I would now like to hand the conference over to Paul Digney, Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining this morning's call. Joining me, as always, is Mark Wratten and Paul Lewis. I want to start by acknowledging the traditional custodians of country around Australia. Starting on Slide 6 of the investor presentation, full year 2024 highlights. The numbers on the slide really speak for themselves. 2024 now marks the fourth consecutive year that Qube has delivered double-digit growth.
That's a testament to our strategy and the quality of our assets, systems, and our people. It highlights the benefits of our diversification that enables the business to navigate inflationary pressures and economic challenges that have persisted throughout the year, but all over the past couple of years since COVID. It just demonstrates just how robust the Qube business is. Now, if I can turn to Slide 7, Qube's key markets.
As you can see, we saw positive performance across most of our key markets in 2024, and in most cases, we expect this situation to be the same in 2025. Qube is well-established across these key markets, and we continue to see good growth opportunities across all the markets. Now, I'll just touch on each market briefly. Containers. Very solid performance across logistics and infrastructure, with continued market share growth in this sector in 2024. We expect the container logistics business to continue to grow at a similar rate in 2025, like it has in the past. Patrick had a strong result and was above expectations, mainly due to having higher market share than normal for a good portion of the year. That market share now has normalized back to 42% market share, leading to the 2025 year. Agri.
2024 was materially lower than the 2023 year for Qube. However, in 2025, it's expected, we're expecting to have a strong year for agri. How strong that is, we'll know better in the coming months, as we finalize volume commitments and terms with our customers in the short term. Automotive. We saw continued high automotive volumes across all parts of our auto businesses throughout the entire year, which we expect will ease a little in 2025. However, volumes still to be healthy through the 2025 year. Forestry. New Zealand log exports remained flat in 2024. However, earnings improved due to a cost reduction program that we conducted in the first half of this year. Australian forestry improved on the back of China lifting its bans on Australian wood and growth in the India export market.
We expect our forestry volumes to be overall similar in 2025 , with some earnings uplifts around productivity benefits in 2025 year. The resources sector. Qube saw overall steady volumes across most customers in 2024 , despite having some lumpy volume challenges with a couple of customers. We expect ongoing growth in 2025 to continue, with some ongoing challenges due to commodity prices and labor shortages, like in 2024. However, labor and inflationary challenges have improved somewhat since 2023 for us. Energy. In 2024, we continued to grow again in this energy space. In 2025 and beyond, we expect healthy growth with a pipeline of work ahead with our oil and gas and renewable customers. The last item here, our other businesses.
Overall solid earnings from other business sections, such as non-containerized logistics, domestic logistics, lifting and project work activities in 2024, and this is expected to continue to grow in 2025. Now turning to Slide 8, safety. We have a strong safety culture at Qube, and it's something the team has worked very hard over seven years journey to build. Throughout the year, consistent with our program of continuous improvement, we continued to strengthen and enhance our safety systems across the business to continue to be at the top on safety in our sector. Our performance across our key safety metrics all improved in 2024, which is a pleasing outcome. However, sadly, we had a Qube employee who tragically died in an incident at our South Australian forestry operations.
WorkSafe South Australia investigated that incident, and we were advised last month that the regulator had closed its investigations and had not identified any failings in Qube's work, health, and safety obligations. However, consistent with our commitment to continuous improvement, we have made investments into an industry-first digital communications network to increase monitoring for these remote operations, which will have the potential to strengthen safety standards for the whole industry, not just Qube. Turning to Slide 9, Qube's revenue diversity. I won't labor on this slide, however, it shows how important our diversification strategy is from a geographic point of view.
During 2024, we continued to grow that geographic footprint organically and with acquisitions in New Zealand, New South Wales, and Western Australia. As you would have seen recently, the proposed acquisition of MIRRAT in Melbourne, which we hope to complete late in the first quarter of this year, and an acquisition of Colemans in Western Australia, which we have announced today. Mark will cover these acquisitions in his presentation shortly, and I'll be happy to answer any questions on these later in Q&A. Now, can I turn to Slide 10? Ongoing focus on our return on capital employed.
