Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Mastermyne Group Limited FY 2022 year results conference call. 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. Tony Caruso, Managing Director and CEO. Please go ahead.
Morning, thank you for joining Mastermyne's financial year 2022 full year results call. Just like to start by acknowledging two of our colleagues, Graham Dawson and Gavin Feltwell, who lost their lives this year working in our operations. These accidents were tragic and have deeply impacted families, work colleagues and our business irreversibly. We continue to support their families and all those impacted by these tragic events. This year has been one of high highs and low lows, but I would like to make special mention of all the team here at Mastermyne who have worked together as we've navigated through what has been one of the most difficult years the business has faced.
While not dismissing the enormity of the two events, we're very proud and pleased with the transformational year we have delivered despite all that's occurred over the last 12 months. We repositioned the business as a leading mining services contractor, specializing in providing an extensive suite of underground services across a broad range of commodities. This year starts the significant scaling up of the business, where this year alone we've nearly doubled our FY 2021 revenue, and our order book has us on track to nearly tripling our revenue in FY 2023 compared to where we were in FY 2021. We remain focused on delivering our mine operations strategy and we strongly believe that this is the right strategy to a more resilient business, delivering increased margins and longer tenure in our order book.
Partnering with our clients through this contracting model is increasing our value proposition and significantly positions us as a very specialized and unique contracting organization. While we've had some setbacks with the roof fall on the Crinum project, we now have good visibility to cutting coal on this project. However, we have taken the decision to slow the project to minimize costs and allow us to improve our cash flow position in FY 2023 and importantly, also to deleverage our balance sheet. We'll use this time now to finalize the installation of the life of mine infrastructure and finalize our operational readiness to be ready to start cutting coal in late FY 2023 or early FY 2024.
As part of a slowdown, some labor and equipment will be redeployed to other Mastermyne sites, and the full ramp up at Crinum will recommence again in late FY 2023. Importantly, the revenue and margins from this contract remain intact, but just push out into FY 2024, and the contract term will remain at the full six years. The Cook project is progressing well and we continue to ramp up as per schedule in the first half of the current financial year. This project will now also benefit from the redeployment of the equipment and labor that's been displaced from the Crinum project.
During the year, we also completed the acquisition of Pybar Mining Services, which has delivered a material entry into the hard rock sector, bringing Metarock's exposure to a broad range of commodities in a much larger addressable market. The acquisition brought with it a large skilled underground workforce and a large fleet of modern mining equipment. While the first eight months have been impacted by some operational events and cost impacts, we're still very confident this acquisition will strategically complement the coal business and deliver diversification and strong results over the long term, as evidenced by more recent month-on-month improvement in that business. Alongside our strategic growth, we've continued to very successfully operate the coal contracting business that again this year has delivered a really strong result.
We continue to maintain a large market share in the underground coal contracting space, and the acquisition of Wilson Mining Services three years ago has been an excellent contributor to the FY '22 result. We maintain a very strong support from our clients, and with the recent coal prices at record highs, we've seen the demand for services in this part of the business continuing to increase, with several new projects in late stages of negotiation. In delivering the strategy that will see the business grow to almost tripling in size from where we started, we've invested significantly. We've invested significant capital, largely funded from our own balance sheet.
As we now move into more of the execution phase of that strategy, we'll start to see stronger cash generation and a reduction in debt. The full year result was within the guidance range on a normalized basis and the normalization is primarily the costs that had been incurred in the remediation of the roof collapse at Crinum and we have legal advice that these costs are recoverable under the contract. Following the acquisition of Pybar, we've also worked closely with our bankers to restructure our facilities across the combined Metarock Group and I'm pleased to say we've continued to be very well supported through a range of facilities that will allow us to execute our strategy and generate strong shareholder returns in the near term. Just turning to slide three of the pack.
