superior digital experiences, technology-enabled productivity, and broadening our solutions and relationships. Benefits realization from this program will increase in the second half. Onboard Finance continues to scale with novated lease receivables at our target of approximately 20% of GRS novated lease volumes in the half, excluding O. As previously stated, FY25 will be the last year our results will be normalized.
We are pleased to announce an interim dividend of AUD 0.71, reflecting a 100% payout ratio of normalized UNPATA, reflecting our commitment to ensuring shareholders are not negatively impacted during the Onboard Finance transition period. Now turning to slide six, which provides an overview of our business platform and the strength of our market position. Across the group, our vision remains clear to be a trusted partner providing solutions in making matters simple. Whether it's managing employee benefits through our GRS segment, managing assets and mobility solutions in our AMS segment, or administering and managing NDIS plans in our PSS segment, this guiding ethos underpins everything we do. Our broad business model is unparalleled in the market, with an extensive distribution reach of 55,000 businesses and 2.4 million consumers across the group through our market brands, while capturing value through our broad range of trusted solutions to clients and customers.
Across our platform, our businesses continue to deliver high levels of customer satisfaction, have combined favorable financial characteristics, namely attractive margins, high returns, and generating recurring revenue streams, while making a positive social and environmental impact. Now we move on to our Simply Stronger program update on slide seven. This program is designed to ensure we deliver a superior digital experience for our customers, increase our productivity through technology enablement, while broadening our solutions and relationships to deliver long-term sustainable growth. Our Simply Stronger program remains on track with our investment largely complete. The program has been delivered in a disciplined manner, and we are already seeing benefits which will increase in the second half and into future periods.
In January, we delivered an important element of our technology architecture with a digital enablement platform that enables an omnichannel capability and supports greater velocity to make changes to our digital assets. Our invoice automation initiative in PSS has delivered productivity gains, which benefited in 1H FY25 results. Having implemented the initiative in late FY24, we have now seen full-run rate benefits in the half, with a 31% increase in invoices processed per FTE. By broadening our novated reach through our innovative Oly brand, we are enabling SME employers to offer novated leasing to their employees. We introduced our new brand, Oly, in May 2024, which has opened a new market for novated leases and delivered 3% of total novated lease sales in 1H FY25. In March, we'll launch our employer platform that enables reduced turnaround times, digital processing, and payments for SMEs.
This reduces a traditional pain point for small business payroll managers, reducing payroll administration. In February, we launched our new app for Maxxia customers, MyMaxxia, which delivers a superior customer experience with significantly more self-service capabilities for our customers. By increasing our customers' ability to self-serve through MyMaxxia, we not only improve their experience but are able to reduce the resources previously required to process customer requests. We expect to see a 9% increase in salary package and novated lease units per operational FTE by June 2025, compared with PCP. Moving on to slide eight and a first-half financial snapshot. The group delivered sustained revenue growth up 2.4% on PCP to AUD 276.4 million. During the period, we invested AUD 11.9 million in our business, Oly, and Simply Stronger to drive customer growth and ongoing efficiencies. This included AUD 4.4 million of non-recurring costs.
Our EBITDA margin for the half remained above 30%, notwithstanding our strategic investments. Our return on capital employed, referred to as ROCE, was strong at 61.7%. We now move on to more detail on our segment performance, beginning with Group Remuneration Services. Looking at slide 10, GRS revenue grew to AUD 143.7 million in the first half, underpinned by novated lease sales growth up 6.8% on PCP from faster order-to-sale conversion, improved delivery times, and order momentum. Novated orders were up 18% in the month of December 2024 versus PCP. This momentum has continued into the start of the second half, with order growth up 21% in January 2025 versus PCP. Yields remained stable compared to second half FY24. Moving on to slide 11, our customer focus and strong novated value proposition has enabled GRS to outperform the broader new vehicle sales market over the period.
We have seen this performance continue into the start of the second half, with new novated sales growth of 9% in January versus PCP, compared to the market growth of 0.1% for the same period. Our investments in Simply Stronger and Oly are providing foundations for growth, with 16 net new clients across Maxxia and RemServ representing a 32,000 employee opportunity and an additional 312 SME employers with novated lease arrangements via Oly. Additionally, we continue to expand our partnerships and open new referral channels for our business, having now signed 10 novated partnerships with leading OEMs, dealership groups, and platforms. Now moving to slide 12 with an update on Onboard Finance. Onboard is building a future revenue stream that will drive long-term value while enabling greater diversification of finances across our funding platform. Onboard continued its strong growth trajectory with receivables at AUD 411.4 million, up 97.4% on PCP.
