Go to the slides as you choose, or you can follow us on screen. Questions can be submitted at any time. To ask a question, press on the Q&A icon. This will open up a new screen. At the bottom of the screen, you'll see a section for you to type in your question. Once you have finished typing, press Enter on your keyboard, and that'll send the question through. Please note the way you can submit questions from now on: we won't address those until the relevant time in the meeting. Slide three is the agenda for today's call. I'll focus on callouts from the results and discuss the key elements of the company's evolution. Peter will present the financial performance for the period. I'll then talk to the strategy, followed by closing remarks.
The key points for today's presentation are consistent execution of our strategy, continued operational improvement, and focus on growth opportunities. Another record revenue and earnings achievement for the plant-based milk segment. Our dairy nutritional segment has shown another positive increase in earnings despite challenging markets. I'm proud to share these achievements with you, but acknowledge there is more to do. The results we announced this morning for the first half demonstrate another period of solid progress against our reset, transform, and grow strategy, with all key operating financial metrics continuing to move in the right direction. We continue to execute against our plans. This is about constant delivery of our strategy and growth of underlying performance. As mentioned earlier, we've seen a record result. The transform and grow strategy continues to deliver improved results with EBITDA of AUD 27.5 million, up 19% from FY2024.
The plant-based milk segment delivered a record EBITDA of AUD 25.3 million, up 9.2%. Market-leading brand MILKLAB continues to grow across both plant and dairy, with domestic and export up 6.7% overall. Dairy nutritionals delivers a AUD 4.6 million adjusted operating EBITDA compared to AUD 2.2 million in first half of FY2024. The outlook for MILKLAB remains strong. Commodity dairy prices are recovering, but overall dairy margins remain low. Working capital management delivers operating cash flow improvements, which Pete will take you through later. The statutory net loss after tax of AUD 82.1 million includes two significant items: a AUD 36.3 million charge for the convertible notes fair value adjustment and a non-cash impairment of the dairy nutritionals of AUD 50 million. Without these two items, net earnings would have been positive. The team at Noumi are critical to our success.
I'm proud to say that with a focus on keeping everyone safe, ongoing initiatives to enhance the health and safety of our team members remain a priority. We continue to embed safety across all the sites to ensure that the 500 team members are safe and can perform their roles. We've seen increased participation in our leadership program, which we're using to develop our team and drive improved engagement. We've increased investment in programs to develop our leaders to drive growth, collaboration, and success. We're upgrading technologies to make sure our team have better tools to do their jobs. At Shepparton and Ingleburn sites, we continue to build on operational excellence by developing our frontline leadership. Moving to slide nine. Previously, I laid out the transformation program to deliver long-term growth. We've continued to build on the foundations we have established.
There are a number of key highlights that are important. We are executing against our strategy. We've all but closed out the legacy items relating to the events prior to 2021. The only substantive reset item left is the Shareholder Class Action. The court hearing is scheduled for the 17th of April. Resolution of the Class Action will allow us to focus exclusively on our future, including a review of the optimal capital structure that supports our growth ambition. Dairy nutritionals is progressing through the transformation phase, and earnings have doubled through more consistent operations and sales in target markets. There's increased focus on value-added opportunities in dairy nutritionals and consumer nutritionals to supplement service and efficiency and reliability improvements. Key initiatives contribute to strong sales growth in key export markets with MILKLAB Almond, and MILKLAB Oat.
With the launch last year of MILKLAB
into retail, we are leveraging the strong brand position and the evolution of coffee in home for strong and growing results through the retail channel. Overall, there's been strong performance for the business in what has been a busy period. We're excited by the progress and the future. Pete will now take you through the financial performance. After that, I'll come back and talk more about the strategy and how it's shaping our future plans.
Thank you, Michael, and good morning to everyone. I'm delighted that we're able to again report significant progress as we execute on our transform and grow agenda. Our messages are similar to recent announcements. Our strategy is unchanged, and we are executing more consistently. As a result, another record result for plant-based milks and dairy operating result doubled last year's performance. We plan this next stage of growth around a set of clear initiatives: launching MILKLAB into retail, making MILKLAB an international brand, a new formulation for oat, and more consistent execution. All of those initiatives are delivering in today's result, with more to come, and we're pleased with the outcome. We are just as clear that we can't be complacent in an uncertain world. We love the fact that our plant-based business is delivering record after record, but competition is fierce.
