In discussion. We'll do a page turn and go through some of the key results, and then we'll open it up to questions. Please type in your questions as we go, and we'll address them at the end of the presentation. Nido is very much a profit with purpose company. We have the privilege of impacting the lives of children and deliver financial outcomes for our people and investors. I'm Matt Edwards, the MD of Nido Education Limited, and with me today is Tom Herring, our CFO, and Adam Lai, our recently joined CEO. I'll ask Adam to give you a bit of his background and give you some context around what attracted him to join Nido.
Hi everyone. I'm really excited to introduce myself as the new CEO of Nido, and I'm really looking forward to working alongside Matt and the team to deliver upon our strategy. I bring over 20 years of experience developing strategy and delivering transformation across a variety of industries, and most recently I was the managing partner of PwC in Sydney. I joined Nido because of the incredible impact that we have on the lives of children and their families. Importantly, there were three reasons.
The first was Nido's focus on quality, so quality education, safety, quality spaces, and quality ways of working. Nido's focus on educators, particularly creating an environment where they can really flourish. Also, of course, Nido's very unique growth model, underpinned by the Incubator, driving a pipeline of really quality growth. It is a good time for me to join, and it is great for me to be here with you today. Thanks, Matt.
Thanks, Adam. Nido as a group in full year 2024 generated revenues of AUD 167 million, with an EBITDA of AUD 22 million and an N PAT of AUD 19.5 million. We declared a partially franked dividend of AUD 0.058 per share, which is a 5.8% yield on our issue price and a very healthy 7.4% yield based on our recent share price. I'll pass you across to Tom, our CFO.
Thanks, Matt, and good morning, everyone. As Matt noted, we delivered AUD 167 million revenue, AUD 22 million EBITDA, and AUD 19.5 million N PAT. You'll note that we kept finance costs low at AUD 500,000 as a result of the February refinancing and prudent debt repayments. You'll also see that we're now in a tax payable position with an FY24 tax expense of AUD 1 million after utilizing tax losses available.
Pleasingly, this allows us to frank our maiden AUD 0.058 per share dividend at 35%, which will be paid on the 28th of March. Service-based EBITDA was AUD 32 million, representing an average of AUD 611,000 per service. You can see that performance lifted in the second half, as is typical for the sector, with AUD 21 million generated at a margin of 24%. Key drivers included days sold, childcare fee increases at the mid-year, and wage efficiencies. We managed our capital effectively throughout the year. Cash from operations was strong at AUD 25 million at a cash conversion rate of 110%.
This included the benefit of cash returned to us as we moved rent bonds from a cash-backed facility to our new bank guarantee facility established in March. Capital expenditure was AUD 1.2 million. We made AUD 11 million of acquisitions in September, acquiring four services at 4.5 times EBIT. We reduced net debt by AUD 1 million. We paid AUD 8 million in acquisitions deferred from the IPO and issued AUD 4 million in loans to our incubator. Net debt was AUD 3.5 million at December at a leverage ratio of 0.16 times EBITDA. We have AUD 48 million of headroom in our debt facilities, giving us considerable acquisition runway.
As Tom highlighted, our service-based EBITDA was AUD 32.4 million. This was delivered at an average occupancy of 78%. This gives us significant upside potential as we move through 2025, particularly with the added tailwinds of government policy changes we expect to see in 2025 and into 2026. Our average daily fee was AUD 164, with our current average daily fee sitting at AUD 172. We did make the decision to lift fees above the forecast with the expectation that it may affect occupancy but not impact earnings. In regards to previous staffing challenges the sector experienced in 2023, we ended 2023 with around 500 open roles. Finding quality people was challenging.
However, we began 2025 with only 90 open roles. In quarter one 2024, we recruited ahead of demand, especially because we saw about a five-fold increase in résumés coming through. When we did not see the typical seasonal uplift in occupancy, we moved to manage our labor costs in line with occupancy. As an example, you see in September, wages were AUD 7.3 million. This was only AUD 100,000 higher than the wages in February, while revenue in September was around AUD 1.9 million up on February.
Wages from July actually include a 4.25% award and super increase. So real wages actually fell from February to September. We have been able to manage this wage discipline into 2025. You will see we started 2025 well with January 2025 generating AUD 2.8 million service-based EBITDA, a 40% increase year-on-year. AUD 600,000 of this came from the 52 existing services, and AUD 200,000 came from our four acquisitions from September. We held our average fees at AUD 172 in January, mindful of the cost of living pressures faced by families.