During the half, UNPATA normalization was AUD 4.3 million, with a full-year impact expected to be approximately AUD 8 million, subject to market conditions. A milestone in our securitized funding program was the completion of our first amortizing private placement for AUD 300 million, which enhances investor diversity and lowers our funding costs. As previously stated, FY25 will be the final year of normalization, with Onboard Finance to contribute incremental earnings post the normalization period. We now turn to slide 13, which provides a summary of our Asset Management Services segment performance for the first half. The segment saw growth in written-down value and finance assets, reflecting improved vehicle supply and increasing demand from business clients. Written-down value grew by 8.8% to AUD 368.3 million, with more clients replacing their fleet vehicles as finance assets increased by 2.8% on PCP. Remarketing units were up 5.7% on PCP.
As expected, the moderation of used vehicle prices across the market resulted in lower yields. AMS secured seven new clients in Australia in the period. To support ongoing customer growth, we invested in digital enhancements and business development resources during the period. While these strategic investments contributed to a 2.5% decline in EBITDA, they are important in driving an enhanced experience and future growth. Now on to slide fourteen, which highlights the performance of our Plan and Support Services segment, which delivered growth across all key metrics during the period. PSS saw strong customer growth at 10.1% year on year, while revenue grew by 6% to AUD 27.8 million. As the scheme continues to lengthen NDIS plan durations, we experience lower renewal volumes. Our investment in platform automation has delivered improved turnaround times and productivity improvements, with customers per FTE increasing 12.8% on PCP to 221.
This has helped lift EBITDA up 19.7% on PCP. We continue to support the integrity and sustainability of the NDIS, particularly following the October scheme changes. In 1H FY25, we helped deliver AUD 45.7 million in scheme savings, with services paid by PSS customers under the NDIS price guidelines. Additionally, our integrity checks led to AUD 31.2 million in invoices not being paid on first instance to support the integrity of the scheme. I will now hand over to our CFO, Paul Varro, to take you through the financials in more depth.
Thanks, Rob, and good morning, everyone. If you move to page sixteen, what we thought we'd do is just take you through some of the financial outcomes in a bit more detail. On the left-hand side of the page, you can see the consolidated P&L with normalized revenue up AUD 6.3 million.
As noted by Rob, we saw growth across all segments, a really resilient performance as we mitigate the previously announced removal of the SA Gov contract. We then moved to expenses, up AUD 12.5 million. I'll talk about those in a bit more detail in a moment. Next, we have depreciation, amortization, and interest down AUD 1 million and taxes down AUD 1.6 million, delivering a normalized UNPATA of AUD 49.6 million, down 6.7% on the higher costs but up AUD 13.7 million on 1H23. You'll also note the normalization adjustment for Onboard Finance below UNPATA, reducing from AUD 9.3 million to AUD 4.3 million, with FY25 being the last year of normalization. If we move to the right-hand side of the page, you can see our walk of expenses for the half. The first two bars show our core cost management outcomes, which with wage and vendor inflation largely offset by productivity and cost-out initiatives.
As you move from left to right, we have our four categories of investing in growth and ongoing efficiencies, with Simply Stronger program expenses up AUD 3.5 million in this half but are expected to materially reduce in the second half as the program costs conclude. Next up is Oly at AUD 2.5 million, which is predominantly sales and marketing costs as we invest in scale, noting that Oly is already providing benefits at 3% of our sales. We then have AUD 3.9 million in growth and efficiency investments. Of that, AUD 1.6 million is in relation to spend on customer and client experience, which has already delivered benefits in customer advocacy, with NPS for GRS at plus 50 in the half and net new client wins for GRS at plus 16. The other AUD 2.3 million in the AUD 3.9 million is for process efficiency and automation.
This is designed to deliver productivity outcomes in the future and so far has already delivered AUD 400,000 in the half, with further benefits expected in the second half of 2025. Finally, the last bar is a cost of growth, which is the depreciation cost for the AMS business, which grew its written-down values by 8.8% in the half. Notwithstanding, the increased expenses have impacted the result for this half. We have seen early benefits and expect to see further improvement in the second half of 2025. If we turn to page seventeen, balance sheet and funding, the balance sheet remains strong. On the left-hand side, you can see the impacts of Onboard Finance growing receivables, with higher assets year on year and higher funding facilities in liabilities to support this growth.