In dairy, whilst global conditions have improved slightly, earnings are still small, and there remains much to do. Overall, our results continue to improve. We're becoming stronger, and we're encouraged by our progress. As I turn to some of the specifics of the result, just a word on terminology. We consider the adjusted operating EBITDA numbers as being our most important measure of operating performance. It excludes all of the one-off restructuring, such as impairment charges and things like the legacy litigation issues. It's the one we use, and we consider it's the most useful for investors. If Michael or I just say EBITDA this morning, that's what we mean. Moving to slide 13, I'm pleased to report group revenue up approximately 1% compared to the prior period, led by a 6.6% improvement in plant-based milk sales. MILKLAB brand sales were up 6.7%.
In dairy nutritionals, revenue was down slightly with the continued reduction in low-margin export sales, largely offset by improvements elsewhere. Adjusted operating EBITDA for the group of AUD 27.5 million is up 19% on last year. This comes on top of the 35% increase in EBITDA we announced at the same time last year. In a moment, I'll take you through the highlights of the operating performance and the positive set of improvements we've announced today. The statutory loss of AUD 82 million includes two significant items: a fair value adjustment on the convertible notes of AUD 36.3 million and an AUD 50 million non-cash impairment write-down of the dairy business. The earnings table on this slide highlights the fact that before we count the fair value adjustment for the notes and before the non-cash impairment, we have made money, AUD 4.2 million.
This means that after we take into account normal depreciation, normal interest on all of our financing other than the convertible notes, and even allowing for the AUD 6.7 million we provided for the cost of closing out the legacy litigation, earnings were positive. We've taken the impairment notwithstanding the improvement we've made to the dairy results. On the one hand, we're proud of the improvements we've made. Lactoferrin production has improved, and prices for bulk commodities have picked up a little. On the other hand, export markets for long-life milk remain subdued, and the combination of excess processing capacity and intense competition means that the medium-term outlook for margins is not recovering as quickly or as much as we had previously anticipated. Accordingly, it's appropriate to take the AUD 50 million non-cash impairment charge against dairy.
As far as the fair value charges on the notes are concerned, the convertible notes are concerned, these are not new, and more about those in a moment. Let's move on to some of the detail of the segment earnings. On slide 14, we are once again delighted with the plant-based milk's result, with EBITDA for the period up 9.2% to AUD 25.3 million. It's been a great period for the plant business, with all our exciting strategic initiatives adding to the result. Total revenue up 6.6%, growth in our key brands, MILKLAB plant sales up 7.8%, and growth in our range, the new oat formulation delivered growth of 31.5% on the same period last year.
A solid period for MILKLAB Almond, which is the foundation that underpins all of our growth initiatives, and sales up 26.6% in export markets from the targeted initiatives underway to extend MILKLAB 's geographic reach. Our operation teams have played their part in performance too, having supported a 10.1% increase in volume and differentiated product formats. It was interesting to see recent developments aimed at easing the cost of living pressures for Australian households, together with reports of return-to-office practices receiving increased consideration. Whilst we know that the Australian love affair with coffee is a very strong bond, some relief for consumers would only assist our plant-based revenue outlook. Of course, from our perspective, our diversified mix of branded and contract manufacturing volumes across different channels and geographies positions us well to meet consumer preferences however they adapt from shifts resulting from macroeconomic factors.
In short, another record result, a clear strategy, and a great future. Moving on to dairy, slide 15 demonstrates the progress of this segment. Positive EBITDA of AUD 4.6 million, more than double the first half of last year and continuing the turnaround in earnings that began in FY2023. The result reflects a solid performance in long-life milk, improvements in lactoferrin, and some recovery in commodity prices, most notably bulk cream. In long-life milk, domestic sales were up 7%, all volume-related, whilst export sales were down 29.6% for the half. In the current six months, export represents just 30% of long-life sales, down from 47% two years ago. In respect of lactoferrin, there are two important callouts. First, sales rebounded to be up 16.6% in the first half following improved production efficiency compared to last year's disruptions.
Second, we're only operating at around 80% of our lactoferrin capacity as a consequence of the lower export volumes of long-life milk going through our Shepparton plant compared to a couple of years ago. Any recovery in long-life sales will also allow us to produce more lactoferrin. Commodity prices for products such as bulk cream have recovered somewhat during the latest half year. In our case, revenue is up 6.2% despite a small drop in volume. This means we've recouped around AUD 2.5 million of the impact of the bulk cream downturn we reported in the first half of last year. Whilst it's been a tough period in consumer nutritionals with sales down 11%, we had some disruption to our inventory supply lines for Crankt, and protein input costs are high, but we're yet to see that reflected in competitive prices.