Although we still have AUD 780 million of capital that is not generating any earnings for Qube, which includes two terminals at Moorebank, new locomotives and wagons not yet in operations, land that we've purchased to develop sometime in the future, infrastructure assets currently under construction, we continue to track towards our target of 10% return on capital employed, and we will cross that, that threshold soon. That has given us the confidence to review our internal target and set a new target of 12% over the midterm, and we are confident that we should be able to achieve this in the coming years, while importantly, investing in select assets for long term, like we have done in the past. Now, if I can turn to the divisional performance. I'll turn to Slide 12, Operating Division.
The Operating Division reported another year of strong underlying revenue and earnings growth, as you can see on this slide. I'll now move to the next slide. Slide 13, Logistics and Infrastructure Business Unit. We saw high volumes across most container activities in this business unit, and high utilization across AAT's infrastructure in 2024. This was partially offset by a weakness in our agri-related volumes, which included a 55% decline in our grain terminal export volumes for 2023 in New South Wales. As we have flagged previously, we commenced a grain trading capability in December of 2024, and the aim there is to optimize and utilize Qube's New South Wales grain infrastructure assets across 12 months of the year.
This has already proven to be a good strategic step for Qube, and we are well positioned to take that benefit into 2025. Moving to Slide 14, Moorebank IMEX Terminal. Many of you attended our recent Investor Day at Moorebank, so you'll be familiar with the progress that we've made on the IMEX terminal and our volume ramp-up aspirations for here on. Last year at EBIT, the IMEX terminal lost AUD 7 million at EBIT. In July, the combined IMEX and the adjacent container park activities made a profit for the first time of AUD 100,000 EBIT profit in July, compared to AUD 600,000 loss for the same time last year. In July, we handled around 24,000 TEUs through the IMEX, and that was without relocating some regional trains and other volumes to the IMEX yet.
We are targeting approximately 400,000 TEU to be handled by the Moorebank's IMEX in 2025. So we're now on the way to making money from this investment as we now ramp up. Over to Slide 15. Looking at ports and bulk now. We saw strong growth in revenues and earnings, with high volumes across most areas, in particular, motor vehicles, energy customers, and most bulk commodities. The energy business benefited from a ramp-up of projects and increased the scope of work from the core warehousing and supply-based services that it provides to its customers. Qube's New Zealand forestry volumes were flat, however, earnings benefited from a cost restructure that was completed in October, as I mentioned before.
The results of which also benefit from a full period contribution from the Kalari acquisition, which is tracking in line with our expectations. And overall margins improved in the ports and bulk business unit during the year. Moving on to Slide 16, Patrick. We talked at the half about the impact of the industrial action of DP World on Patrick's market share, which increased from 42% to 47% in the 2024 year on an average basis. And that being one of the key drivers in the profit uplift for 2024 for Patrick's. Patrick's ability to efficiently handle these high volumes reflects the benefits from the substantial investment in landside infrastructure and equipment that Patrick's has and continues to undertake.
These investments were also the key to the strong earnings growth and productivity benefits achieved in the period. Now moving to Slide 17, Moorebank Interstate JV. This will be the final slide for me before I hand over to Mark. After completion of the interstate Stage 1A in May, the terminal was handed over to the JV to undertake ongoing management. As a result, we will now report the interstate as an associate. The opening in May was a significant milestone for Qube, as it was great to have the Prime Minister out there to cut the ribbon.
Currently, there are active discussions underway for potential users of the terminal, although no agreements have been met yet or been signed yet. In conjunction with that, we are also assessing our equity ownership structure for the terminal going forward, and that could include selling down equity in this asset. I will now hand over to Mark to take you through some of the key financial information in the presentation deck. Thank you, Mark.