I've talked about the profound impact the two accidents have had on the business and our internal investigations are now complete with the actions and learnings well embedded or now being well embedded across our business. External investigations are now largely complete and we work closely with all parties over the course of these investigations. To date, there's been no information released on the outcomes of the internal investigations. In parallel to those investigations, but at the time completely separate to the investigations, the board commissioned an internal review focusing on the company's approach to health and safety with an emphasis on major risk management. The review validated a lot of the very good work that the company does in the area of health and safety and risk management.
It also went on to call out a number of other positives across our business. The review identified a number of recommendations for improvement and these have been adopted and will be actioned across the business. Throughout this, you know, very difficult time, our clients have been tremendously supportive and continue to support our business post the accidents. We'll stay close to them and work with them as we implement the recommendations from the reviews and the investigations. To talk through the group financial highlights, I'll and over to Brett.
Thank you, Tony. I'll step through the financial highlights on slide four, and then through our CapEx gearing and acquisition payments for diversification and growth. Pleasantly, our revenue was in line within guidance range and up by 94% from the previous corresponding period at just below AUD 453 million, and resulted in an EBITDA, a normalized EBITDA, of AUD 38.6 million. As Tony mentioned previously, the normalization and I'll discuss on the next slide is primarily around the Crinum incident costs, but also the one off costs related to the Pybar acquisition, and the additional safety incident costs involved, legal costs, et cetera.
That AUD 38.6 million normalized EBITDA was up 88% on the prior corresponding period and resulted in 8.5% EBITDA margin. That margin was impacted by the Crinum production margin by the delays and impact of the incident but also a lower Pybar margin, as we mentioned, the performance for the eight months not quite as expected but improving on a month by month perspective at the moment. As a result of that normalized NPATA, which is in line with prior corresponding period, was AUD 10.1 million. Again, with the acquisition of the Pybar business, we have additional depreciation.
We also had the fair value uplift on the valuation of the Pybar assets, which also contributed additional depreciation for the period. On a normalized NPATA basis, it was AUD 6.9 million, which is up by 11% on the prior corresponding period, which we did have an additional AUD 4 million of amortization for the acquisition of the Pybar business during the period. Overheads for the year at 8%, which we're expecting to decrease somewhere closer to 7% or below for the 2023 period, given the growth of the business and the revenue performance. During the year, we also had acquisition payments, which was investing in our diversification and growth.
One of those was the Wilson Mining Services earn out payments, which was AUD 2 million during the period. We do have one more of those to go, payable in September this year, which is approximately AUD 3.8 million. The other acquisition payments, which was funded out of our own cash flow, was AUD 11 million to Pybar for the first acquisition payment. We do have a second deferred consideration payment due that is now payable September 2023. As mentioned in our financial accounts, that's recently been agreed to be deferred for a further nine months. Total CapEx for the period, we spent AUD 41.6 million.
Majority of that is on the Crinum growth and the Cook growth projects, as well as our sustaining CapEx, in the Mastermyne and the Pybar business. As a result of all that, our gearing ratio at the end of 2022 is about 1.9x. As I'll mention on future slides, looking to get back to our target gearing ratio of around 1x, by the end of 2023. Stepping to slide five. We're just going through the detail here we mentioned previously around the statutory to normalized results. I've mentioned the, drift recovery costs at Crinum, was AUD 18.6 million for the period.
As Tony did mention, we do believe we had a contractual position to recover those costs, and we'll progress those in the very near future. The other costs related to acquisition costs and legal costs for Pybar, and the legal costs for the additional safety incident at Moranbah North, during the year. Stepping to the next slide. Focused on our capital management and gearing reduction. As Tony mentioned with the slowdown of the Crinum project, and looking at capital reduction, there we are looking at our recovery of that capital through various mechanisms in the first half of 2023, which will assist us to delever the balance sheet and reduce our gearing ratio back to where we wanna be at that 1x target ratio.