With our data telling us that Vital Strength and Crankt both rank in the top 10 brands for their category, we continue to believe that consumer nutritionals can contribute to our next phase of growth. The overall dairy nutritionals result demonstrates progress, but the earnings are still relatively small, and the Australian dairy industry is still facing change and challenge, hence the impairment charge. It is critical that we get a price for our long-life milk that allows us to achieve reasonable returns that would enable us to invest to meet the expectations of our customers. Overall, great progress, but more to do to improve returns. In terms of cash and capital, we have AUD 11.9 million more cash than we had at June 24, but we have increased our financial debt by AUD 1.1 million.
Convertible notes are now carried at AUD 373 million, which, as with other years, is conducted at an independent fair value for the notes. In terms of the convertible notes, I want to pause on three important callouts. The first is to remind you of what we've said in previous presentations, that the fair value adjustments, just like the amounts booked in this result and in previous results, will continue until the notes mature in 2027. These adjustments will effectively continue until the value of the notes on the balance sheet reaches the redemption value of a minimum of AUD 600 million in May 2027. The second callout is to point out a change in the classification of the notes to a current liability in the balance sheet from now on. Now, normally, liabilities are only current when you have to pay them back within 12 months.
Now, our notes do not get repaid until 2027, so have been previously regarded as non-current. During the year, the accounting rules changed regarding circumstances where liabilities, in our case, the notes, can be converted into shares at any time. Even though it would be most unlikely that our noteholders would convert into shares in the next 12 months, given current valuation and share price considerations, the mere fact that they can means we have to show them as a current liability. The main thing to remember is that the change has no impact on our liquidity position. For the third callout, planning is commenced for the maturity of the notes in 2027, by which time the noteholders will be owed a minimum of AUD 600 million. This has not been possible whilst the legacy litigation has been unresolved.
However, the agreement to settle the class action and the prospect of receiving court approval in coming months means we can now turn our mind to the future. The opportunity is to review the capital structure so that we identify future growth initiatives that will drive performance over the next few years and lay down a strategic plan, that we optimize the capital structure to support that plan, and at the same time, we create liquidity for the noteholders that provided critical capital for the reset, transform, and grow phase. Whilst on the subject of the balance sheet, I'd also like to reiterate that Noumi's contribution of AUD 11.6 million to the total class action settlement amount of AUD 43 million, which was referenced in a recent AFR article, will be met in full by the company's insurers.
In terms of the accounting, we've included the AUD 11.6 million that will come from the insurers as a receivable on our balance sheet, and an equal amount is included in our provisions. Lastly, in terms of the balance sheet, as we have said before, we don't carry any value in our books for our flagship asset, the MILKLAB brand. It's been built from scratch, and it's not yet 10 years old, and we consider it's worth hundreds of millions and that it continues to grow. Turning to slide 17, our cash flow performance was much improved. Net cash from operations was AUD 40 million, up from AUD 10 million in the same period last year.
Now, with AUD 27 million of EBITDA and AUD 40 million of net cash from operations, it's pretty apparent that the six months to December had some positive impact from timing differences as well as strong underlying cash conversion. The big driver was collections. Trade receivables are down from AUD 63 million in December 2023 to AUD 45 million in December 2024. Part of it is mixed since dairy long-life export sales generally have a longer collection profile, so lower export sales make a difference. Finally, this time last year, we announced that approximately AUD 9 million of debtor financing drawdowns were delayed from December 2023 into January 2024. All in all, whilst the comparison is a bit noisy, we're pleased with our working capital management across the board. Inventory is well managed and in line with December 2023, albeit a little higher than June, which is more a seasonal thing.
Whilst payables are up a little, all of our suppliers are current in terms. Apart from working capital, our approach to capital expenditure remains disciplined with AUD 2.1 million spent during the period. Our net finance costs, mostly interest, were AUD 9.8 million, not including any cash payments on the convertible notes. With all of that going on, borrowings, excluding our AASB 16 leases and the convertible notes, increased by AUD 1 million during the period. To recap the financials, group EBITDA up 19% to AUD 27.5 million. Dairy and nutritionals continues its earnings recovery against difficult industry conditions. Another record result for our plant-based milks business, highlighted by the focused execution of recent initiatives. Capital structure and the maturity of the convertible notes on the agenda, subject to the court approval of the class action settlement. All in all, a period of progress executing against our strategy.