Thanks, Paul, and thank you to everyone on today's call for listening in. As Paul has already highlighted, it was another very strong financial result for the Qube Group for the FY 2024 year, and I'll now quickly take you through a few financial slides, starting on Slide 19. As I said, Paul's given color to logistics and infrastructure and ports and bulk. I'll just cover a few other points. At the group level, Qube delivered revenue growth of over AUD 500 million over FY 2023. This revenue growth was boosted by the establishment of our grain trading business, which contributed circa AUD 140 million of that increase, and was predominantly delivered in the second half. Excluding grain trading revenues, our growth at the revenue line would've been circa 12.5%.
Our underlying EBIT grew by almost AUD 40 million or 14.5% over FY 2023. However, that growth was offset, as expected, by much higher underlying net finance costs, which was circa AUD 32 million-AUD 33 million higher than FY 2023, which was reflective of the combination of increased base rates, higher debt balances, and lower interest income from our shareholder loans to Patrick, which have been progressively repaid. Net finance costs also included circa AUD 10 million benefit from the capitalization of interest linked to the construction costs on the IMEX and Interstate terminals at Moorebank. We see capitalizing interest during the second half, and so this amount will be part of our step up in finance costs as we move forward to FY 2025.
Reported EBIT, EBITDA margins for the group is showing a decline from 9.4% to 9.1%. However, our margins have been negatively impacted by the commencement of the grain trading business. As I just mentioned, this business delivered circa AUD 140 million of revenue in FY 2024, with no margin directly attached to it. Adjusting for this, the group's reported EBITDA margin would be slightly higher than FY 2023 at 9.5%. Contributing strongly to our FY 2024 financial results with share profit from associates is, mostly coming from Patrick. As Paul had set out earlier, Qube's other investments in associates entities also performed well in FY 2024, with Prixcar in particular, having a very strong year.
Late in the year, as Paul also mentioned, the Interstate JV, or MITCO, as we call it, was formally established, and this entity holds now our investment in the Moorebank Interstate Terminal, 65% investment. Given this asset is in the early stages, it did incur losses, and the contribution to Qube at the share of NPATA, with a loss of AUD 900,000 for FY 2024. As set out in our FY 2025 guidance, the expected loss in FY 2025 will be materially higher. The net result of all of this was an increase in underlying NPATA of 13% to AUD 271 million, and underlying earnings per share of AUD 13, also 13% to AUD 15.3 per share.
On the back of this strong performance, the Qube board yesterday declared a fully franked final ordinary dividend of AUD 0.0515 per share, which brings our full-year dividend to AUD 0.0915, which is 13% above last year and is at the top end of our dividend payout ratio of 60%. Moving to Slide 20, capital expenditure. In FY 2024, Qube's net CapEx was AUD 615 million. We did complete three acquisitions in the first half, albeit the Narrabri acquisition was predominantly an asset purchase, and we completed a very small asset purchase in June. These acquisitions totaled AUD 104 million, and I'll cover them in more detail in the next slide.
In FY 2024, we invested AUD 179 million on growth CapEx, which included strategic property, warehouses, storage sheds, asset, rail assets, and other mobile transport and materials handling equipment. A number of these assets will not yet be contributing to Qube's earnings, however, most will do at some point in FY 2025. We also invested AUD 244 million of maintenance and replacement plant and equipment, as set out in the table, and AUD 124 million on the Interstate and IMEX Terminal CapEx, which included that ten million of capitalized interest I mentioned earlier. For both those terminals, the final CapEx spend in FY 2025 will be circa AUD 20 million-AUD 25 million combined and will be mostly incurred in this first half. Now, taking you to Slide 21, acquisitions.
As I mentioned, we spent AUD 104 million on acquisitions during the course of the year, with the last one in June, as being a small asset purchase of about AUD 5 million-AUD 6 million in South Australia. In November, we acquired the remaining 50% of Pinnacle, which we originally bought the first 50% in May of 2023. You'll remember, the integration and rebranding of this business has been completed, and pleasingly, it had a very strong performance in FY 2024, and is well positioned for further growth in 2025.