On the top right-hand side of the page, our key covenant measures remain well inside requirements, and we continue to hold strong net cash and maintain our AMS funding at a consistent advance rate of approximately 70%. On the bottom right-hand side, we've laid out our debt maturity profile across Onboard, AMS, and corporate debt. As you can see, we've progressively built out the maturity profile with a successful securitization deal in the half, allowing us to extend maturities, lower drawn margins, and increase our investor diversity. Overall, a strong and secure balance sheet position from which to grow. With that, I'll now hand it back to Rob to take you through our outlook.
Thanks, Paul. We now turn to our second-half FY25 outlook on slide nineteen. We expect normalized UNPATA for the second half of FY25 will be higher than 1H FY25.
For the second half, benefits are expected from growth in novated sales, reflecting order momentum, Oly, net new client wins, Simply Stronger efficiencies, and a reduction in non-recurring costs. Onboard Finance normalization adjustment of approximately AUD 8 million is expected in FY25, which will be the last year our results are normalized. In terms of external factors, the FBT exemption for plug-in hybrids is scheduled to expire on 1 April 2025. The exemption on battery EVs continues, with federal government committed to review by mid-2027. We will continue to focus on our strategic priorities, excelling in customer experience, driving simplicity and technology enablement, and broadening our solutions and relationships. We're confident in our ability to navigate the current environment while continuing to execute on our strategy to deliver long-term sustainable growth. Thank you for your continued support.
Paul and I are now happy to take any questions you may have, and I'll pass back to the moderator, Rachel.
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 Tim Lawson from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to dig into the cost a little bit more. You've called it, obviously, that 11.9 incremental spend, and I think within that, the 4.4 you're calling as a one-off.
Can you just maybe talk more about the detail behind those, and have we actually reset back to levels pre those increases already for the second half, or are they still in the cost base?
Thanks, Tim. Yeah, so look, let me just give you a bit of an overview of the AUD 4.4 million. As Paul alluded to, AUD 3.5 million was the incremental growth in the half on this PCP. But within that AUD 4.4 million, there's a combination of kind of three aspects. One was some brand awareness spend for Oly when we did our soft launch that started in the second half of 2024 and has continued in the first half of 2025. That's no longer going to continue into the second half of 2025, as now we have our Oly business up and running with its own marketing spend and sales team.
The second component is during big technology changes, there are some aspects you don't capitalize. Examples of that are testing environments while you're working through pre-deployment. There is a little bit left in the second half related to that, as we will be launching our MyRemServ at post-FBT year-end. That'll launch in April, and we're also launching our employer portal for Oly next month in March. So there's some testing costs still in the second half of 2025, but reduced amount versus where we were in the first half. And the third component is some change management costs. So you go through training of your operations and sales team so they can answer questions for customers about the features on the apps and the portal, and also some collateral that goes out to the clients and customers. That's largely spent.
There's a little bit left to go with MyRemServ when we launch that, but that's reduced again in the second half. So relative to the AUD 4.4, we'll have approximately about 25% of that in the second half.
Yeah, so maybe I could just clarify. For example, on the Oly brand awareness, are you saying that the revenue now offsets the level of spend, or has the level of spend actually reduced?
Yeah, so if I break it into two parts, the element within the AUD 4.4 million is the brand awareness. And then if you look at the walk on slide sixteen, you'll then see AUD 2.5, which is called Oly business. That's now running a business to go forward. That has a combination of marketing spend as well as salespeople. That AUD 2.5 million will continue and continue to grow as the business grows.
In the second half of 2025, we would expect the revenue to be higher than the cost associated with the Oly, but it wasn't in the first half.
Yeah, and then just a question, sorry, thanks for that, just a question on the UNPATA where you're talking about second half to be above first half. I suspect your comments on order growth and what we just talked about on costs really combine to deliver that. But just trying to understand how much of that is just cost-related versus what your assumptions are on revenue, given, obviously, the focus on the FBT tax change coming up.
Yeah, I mean, there'll be a little bit of cost reduction in the non-recurring that I alluded to, but if you look at the expense walk that Paul took you through, the outside of Simply Stronger is ongoing costs. They're not one-off.
Only the 3.5 incremental, which is the 4.4 total, is non-recurring. The rest of it is ongoing. The growth in the UNPATA is going to be coming from a proportion of that, but largely revenue growth through the order momentum. In the GRS business, the Oly continued growth, as well as a bit of growth in the other two segments.
Okay, thanks for taking my questions.
No worries, Tim.
Thank you. The next question is from Paul Buys from Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Rob and Paul. First question just on the December, January experience that you call out, Rob. Obviously, pretty strong market outperformance there, and based on some competitor comments, I'd say competitor outperformance as well. Just interested to know if there's anything you can call out that you think you'd ascribe that outperformance to and related to that while the FBT expiry is upcoming.