With that, I'll hand back to Michael for some further remarks.
Thanks, Pete, for the commentary on the results. Moving to slide 19, I'd like to talk further regarding our strategy. We've developed our strategy to drive shareholder value. We're focused on developing high-quality and innovative dairy and plant-based products to meet the different nutrition and taste needs of customers and consumers across life stages. As many of you are aware, we have five key strategic pillars that we focus on, and they haven't changed. These five fundamental pillars remain consistent with the strategic priorities outlined previously. The outcomes we are delivering make it clear that we are concentrating on the appropriate areas, and these will steer the direction of the business. The priorities continue to evolve as we continue to transform and accelerate our growth. I want to bring your attention to a few priorities.
Build dairy into a profitable and growing business with expanded customers and products. It is to strengthen and grow MILKLAB brand, including investing to accelerate global market expansion. We have aspirations for MILKLAB to become an international brand in the food and beverage sector. Mitigate inflation through value creation to manage margins and costs to our customers. Embed Noumi culture and values. Develop future growth platforms based on emerging consumer trends. These priorities will assist in driving shareholder value and to continue to build a more resilient business. On slide 20 are the highlights to our strategy for the plant-based milk segment. We are accelerating investment in brands and marketing activities. We will do this through leveraging MILKLAB brand campaigns, ambassador partnerships, and high-quality range to increase sales and distribution.
Investment in research and development to deliver high-quality, new, innovative products that meet the taste and health needs of consumers will be key to drive future growth. We've established distribution agreements with key strategic partners in Southeast Asia to drive growth. Coffee culture is expanding in these markets, but we recognize this process will take time. Our recent activation with the Summer Sensations program has given consumers the ability to sample our products, with our plant-based milks being the core ingredient in the recipes. Over the last eight months, we have launched a series of initiatives both domestically and abroad. These are delivering great results already and will continue to do as we layer on more exciting projects to support the next phase of our growth. Moving to slide 21, to highlight the strategy for our dairy nutritionals segment. We are building on the improvements we have achieved.
We'll continue to collaborate with our suppliers in providing a sustainable platform for investment along the supply chain. We are moving dairy nutritionals into the growth phase. As mentioned earlier, we aim to continue building on the momentum of the previous years of investment. For Noumi, it is key to leverage off the growing demand for high-quality dairy nutritionals products, and we look to invest further in the Noumi brands. We'll continue to focus on delivering high levels of operational efficiency to reduce wastage and increase earnings, maintaining focus on our supply chain, quality in our operations, and delivering high levels of service to our customers. We're also accelerating the innovation of new dairy nutritionals products, satisfying increasing consumer demand across parts of the portfolio. This can be seen in Australia's Own range, where we've seen an over 9% increase in the half-on-half.
We are pleased with the improving performance of dairy nutritionals, with EBITDA more than doubling. We've been able to maintain our focus on domestic channels over the past six months to mitigate the impact of the persistent weak export markets and the broader challenges for the Australian dairy industry. Our bulk ingredients have recovered, although margin pressure is still a key challenge. We are focusing on what we can control. Slide 22 is our ESG strategy and is brought together in our Integrated Healthier Tomorrow plan. This plan was released in 2022 following consultation with our board, suppliers, business partners, and our own team. Our ESG strategy is integrated across our value chain, from dealing with our supply partners to manufacturing to delivery of our products to our customers. We are continuously improving processes.
We'll continue to look for opportunities that deliver overall benefits to the business that align to our ESG strategy and our customers. In terms of outlook, for half to FY2025, Noumi expects to continue to consolidate the progress it has made in the past two years, though it's focused on the execution of its strategy across products, channels, and geographies. In the plant-based milk segment, Noumi is investing in the continued growth of its MILKLAB brand, both in Australia and overseas. In dairy and nutritionals, the company is focused on executing for its domestic customers and consumers while closely monitoring developments in local and global dairy industries for their impact on the company and its products. While macroeconomic conditions create uncertainty and volatility, the consumer preferences continue to evolve. The company is positive about its progress.
Whilst these factors can't be ignored, we are sticking to the strategy as we continue to see improved results. Our portfolio operates across a diverse range of geographies and channels, offering choices to all consumers however they want to engage with us. Key to acknowledge that even in pain, we are growing. We are doing what's in our control. We are positioning ourselves for medium to long-term sustainable growth. I'd like to thank you all for listening today, and I wanted to reiterate the execution of significant transformation of your company. The results we are delivering are a testament to that. There is still more work to do, and we have a clear roadmap. Execution is key.