In September of 2023, we acquired strategic rail terminal and grain storage and handling assets in Narrabri, and although these assets were not expected to contribute to earnings in any meaningful way in the short term, they have been important for us in setting up our grain trading business, particularly in regards to the containerized grain we are now trading, and we expect this asset will start to get very busy given the New South Wales harvest outlook. Finally, in November, Qube acquired 100% of Stevenson, which is a well-established container transport and logistics operator located in North Fremantle in Western Australia, and the integration of that business is also well progressed and should be completed in the first half. Taking you to slide, excuse me, Slide 22, acquisitions to complete in 2025, although one completed yesterday.
On May, we announced that we'd entered into an agreement to acquire the Melbourne International RoRo and Automotive Terminal, referred to as MIRRAT, for a total consideration of AUD 332 million plus costs, which will be funded from Qube's available undrawn debt facilities. MIRRAT is the only dedicated roll-on, roll-off terminal servicing the Victorian market with a long-term lease over key port infrastructure. This acquisition is expected to be EPS accretive in 2025 and will meet Qube's return on capital hurdles over the medium term. Completion is conditional on ACCC and Port of Melbourne approval, and is expected to complete in the first half of 2025. Now, accompanying the release that we put out this morning on our results, was the announcement of the acquisition of Colemans business in Western Australia, which completed yesterday afternoon.
Colemans is an integrated transport, logistics, and storage business with a portfolio of specialized licensed infrastructure supporting the SSAN supply chain in Western Australia. Consideration for that acquisition was AUD 119 million plus costs, and again, that acquisition was funded through our available liquidity. Including in the Colemans acquisition, we acquired over AUD 90 million worth of property and assets, including high security storage sheds in key mining centers of Kalgoorlie, Port Hedland, and Wyndham, as well as another important shed in Kwinana. This acquisition provides Qube entry into the Western Australia SSAN supply market and complements our East Coast services, which we acquired through the Kalari acquisition in May of 2023.
As with MIRRAT, this acquisition is expected to be modestly EPSA accreted, accretive in FY 2025 and will exceed Qube's minimum ROCE target with it when synergies have been fully realized, which is expected to be within two years. I'll now take you to Slide 23. This is a busy slide, and I won't talk to each item. Qube finished FY 2024 with a net debt at June 2024 of AUD 1.215 billion, which while a material increase over where we started the year, it's actually AUD 30 million less than what we reported at December 2023. This was due to a stronger second half cash flow result, no material H2 acquisitions, and the unwind of some working capital items, which I had spoken about back in February.
Key outflows in FY 2024 included the CapEx, which I spoke about, dividends, interest, and tax of AUD 274 million, grain trading working capital of AUD 80 million, which is mostly comprised of grain inventory on hand at June 30th, and I'll talk about that a little shortly, in a few minutes. Key inflows included cash received from associates of AUD 100 million, which is predominantly dividends and interest payments from Patrick. Patrick also repaid AUD 45 million of its shareholders' loans in late FY 2024. In FY 2024, Qube received another AUD 53 million of deferred payments relating to the Moorebank terminals, and the only deferred receipts remaining from the terminal transaction now relates to the LOGOS share of the interstate terminal, and the first tranche of AUD 8 million was received in July.
In regards to our working capital performance, it improved in the second half. As I said earlier, our prepayments, non-grain inventories reduced, and we continued to focus on receivable management. Our full year cash conversion was 92% if we exclude the buildup of grain inventories and the associated working capital with that new business. Including the impact of the new grain trading business, our cash conversion was at 77%. The 92% number but was impacted by the taking on of working capital balances from those acquisitions that I mentioned earlier. The commencement of our grain trading business has required an investment in working capital. I did speak about that in February, and as at June, it sat at AUD 80 million.
AUD 70 million of that was grain inventory that we held on storage at at June 30th, but during July, circa AUD 38 million of that grain has since been delivered, invoiced, and paid for, so it does cycle. As we look forward to FY 2025 and the expected strong grain season in the areas that Qube operates, we do expect that our working capital needing to be deployed in that business will increase further in the first half, mainly in Q2, and then progressively unwind in the second half. Finally, moving to Slide 24, balance sheet and funding. As I mentioned back in February, we had a very active first half in regards to our balance sheet and our funding. We put in place new facilities totaling AUD 740 million. Most of those had five-year terms.