Just interested to know how that's going for you now. It feels like there's been some strong promotion and some pretty good BEV numbers coming through as well.
Yeah, thanks, Paul. Look, yeah, really pleasing that we're seeing some good momentum in the GRS business. Obviously, the challenge we had as we started the new financial year with a bit of a gap from the SA government loss takes time to fill, and really pleasing that we saw novated lease growth in that period, notwithstanding the loss of SA government. As we've progressed through the half, we've seen continued improvement in momentum, combination of growth from a customer perspective. We've added quite a large number of private and corporate clients to our portfolio as well, and obviously starting to see some growth out of Oly, which we didn't have in previous periods. So I think those combinations have assisted.
In terms of the mix, yes, there's been some uplift in plug-in hybrids during the period. It's largely offset battery electric vehicles. So if I look at 1H 2025 versus 2H 2024, and I look at the comparisons from an orders perspective, second half 2024 plug-in hybrids were about 5%. First half 2025, they were about 10%, whereas battery electric vehicles went from 24% down to 21%. So we've seen a little bit at the offsetting ICE, but it's largely been between plug-in hybrids and battery electrics for the period.
Okay, thank you. And I guess a little bit related to that, just around the competitive environment, I mean, you've called out a number of client wins, and it sounds like there's a large number of sort of smaller clients that are probably individually not at the sort of ASX disclosure level.
Obviously, we did see Smartgroup announce Monash Health. Just keen to kind of hear how you would stack up, how that sort of nets off, and I guess your take on the competitive environment.
Yeah, I'd say it varies between different segments within our GRS business. If I think about it, we look at different types of segmentation. Oly has entered a new space. There's quite a number of new players targeting novated leases that probably weren't there two years ago. So that's quite competitive. And I think we're pleased with the progress we're making so far in that new business and new channel, but it's still early days and encouraging in terms of just the month-on-month improvement in growth. But that remains pretty competitive, and it's largely price-driven. So that's a core element of that segment of the market.
And then within our historically Maxxia and RemServ brands, if you think about government contracts, healthcare, charities, and corporates, we're certainly seeing a lot more opportunities in the corporate space than we would have previously seen a few years ago. I think the FBT legislation has created more awareness about novated leases and the benefits for employees. So we're really pleased with how that's going. And in many cases, that's new business that previously organizations didn't have a provider, or they may have offered a little bit of in-house service to their employees. Then within the government, healthcare, and not-for-profit, it remains pretty consistent with what we've seen over the last few years. They're always well contested. We feel like we do a pretty good job on retention, but we do lose some from time to time. I think that's always happened, but we retain the majority of our existing.
But there are some that change at a point in time for various reasons. We've lost, obviously, SA Gov and Monash Health over the last couple of years, two clients that we've had relationship with for over 20 years. So at some point in time, I understand organizations make a change, and we see the benefits on the other side of it as well. So as I said earlier, we've seen some good growth in the period, largely in the corporate space. While it's still a very small proportion of salary packaging, it's now over 20% out of our novated lease volumes, which is really encouraging because you don't have as much of a cost to serve those clients and customers as well.
Thanks, Rob. And then last one from me, and kind of somewhat related to that very last point you made there.
Just interested in the, now that Oly is obviously, as you said, early days, but somewhat up and running. Just interested in your views on that product sort of profitability relative to whatever the term is, the more traditional novated lease. Just, yeah, just to get a sense of how it stacks up on a profitability side.
Yeah, look, it's still in startup mode, I would say, and you've got incremental costs that you're adding to this business as you're growing the business. We're still working through marketing and working through digital channels and the effectiveness and the optimization of that because it's a new part of our business that we previously didn't really focus on in terms of targeting consumers and small and medium-sized enterprises. At a NAF level, it's slightly higher than our core business because it doesn't have an existing portfolio in books.
It doesn't have rental leases, and they're largely new vehicles that we're financing. At a yield level, it's there or thereabouts with our core business. We do pay out some distribution margin from converted referrals of different parties and partners that we work with. Our partnerships is about a third of our volume so far, and two-thirds of our volume comes from the SME market. So that part of the market, we don't pay out any commissions. But then in terms of operating costs, we'd expect this business to be a digital business with very low operating costs in the future outside of marketing and salespeople.
Great. Thank you. Guys, that's all from me.
Thanks, Paul.
Thank you. The next question is from Scott Hudson from MST. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, gentlemen. Just a couple of questions.
It sounds to me, given your commentary around the order momentum at the back end of last year and early this year, that your order book is growing as we head into calendar year 2025.