Slide 15, page 15, just gives you the historical growth of Nido over the past five years, which has been significant. When we look at our incubation acquisition pipeline, this was partially delayed this year with 14 services moving from 2024 into 2025 and into 2026, delaying the AUD 250,000 we get paid per service as an opening payment. Construction costs, we've seen price escalations are slowing. This is allowing developers to firm up construction contracts and get projects underway. We expect that we'll deliver for the incubator 13 new services in 2025.
With 2026, we should see new service openings escalate to around our target of 20 services per year. We have 13 services trading in the incubator post the four acquisitions we made in September. Presented here are the spot occupancies at the recent low point. We expect the number of these will be acquired in 2025. We have 25 sites in the construction phase, with a further 30 sites with agreed terms and board approved that are awaiting DA approval. We were presented over 1,200 sites last year, and we've seen the volume of opportunities remain consistent into 2025.
When we look at the monthly phasing of service-based EBITDA, as raised earlier, Nido achieved a 40% increase in service-based EBITDA for January compared to the previous year. Despite a strong start to the year, February enrollments have been subdued, though enquiries remain robust. We will update the market further later in the year as we get a few more months trading under our belt. When we consider strategy, we believe there's a pressing need for operators to shift away from the traditional strategies of the past 20 years. We are places of education, not just places of care.
As government, community, and families' expectations shift, so must what we do. We anticipate that 2025 will bring significant positive changes to the sector, as both major political parties have recognized the necessity for substantial investment into early education, which should deliver considerable tailwinds to the sector. Recent changes to the Child Care Subsidy Activity test, along with the potential policy shifts, will create new growth opportunities for Nido.
With a dedicated team at the helm, Nido is well equipped to meet the needs of families and evolve our offering to be well beyond the standard childcare offering whilst we continue to deliver value to our stakeholders. We made an announcement this morning that we were going to undertake a share buyback. We believe that the market has undervalued Nido. We appreciate small caps have fallen out of favor, and we listed in a constrained IPO market.
We see private operators not with the same caliber of the Nido offering, not with the same development pipeline, not with the same quality of earnings, and not with the same growth prospects. We see these private operators selling for multiples significantly higher than that of Nido's. We do expect what happened with Think when we went from AUD 0.70 to AUD 3.20 in a four-month period. The market will eventually appreciate the value and the investment proposition that Nido represents.
The lack of understanding of the Nido investment proposition is possibly our own doing, as we haven't been active in investor relations. We've simply been head down and running the business. With Adam joining, we'll have more capacity in that IR space. The buyback will not inhibit our acquisition or dividend-paying capabilities, and the board at these trading prices see it as an appropriate use of capital. We'll now answer any questions. Please feel free to type them in.
Thanks very much, Matt. There is a question here from one of the participants, and thank you for that. What is the expected conversion rate from board approved to 80% occupancy centers within Nido, and how long do you expect that timeframe to develop a pipeline?
The typical trade-up for us is that 12-18 month period, and you would expect sort of 85% of your services to actually reach that metric inside that period. You'll have some services that will take two or three or four years to reach that average 80%, and there will obviously be a portion that never get there. Yeah, around 80-85%, we expect to actually achieve the acquisition metrics.
There's a question here about the centers in the incubator that we're looking to acquire next year or this year. How do they align with the group's current average daily fee rate?
They're consistent, but we have introduced a slightly different fee approach to some of our new services, where we're pricing Kinder children at about AUD 40 below what we're charging for a child under the age of three. It is almost a pay-for-use policy, and we expect that over time will mean we have a shift in the age groups enrolled. 71% of all inquiries at the moment are coming for children under the age of three. We are looking to have a bit of a differentiated model from other operators in the market.
Thanks, Matt. There's another question here saying, "Looking to the medium term now, at the half, you suggest the target of 150 company-owned centers by 2029. Considering the current operating environment for developers and the industry, are you still comfortable with this outlook?"
Yes, most definitely. I think there's been a shift in terms of the construction sector. We obviously saw more developers and builders go under last year than we've ever seen in the history of Australia. We're starting to see prices moderate. We have certainly lifted some of our rents for some of our developers to make sure the sites are viable. Out of our entire pipeline, only two sites that have been deemed non-viable that won't be built, and they're in Queensland, where construction costs are up around 80%, driven by the big infrastructure spend and obviously what they're spending for the Olympics.