We terminated AUD 515 million of expiring facilities, including our highest cost debt, which was the ASX-listed notes. We in the second half extended a further AUD 150 million of bank debt, and with all of that, our average tenure of our facilities increased from 2.5 years to 3.2 years at June 2024. Our gearing ratio increased to just over 27% on the back of the increased debt balances; however, it's still well below the board lower range policy range of 30% and well within our covenant. At June 2024, we had AUD 990 million of available liquidity comprising undrawn debt facilities and cash.
The MIRRAT and Colemans acquisitions that I just spoke about will absorb a good chunk of our current available liquidity and will take our gearing ratio temporarily into the middle of the board, 30%-40% range. As you have seen in our 2025 guidance, we are considering some asset sales, which may generate between AUD 180 million and AUD 250 million of cash, which will assist in topping up our liquidity. Finally, management have always got ongoing initiatives in place to ensure the business has the appropriate funding structures and options available to it, to ensure that we continue to take advantage of the numerous growth opportunities that come across our desk. With that, I'll pass you back to Paul.
Thanks, Mark. So turning to Slide 26 now, full year 2024 summary. So to summarize, today's results shows that we have the right strategy, the right mix of quality assets, people, and system, systems to consistently deliver sustainable growth. As I mentioned at the start, 2024 marks the fourth consecutive period in which Qube has delivered double-digit earnings growth, and the business consistently delivers revenue growth well above GDP through organic and inorganic growth avenues.
Also, as mentioned earlier, our SAM performance and the roadmap ahead when it comes to return on capital has given us the confidence to increase our target to 12% over the medium term. Turning to Slide 27, Qube's strategy. I won't spend too much time on this. This slide really underscores the benefit and the value of the Qube strategy.
Qube's multiple growth drivers have supported sustainable high growth across our key markets, despite, at times, challenges in certain markets, and in a tough year, Qube has prospered with our diversification strategy, where some of our peers in the transport and logistics space may have struggled. Turning to the last slide to finish our presentation for today, Slide 28, Full Year 2025 Outlook. Having achieved another strong financial performance in 2024, we are well-placed to navigate the economic uncertainties ahead and to continue to deliver earnings growth. We've had a positive, strong start to the year, but it's only one month out of 12, and we're not gonna get ahead of ourselves, and there's a long way to go.
In full year 2025, we expect to deliver strong underlying revenue and EBITDA growth, including improved agri volumes and continued high volumes in most areas of our business, as well as the contribution from the 2024 and the 2025 acquisitions that Mark just spoke about, and growth CapEx and new contracts that we've won recently. We also expect continued underlying NPAT and EPSA growth in 2025, although the growth rate at this point in time is expected to be modest compared to the strong growth rate we achieved in 2024. This is mainly due to a lower NPAT contribution from Patrick's, with Patrick's market share normalizing back to 42%, and due to initial losses with the Moorebank Interstate JV as it starts.
In finishing, the diversification of our business is a strength, and we continue to see both organic and inorganic opportunities across our key markets and geographies. I'm very confident in our strategy, and it's very proven, which will continue to generate shareholder value now and for the long term. That finishes our presentation today, and I'm happy to take questions, and I'll hand back to the moderator. Thank you.
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 are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Anthony Moulder with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Morning, all. If I can start with the sale of these assets of the Moorebank Interstate Terminal, just the justification as to why you're looking to exit that asset?
Yeah, Anthony, we've just flagged it. It's a consideration. As you are probably aware, that, you know, the core, a core part of our strategy and a core part of our assets at Moorebank is the IMEX terminal. The interstate terminal is a part of our deal with the government was an obligation, and under a joint venture arrangement with open access, if there is interest from others, we're not really losing too much to benefit. We can still use the asset, and our core focus is around IMEX. So we're just considering all options, and if there's interest, we'll consider it. That's where we're at at this point in time.