Yeah, so if you're alluding to carryover or you're alluding to just order growth, Scott? Sorry, just to clarify.
Well, it just looks like your order growth's outpacing your sales growth as your order book is growing.
Yeah, so obviously on slide 10, you can see our novated orders indexed to 2023 were up, but relative to 2024 lower. So we're about 2% on the same comparative period. If you exclude SA Government, we're up over 4% for the period. And as we ended the year and have started into the new year, we've got growth in orders, yes.
So we're now starting to see total order growth, including the loss of SA Government from last year.
Okay, that sounds good. Thank you. Just on the AUD 4.4 million of costs, so just to understand correctly, that's included in the AUD 3.5 million bucket in the Simply Stronger on that waterfall chart on slide 16?
Yeah, AUD 3.5 million is the incremental increase. It's the proportion of the 4.4.
And there'll be a AUD 1.1 million cost still being carried through the second half. Does that then end in the second half, or is that carried on beyond that?
Yeah, so as I alluded to, of the 4.4, I think about 25% of that, we will still incur some cost in the second half. And then it'd be zero in 2026.
Then lastly, just on the, I guess, the GRS margin profile, following on from Paul's commentary on the fact we've got a few more distribution channels with the inclusion of Oly and some of the other partnerships you've signed. I mean, over the medium to long term, is the sort of low 40%, 40%-40%, low 40% margin still applicable for GRS?
Yeah, certainly we've thought about this business for a while now since I've been here, but I think it's certainly a 40% plus margin business, even though impacted a little bit in this period, but obviously still higher than where we were in 2023. And you back out the 4.4%, you're above the 40%. So we certainly expect this business to continue to be a 40% plus even though business.
And from a yield perspective, we had a bit of a drop at the end of last financial year and the start of this financial year, and that stabilized. And the last couple of months have actually been pretty good in terms of yield. So I think that should help as well.
That's all I had for now. Thank you.
Thanks, Scott.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star then one. Your next question is from Chenny Wang from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just the first one, just in terms of some of the contract, I guess, volatility that we've seen over the past few years. Just for you guys, what are, I guess, the key contract renewals over the next 12 months?
And then also, I guess, around that as well, can you just talk to some of the key tenders that you're potentially contesting for customers that you don't have?
Yeah, I mean, we don't comment on ones we're tendering. They're confidential in nature generally. In terms of our portfolio renewals over the next couple of years, it's much lighter than what we've seen over the last couple of years. So we don't have anything even at the size of Monash over the next two years, so even smaller than that. So we've got a next 24 months, a much lower run rate of renewals than we've had certainly over the last couple of years.
Got it. Thanks. And then just maybe a question on pipelines more generally. You talked about the corporate space that is, I guess, becoming more prominent on FBT.
I know that you don't want to kind of disclose the key tenders you're contesting for. In terms of that pipeline, can you give us some color on how that looks like at the moment, I guess, into this calendar year versus maybe same time last year?
Yeah, I mean, so in terms of just scale, in the last comparative period, so if we take the 1H 2025 versus the 1H 2024, we've added about 100,000 employee opportunities through the corporate space and private space. If we think about the contracts we've won from net growth that we alluded to, over 32,000, about 60% of those, just shy of 60% of those are corporate. It gives you a bit of a sense of what we've been successful at over the last 12 months period.
And we've got quite a few still in the pipeline that we're tendering for or having discussions with clients. Compared to government and healthcare, which generally have a renewal period that kind of finishes up on 31 March, there are a few that finish on 31 December or 30 June. They largely finish on 31 March. Corporates are much more open to the timeframes they start, particularly if they haven't got the existing relationships.
Got it. And then just maybe one last one from me. Just maybe unpacking some of the yield movements over the course of this year with, I guess, some of the lower-priced EVs coming in. I guess historically, you guys and also your peer have kind of talked about that potentially targeting a very different customer.
So yeah, just want to kind of ask how we should kind of think about that impact of lower-priced EVs on your yields and whether we can expect some cannibalization on that across the base.
Look, the thing that I'd say is if we compare the 1H 2025 versus the 1H 2024, there's been about a 6% reduction on NAF for EVs, whilst there's been about a 4% increase in ICE vehicles. Having said that on the EV reductions, still the NAF on EVs is higher than what the ICE is. So whilst that's coming down, there is still a premium on EV compared to ICE. So yes, I think more choice for consumers and customers, which is great from a competition perspective. We feel that some reduction in pricing, particularly in EVs, hopefully makes it more attractive.
So you get the benefit of volume to offset the reduction on NAF.
Got it. Thanks, guys.
No worries. Chenny?
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time, and that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.