Looking at the graph on the right hand side, at the end of the first half 2022, we're at just on 2x, 1.9x, at the end of this financial year. With our current guidance, that's mentioned in this document, we're looking to get back to just over 1x by the end of 2023, which is getting back to our capital management targets of 1x ratio. The CapEx for 2022, so as mentioned, was AUD 41.6 million. Guidance for next year is just on AUD 50 million of CapEx, which again, the majority of that is the growth projects to be finalized for Crinum and Cook, as well as our sustaining CapEx.
We do have AUD 101 million of available facilities through our banking and other facilities in place, of which AUD 58 million is available for equipment funding. We've also got an additional AUD 10 million of overdraft facilities available as well. The acquisition payments, as I mentioned, first half, we had AUD 13.6 million in total that were paid out during the year out of our free cash of the business. For 2023, we have a final AUD 3.8 million remaining for Wilson's, and 2024 is approximately AUD 8.9 million for the final Pybar deferred consideration payment. I'll hand back over to Tony to discuss the divisional outcomes.
Just on slide seven, talking specifically to the coal contracting business. Most of this information I've already been through, but I'll touch on two points. The first is around the resourcing, which is I guess like a lot of mining services companies are seeing as becoming more difficult as the year has progressed. For us, most of that tension is coming through the area of trades and statutory roles, which are specific and necessary for underground coal mine operations. For the coal contracting business, we are mostly fully resourced across all our projects, and our focus is largely on retention as opposed to recruitment. We have seen some wages pressure, which has resulted in wage cost increases.
However, the nature of our contracts allow us to pass these costs through to our clients. The net effect to this is has meant that there's been minimal impact to this part of the business from wages increases. With respect to recruitment, we're continuing to support the business by using our traditional training facilities in both Queensland and New South Wales. That's a strategy that's worked successfully for the business over many years. We're also progressing with international recruitment, which we've also done successfully in the past. With coal prices remaining elevated for the foreseeable future, we aren't expecting skill shortages to ease anytime soon, so we'll continue to rely on a number of our very well developed strategies to fill the emerging resources needs for this part of the business.
Just the second point I wanted to touch on in the coal contracting overview is the order book. On slide 13, you'll see the contract order book laid out, and you'll see the long term history of contracts that periodically roll as the term on those contracts expire. We've got a number of these contracts that expire in FY '23, and I'm pleased to say that all of these contracts are now in very late stages of being rolled for further multi year terms. On completion of these extensions, we'll advise the market accordingly. Where we sit today, we're very confident that all those expiring contracts will be successfully rolled in the very near term. Just on slide eight to talk about the coal contracting, sorry, the mine services business.
As I noted earlier, the company's made the decision to slow the work on the Crinum project, which will see first coal date pushed back into late 2023 or early 2024. The slowing of that project really is about reducing our working capital impact and give us time to ramp up other projects before coming back to the full ramp up at Crinum. As Brett mentioned to date, the company's carried the full cost impact of the drift recovery works and also the holding costs resulting from the delay in reaching production. Now with the drift recovery reaching completion, the company will progress the recovery of those costs.
We've got you know, strong supporting legal advice that the costs are recoverable through the contract and we'll work with the client to reach a resolution on this as quickly as possible. Obviously, given the material nature of that discussion, we'll keep the market informed as we progress through those negotiations. As also mentioned, we'll progress with discussions to bring forward the capital recovery of mining equipment, which will reduce about AUD 30 million of debt and materially de-leverage the balance sheet. So that acceleration of the capital recovery will come through either an alternate payment arrangement with the client or alternatively, a potential sale of the equipment, which will then be supplied back to the project.
These discussions are well progressed and we'll look to have this completed in the second quarter of this financial year. As noted, as I noted previously, the contract tenure, revenue and margins remain unchanged. You know, this revenue and margin just now defers into the next financial year. The client is supporting the slowdown, and we maintain a good working relationship with Sojitz at both the site and corporate offices. Cook is progressing well and has been producing coal now for a few months. Obviously, that project will benefit through the relocation of labor and equipment from Crinum. We'll see an immediate financial benefit from the redeployment of those resources.