Yeah, okay. And so what does that mean? Does that suggest that there's a lower interest in joining the congestion on the interstate rails with a rise in Pacific National? Is that what we take from that?
Yeah.
And also-
Yeah, well, I mean. Yeah, sorry, you go finish. Sorry.
I was just gonna also ask as to what that means for Beveridge. Do you really need to exercise that option down in Beveridge?
Well, we'll consider everything. I mean, Beveridge is maybe a different circumstance for us as well. So, probably answer the first part of your question. We're not active in that intermodal interstate space at this point in time. We did put a pause on it, given that, Aurizon entered back into that market. So that's a part of our consideration on the interstate at Moorebank. It is a joint venture structure, so we're just considering, you know, do we need to own it? Is it the best use of our capital? Can we use it in the future? Yes. Beveridge is probably a different consideration for us.
Okay. Understood. Thank you. Can I ask on the acquisition of Colemans? I've seen a lot of bolt-on acquisitions, but obviously a lot of acquisitions over in WA. At what point do you think you've got sufficient scale in the WA market that you're more likely to go for growth that's more organic than acquisition-led?
Yeah, we saw the Colemans acquisition as pretty unique. It's a unique sort of supply chain asset. It's sort of, some ways, hard to replicate, given the licensing and the type of facilities they were. So we saw it as a definitely an infrastructure play. And so when these assets come to market or there's discussions about it, we look at it. It complements Kalari, it complements our inbound mine supply logistics with the Kalari acquisition. So given the timing of it, given what we do on the East Coast in that space, we saw it as a really good opportunity, so we didn't want to miss that opportunity.
If I stay on acquisitions, the MIRRAT Terminal down in Melbourne, Wallenius Wilhelmsen's obviously a key user of that terminal. Do they have a long-term contract to continue to use MIRRAT in Melbourne?
They don't have a contract, but at the end of the day, MIRRAT is the only railway terminal in Melbourne, so they will be using that terminal.
Yeah, it's just clear. Obviously, there's land bridging opportunities that others are talking to. I wonder just and they're using vehicles. I was just interested as to what that meant, if anything, for MIRRAT. Probably too early days. Last thing on guidance is take the fact that it's more back to a qualitative guidance, not a quantitative guidance, that we're just here in August, you're 10 and a half months out from the end of the year, as opposed to it's something that you're probably more definitive of or more visibility to in February?
Potentially, yeah. Yes. Like last year, I think.
Yeah, okay. So we'll still get-
As we get deeper into the year, yeah, we can-
Last question, if I could, just 6%, I think, the net interest, the cost of the debt. How does that profile if we start to get interest rate cuts next year? How leveraged is that to... How quickly can that come through the net interest line?
Very quickly. We do have some hedging in place, Anthony, but, you know, we would benefit from a interest rate cut, without a doubt.
All right. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Anthony.
The next question comes from Jakob Cakarnis with Jarden Australia. Please go ahead.
Morning, Mark. Morning, Paul. Just gonna start with Patrick Terminals', if I can please. You've given us an average market share, for FY 2024 of 47%. You've told us it was 49% in the first half. But it looked like the average share that you retained through the second half was 45%. I think the commentary so far on the call has been that you're trending back at that 42% level. I think the commentary at the Investor Day was surrounded around you wouldn't see market share back to DP World, unless there was volume growth back in the market. Can you just talk to some of those dynamics and how we think that's played through the earnings guidance, please?
We know we've got back to 42%. Everything's normalized now. I think in the first half, at some point, we were closer to 49%, and then it's found its way back to 42%, which is really on the back of all that industrial action that occurred at DP World. So we're already at 42% at this point in time, and we believe that's gonna be stable throughout the year.
Cool. Thanks for that. Just in the ports and bulk business in the second half, looks like you've had a pretty strong uplift in both EBITDA and EBIT margins. Can you just give us a sense of what's gone on there? Is there some mix issues that we need to be considerate of? Is there operating leverage that's flowing through there? Just give us a little bit more than what's in the presentation materials on that, please.