Yeah, we remain sort of confident. As I said, we are looking at sort of around 1,200 sites a year. The pipeline in terms of opportunities is continuing. There was about a 3.7% growth in the number of childcare centers last year, and that gives you a bit of a sense that these things are still coming out of the ground and still being open.
That's great. Thanks, Matt. There's a question here about the segments of the children that we serve. Are you able to provide an indication of the split between under-two's and over-two's in the services?
Yeah, so you're looking around sort of, and we look at sort of over three and under three. You have a, between the ages of zero and two, you have a one educator to four children ratio. Between that two and three, typically a one to five ratio. Above three, you have a one to ten ratio. To deliver care to any child under the age of three is far more expensive. Right now, we sit around that 65% of our enrollments are under the age of three, and around 35% are over the age of three.
Thanks, Matt. There were two questions that were submitted just before the conference today. The first was, "Would you like to remark on occupancy at all?
Occupancy for the sector has always been used as a proxy for profitability. The market has considerably changed, and as we just spoke about in terms of the makeup of enrollments, yeah, 78% occupancy for us is not the same as 78% occupancy for somebody else. To give you an example, we have a peer operator that is private that sits at around 85% occupancy, but their fees are around AUD 150 a day, where we're sitting at sort of that 78% average occupancy with our fees in the AUD 170s. We remain more profitable than they are. Certainly, going into this year, occupancy is sitting there or thereabouts to last year, and we're seeing significant increase in inquiries.
I think the big factor that has impacted occupancy last year was the working from home, which we're starting to see that lessen, but that's certainly had an impact on our families. With a constrained employment market, companies are sort of yielding to requests from families to keep the child at home for a day and work from home on that day. We are seeing that start to change a bit with more employers and governments mandating a return to work in the office environment. We think that'll play and probably help occupancy a little bit more in 2025.
Matt, there's another question here about average daily fees. I know you touched on that a little bit earlier. Have you applied the max permitted 4.4% fee increase in January?
Our fee increase in January across the board was a minus 0.8%. Our fees are quite high compared to other sector operators. Given the cost of living pressures that we are faced in the market, we thought just because you can do a 4.4% increase, we do not necessarily think you should.
We looked at our portfolio and the pressures on our families, and we made a decision to actually reduce fees in some areas, go up by a max around 2% in some areas, giving us a minus 0.8%. We will review that obviously in the July period, and we may then be able to take up the full 4.4%. There is a lot of pressure on families at the moment, a lot of financial pressure, and we felt it was prudent to hold fees at that AUD 172 level that we have now.
Great. There was one other question about labor cost management and the use of strategies to manage rosters, in particular the use of labor hire, permanent part-time, and other types of labor models.
Labor hire is dramatically reduced. We do not have a labor hire issue at the moment. It is always challenging finding quality educators, but we certainly have a far higher quality of employee and teachers now than we had sort of back in the start of 2024. We have a casual pool that we use. We have got permanent part-time, but the vast majority of our labor usage is in our permanent part-time and our full-time employees.
Thanks, Matt. There's a question here asking you to predict what the government may do. If the government offers three days of free care across the sector, as currently being discussed, do you suspect the government will put a cap on the daily fees, which will then impact Nido's profitability?
The government has already put a cap on our daily fees. They allowed us a 4.4% increase this year, and from August 9, 2025, fees can go up by a further 4.2%. They have put a cap on our ability to increase fees. For-profit operators represent about 70% of the days of care delivered within the sector. For-profit operators need to remain viable. The ACCC reported there was not profit gouging in the sector. The government needs us to be viable to be able to maintain delivering of care to families. Whatever they do to us as an operator, they will do to not-for-profit. We are all in the same boat. We do not think what government will do will have a negative impact on profitability. In fact, if anything, it will enhance our profitability.
Thanks very much, Matt. Are there any further questions to be added from the participants? Fantastic.
Thank you, everyone, for joining. We appreciate it. It's a very, very busy time, and with lots of companies reporting this week, so we certainly do very much appreciate your participation today. Happy to have any questions answered offline. Please reach out via the Investor Hub if you do have any questions, and we'll be happy to answer them. Thank you.
Thank you, everybody.