On slide 9, Pybar's performance, you know, as Brett mentioned for the 8 months was down from what was expected, and this was largely due to some operational delays over the year. Those delays, you know, were largely latent conditions from flooding events and geotechnical events which resulted in lost production, which subsequently had a financial impact to the business. The nature of the Pybar contracts has also meant that there has been some financial impact from the rising costs, you know, which are affecting the entire sector at this time. We're systematically working our way through the contracts to have better protections from these impacts, and we've been successful in restructuring several contracts to date.
We'll continue with that restructuring exercise on the remaining contract over the coming year, leaving us with a much more balanced commercial position moving forward across all the current contracts. Also through the restructuring of Pybar and the integration with Mastermyne that has already occurred, we've built a much stronger commercial governance process, and the business is definitely benefiting from the experiences in the coal business in the areas of tendering and negotiating services contracts. Like the Wilson Mining business, Pybar will benefit quickly from working under the Metarock structure and we're already seeing significant improvements in the management of those contracts.
We're only very early in the very early stages of this acquisition, and we know from experience, it takes some time to transition businesses from private family run operations, to where we want them to be. We saw that recently with the Wilson Mining Services acquisition, which was turned from a loss-making business, with a diminishing market share to a material margin and revenue contributor, with now a dominant share of the underground consolidation market. We're confident of replicating that at Pybar, and we're now seeing month on month financial improvement, that will mean Pybar will become a very valuable and strategic part of the Metarock group. To talk sort of high level to the outlook on slides, from pages 11- 14.
The summary of this is really around our focus shifting solely to the execution of the very strong order book that we've established in FY '23, sorry, in FY '22, and focusing on that execution for FY '23 and the following years. Our focus will be to maximize revenue and margins and deliver what we've already secured. We'll focus on repaying debt and generating strong cash returns and other than some remaining capital required to finish off the mobilization of the Crinum project, our CapEx will return to largely sustaining CapEx. As I mentioned, through the next few months, we'll finalize the rollover of several contracts, which supports the revenue and margins beyond this year and into the next few years.
The current commodity cycle is holding up very well, and we're confident that there will be ongoing growth opportunities for Metarock well into the future. Now with the structure as a diversified and specialized underground contractor with a large workforce and a significant fleet of equipment, we believe we're well positioned to take advantage of what will be a strong period for mining services contractors. Just summing up in slide 15, we're really pleased with how we've set the business up. Well, this year has had its difficulties. We're confident with the year ahead, and our focus now is squarely on executing successfully.
We've taken, you know, the action needed to slow Crinum down and reduce debt, which will ensure we build a stronger position that enables us to continue to integrate the Pybar business and build out its strategic value as well as ramp up the Cook project and other organic opportunities in the coal contracting business. We have adjusted the guidance for FY '23 to reflect the deferral of the Crinum and the new Cobar projects with this revenue and margin pushing into FY '24. It's worth pointing out that without these projects pushing back, the previous guidance would have remained unchanged. Our long-term outlook is very strong, supported by a very robust resources cycle.
With the strategic decisions and investments made over this year, you know, we're extremely confident we're creating great value for our shareholders, which will be realized over the coming years. I'll pull up there and hand back to the moderator for 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 speaker phone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. We will pause for a short moment to allow for questions registration. At the moment, there are no questions. Oh, pardon me. We do have a question from John Burgess from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Well, I'm just wondering what you can tell us about the, for both Cook and Crinum, the production cost, you know, of those operations, you know, at full capacity versus, say, coal prices. Sort of, I guess my question is at what coal price might threaten those projects going forward?
Yeah, look, John, to answer the question, I mean, you know, we can only really talk to the, you know, to the ROM price cost. Beyond that, the costs are, yeah, we're unsighted on. As you know, we don't have anything to do with the processing or, any cost beyond the ROM stockpile. What I can tell you is, you know, these are bord and pillar operations, so, you know, in terms of where they sit on the cost curve, they're certainly not in the bottom quartile of the cost curve. Having said that, you know, they're probably sitting around the middle of the cost curve.