While considerable challenges remain from increased domestic and international competition to cost of living pressures on consumers, the operating improvements we have been making as a business are now reflected in a more consistent performance and have put us on a clear path to long-term sustainable growth. Right across the business, including the board, we remain committed to the pathway forward, and we hope that is evident. I want to thank all stakeholders within the business. Our team are instrumental in our success. We would not be here today without them, and I want to thank everyone for their effort. This concludes the formal part of the presentation. As announced at the start, we are available for questions. As a reminder, questions can be submitted by pressing on the Q&A icon. At the bottom of the screen, there's a section for you to type in your question.
Once you've finished typing, please hit the enter button on your keyboard to send the question through. We do have one question here, which I'll hand over to Pete for the initial part. I'll just ask the question now. How should we think about the litigation cash cost over the next 6-12 months as legacy issues are dealt with?
The litigation costs that are sitting on the balance sheet as yet unpaid are around AUD 5 million. Of that, a couple of million dollars is to be paid in the relatively near term. The balance I would expect to be paid over the course of the next couple of years on a relatively even basis.
You can see that in the provisions note that's in the accounts, which includes the AUD 11.6 million that would be in and out, if you like, in relation to the settlement monies and then the legal costs and so forth paid over a couple of years.
Do we have another question from Jonathan Snape? What is the impact of the asset impairments on expected depreciation charges in the second half of 2025?
I think if you just take the depreciation charge in the first half, you will see some relief coming from the impairment charge would be, I think if you assumed it would be over the best part of, say, an eight-year period that that depreciation relief would occur, I think you would be getting a pretty good picture of it at that stage, Jonathan. The next question is in relation to operating cash flow and.
Were strong and debtor drawdowns were negligible, and how sustainable is the improvement in the working capital? I was at pains, I think, to kind of explain that we shouldn't imagine that we can continue to generate AUD 40 million of cash out of AUD 27 million of EBITDA. If I look at the period of the last 18 months, you get a much more balanced picture between the amount of EBITDA that we've reported and the net operations cash flow. The EBITDA is about AUD 78 million, and the cash from ops is about AUD 81 million. I think that reminds us we have excellent cash conversion occurring in the business, and working capital is being very well managed and actively managed.
Of course, imagining the net cash from ops to be higher than EBITDA might occur, we'll have some investment back in working capital, but certainly nothing out of the ordinary.
Yeah. The last question there is, how should we think about the recovery of cream related to earnings with continued strengthening of global milk fat prices? As presented in the results, we've seen an AUD 2.8 million benefit compared to the previous half with cream. Cream is a secondary product that comes out of the long-life milk production, and we are continuing to see strengthening in that global fat prices. We should see that continue into the second half.
I think just to dimensionalise that, we said that it cost us something like AUD 8 million or so in the full year last year. That will help dimensionalise that, I think.
I've got a question from Mitch Fogarty, which, with the growth in profitability in the dairy nutritional business, why was it prudent to impair the business unit by AUD 50 million this half?
Yeah, it's a very good question, and we appreciate it's a bit of a conundrum. The dairy performance has been good, and we're very happy with it. The way that the impairment testing works is you've really got to sort of look out as to what you think the earnings and margin performance will be in the business. What we would say is that with export markets not recovering perhaps as strongly as we had hoped and with a very competitive environment for domestic long-life milk, the margin performance out of those parts of our business is not improving back as fast or as much as we had thought.
It is really about a slight moderation of our expectations based on what we are seeing at the moment. Obviously, we are optimistically chasing improvements in margins and improvements if the export conditions would permit us to rebuild a bit of our volume there. I think the reality is there is also still a reasonable degree of turbulence in the global sort of dairy business, and we are certainly not the only processor that has taken some impairments over the last year or so.
On top of that, if I look at the work that we have done in improving our dairy business, it has been instrumental being able to increase our performance. With a reduction in the volume of milk in Australia, that has created some underutilized capacity in processing in Australia. A little bit increased competition as other processors are looking to retain volume through their processing facility.
At this point in time, we don't have any further questions. I'd like to thank everybody for joining the call once again and appreciate the interaction with the questions for this period. Thank everybody for joining and wish you a safe day. Thank you.