You know, the difficult question to answer because you know, we're not really sort of positioned, as I say to, you know, to talk to the FOB cost and at what cost those, you know, those projects would be threatened by coal price.
I mean, your clients would have an idea, I would've thought.
They certainly do, yes.
Was there any mine operations revenues in FY '22, and can you give us a feel for what the assumptions are built in for FY '23 in your guidance?
There were some minor revenues built in for 2022, really for the capital recoveries in the mine establishment phase. We're talking sort of minor revenues, probably around about AUD 20 million in total.
For 2022. The mechanisms for next year, again, the contract will change to a different format over the next few months, and potentially in sort of a cost recovery type model, and then changing back to the original contract once we get into production phase, and that's built into the 2023 numbers.
Can you give us a feel for what that sort of revenue is for. It's obviously mainly for Cook.
Cook is unchanged. It's closer somewhere around about the AUD 70 million is included in the 2023 numbers.
Okay. Could you just explain the capital recovery. You know, obviously you bought a lot of equipment, you're gonna redeploy some to Cook, and then you're going to try and sell some to improve the balance sheet, but then you're gonna need some equipment for Crinum when it starts in 12 months. Can you just talk me through that process? Is it? Are you looking at a different model, more of a leasing sort of model when you do Crinum rather than an equipment owned model?
Yeah, that's right. Looking more at a sale and lease back type arrangement and utilizing that in the project. Obviously we don't lose access to the equipment, but de-leverage our debt position and look at a potentially higher operating cost overall, but reducing our balance sheet exposure.
Yep. Okay. What was the additional depreciation charge from the valuation uplift at Pybar for the assets?
It equates to about AUD 3 million. That was due to the fair value acquisition accounting. When we did the fair value review of the assets of Pybar, we've come up with additional value. Off the top of my head, I think it was about AUD 14 million was the additional value. We've had that depreciation slide through to 2022 and will come through in 2023, 2024 onwards.
Yeah. Just a couple more. I know it's a bit hard now, but maybe you can't really comment, but you've given guidance for CapEx for 2023. What are you feeling for sort of 2024? What's like a sustaining level of CapEx once these projects are, you know, you've geared up for them? Do you have a feel for that?
Yeah. Yeah. John, our expectation is somewhere around about the AUD 15 million-AUD 20 million mark.
For the total group?
Total group for Pybar and Mastermyne from a sustaining perspective. The growth capital would be on top of that if there's any additional projects or additional engagements where we need to spend more capital.
Okay. That's probably it for me for now. Thanks.
Thanks, John.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Jonathan Scales from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Just if you could make a comment on the balance sheet and how that colors your ability to bid for new work. I don't see much mention of whole of mine contracts, so if you can just sort of make a comment on that.
Yeah. I suppose firstly, Jonathan, around balance sheet position. I mean, we've got sufficient funding in terms of equipment facilities in place to be able to fund future CapEx and our current projects ahead of us. I mean, we do have two sort of mine operations projects on our plate at the moment. We haven't factored in additional whole of mine projects. There obviously are opportunities there that we're looking at and working with clients. At the moment, with sufficient capacity on our balance sheet from a debt perspective, we can fund additional CapEx if required.
Okay, thanks.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Andrew Tan from Bell Potter. Please go ahead.
Good day, Tony. Good day, Brett. Just with the FY 2023 revenue guidance, can you just split it between the three kind of buckets of coal contracting, mine ops and Pybar? Just trying to reconcile, I guess, the difference to the previous guidance.
Yeah. The large difference will be on the mine operations side and then Pybar for the new Cobar contract reduction. It was about probably a AUD 40 million reduction on the Pybar side.
On Pybar?
Yep. Crinum's probably about another AUD 40 million-AUD 50 million as well as that gets delayed, which brings us to that sort of AUD 600 million-AUD 650 million mark.
Oh, okay. Crinum's only 40-50 reduction. I thought it would have been higher.
Yeah. I mean, there's still a few things to work through there overall, but that's our sort of estimate at the moment.
Okay. Tony, you mentioned that, you know, the Pybar contracts, you're working through some of the, I guess, the older maybe fixed price contracts and repricing for rising costs. You know, as a general percentage of the contracts you have on hand, like what has been repriced and what's remaining to be kind of renegotiated?
Yeah. Andrew, there was about sort of ten material contracts and there was four of those which were, you know, in our view, needed sort of attending. We've now completed three of those and we've got one contract left to go. Yeah, that will then give us, as I mentioned, you know, quite a much more balanced sort of position in terms of the commercial arrangements with all of those clients. Some of those have been, you know, through.
Rollover and some of it has just been, you know, getting back to the table with the client to, you know, to have a sensible discussion around those contracts going forward. Obviously now, you know, we've now sort of finished that work with the legacy contracts. You know, it's very much about instilling the right governance around the contracts going forward to make sure that we've got, you know, again, very balanced contracts, you know, particularly that pick up, you know, those fluctuations in cost. Because as you know, on the Pybar side, you know, they do have some, they do carry some of the risk on cost, you know, cost movements.
In terms of the Pybar contract portfolio, like is everything getting kind of your required or your targeted returns or there's still, you know, a few underperforming style contracts?
Look, they're not underperforming. I mean, they're coming back to, I suppose importantly, they're coming back to the point where they can't be loss making. You know, they're not getting, you know, the returns as you can appreciate when you're trying to renegotiate a contract that's on foot. You know, we are repositioning those contracts so that they aren't loss making. But, you know, over time as we're, you know, as we rebid them and bid new work, you know, we're certainly looking to, you know, improve the returns off those contracts.
In the coal contracting business, like any kind of change in activity levels or, I guess your customers' view on using employees versus contractors?
No material changes in, you know, the way contractors are used alongside our clients operations. Again, not seeing any sort of, you know, material shifts in the contractor landscape at this, you know, at this time. Yeah, you know, very stable, Andrew, in the coal contracting business. As I said we've, you know, got line of sight on some new projects which are, you know, sort of not quite organic type projects that have, you know, that we're, you know, in the late stages of negotiating. You know, all in all, no changes in that side of the business and it continues to, you know, deliver really good performance and, you know, we're not seeing any, you know, any change in that.
Okay. Just lastly about Crinum and what I guess the process of delaying the schedule, like was that instigated by you guys or Sojitz or how did that come about?
No, it was instigated by us. Yeah, we, you know, we certainly, you know, just felt that we needed to slow the project down, like I said, you know, to take the time to sort through these, you know, these costs with the drifts. As part of that, you know, we wanted to slow the project down. You know, as Brett alluded to, we sort of changed the contracting model a little bit. You know, had a different approach with the capital recovery. That was all at our instigation.
Like I said, once we, you know, get through these, you know, hopefully successful negotiations on the drift costs, you know, we'll then be in a position to be able to start the ramp up again.
Is it gonna be a hard discussion, though, that with the AUD 18.6 million, given that, you know, they're not gonna get revenue in the door till early 2024 and you're trying to get AUD 19 million back off them?
Oh, no doubt it'll be, you know, they're always difficult discussions to have. You know, we, you know, we have it on good advice that we've got a very reasonable contract position.
Okay. When do you think we could hear something about that? Is it, you know within a month or three months, or?
Oh, mate, I think it's hard to put a timeframe on it. I mean, what I can tell you is, you know, the discussions will start in the very, very near term. You know, how long it takes, I guess, you know, will really depend on, yeah you know the information we put in front and you know, how the contract, how the commercial positions are interpreted by both parties. I'd be, you know, reluctant to put a timeframe on it, Andrew.
All right, no worries. Thanks very much.
There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Caruso for closing remarks.
Thank you, everyone. Again, thanks for joining us on the call, and we look forward to catching up with many of you over the next couple of weeks, as we get around Brisbane and Sydney. Thank you.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.