I think we've spoken over the last year or so that, you know, the ports and bulk business going through some of the challenges around inflationary rises, costs, and costs and catch up, and some of the issues around labor supply and having additional costs around contractors. I mean, that's minimized a fair bit and the team's been working hard to improve their margins. So we're, you know, we're sort of at the bottom of the curve, probably last year, and we're sort of, we're moving the way back up with our margin improvements. So it's just... It's a mix of things, and it's a focus from the management team to do it like they always do.
We also, Jake, as we remember, we spoke about in February, around the cost out, or the right sizing of the New Zealand business. That was in sort of October, November of last year. So we got a full six-month benefit of that. That actually contributed to that, you know, that improved second half.
Okay. So then there's a few months, I guess, for that operating leverage or the shape of that operating leverage to come in the first half of 2025, then?
Yeah. Yep.
Cool. Just one final one, Mark, just while you've got the mic. The net interest guidance, can you just confirm that that includes some of the acquisition funding in those two that you've announced today?
Yeah, that's correct, Jacob, that our guide includes assumptions that Colemans is coming on board and that MIRRAT will complete in the first half. And so we've included those funding costs within that guidance range.
Easy. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, mate.
Thanks, Jake.
The next question comes with Anthony Longo with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Paul, Mark, and Paul again. Just again, following up on the guidance commentary, in light of the comments that you have made thus far and the expectations into 2025. Am I right to assume that at an operating level, you're still expecting some reasonable earnings growth on that front, and then ultimately that more modest guidance that you have given out today is largely that Patrick drag, the Moorebank drag, and also that interest step-up?
Yeah, that's exactly right, Anthony. So, a strong continued good growth in the operating business. Patrick coming back because of its overperformance last year, higher interest costs, and then the impact predominantly of the increased losses on the Interstate JV. It's really, it gets down to those big numbers.
Yeah, perfect. No, thank you. And then in terms of so thinking about the 12% target that you've spoken to today, I mean, how do some of those new acquisitions fit in with that? So I'm assuming it's probably accretive to your initial 10% target, but if you can perhaps sort of help us understand multiples, what the implications and ramp up of earnings might look like over the next little while, that'd be great, too.
Yeah, they're broadly in line. The synergy value needs to kick in over the next one to two years on both acquisitions. Yeah, they're broadly in line, and they're good quality assets.
No worries. And then the final one from me, so appreciate the working capital and thanks, Mark, for all that detail in the slide there. But your cash conversion this year looked a little bit softer and appreciate the reasons for it. But how do you think about cash conversion going forward? You know, what once you sort of cycle some of these working capital issues and the business and sort of stuff growing from here?
Yeah, well, it is. There's always a lot of moving pieces. As I spoke about in February, I wasn't really. We weren't really sure how the grain inventory or the grain trading business would impact our working capital. It was only sort of certain AUD 10 million at December, but as I said, it's gone up to AUD 80 million as I've guided to. It will go up again in the first half, predominantly in the second quarter when the harvest comes through, and then unwind in the second half. We've certainly. We have a first half, second half sort of cycle around certain lines, which I spoke more about in February, around insurance payments, which become prepayments in the first half, unwind in the second half, STI payments and a few other things like that.
So they're all the same. Acquisitions, when we take on board their working capital, sort of tend to throw that number out a little bit as well. Overall, you know, the biggest item really is around our receivables, and that has gone up. We've got obviously revenue growth that's driving that, too. But, you know, some of our bigger customers, as I've said a few times, make a bit of an art form of delaying their payments for as long as they can, which is where our management team are heavily focused on trying to improve their behavior, put it that way. But I'm not concerned about...
I think, you know, typically the business has delivered really good, strong cash, but there's just a few of these things that, Anthony, that sort of, would mean that that number might flip up or flip, you know, you know, improve above 100% or come back down, depending on some of those things, and I think the key for me is to be really transparent with you guys.
Oh, perfect. I'm sorry, one last one from me. Like, the CapEx guidance looked a little bit higher than what I was expecting, both from... so excluding acquisitions, sort of your maintenance and non-growth or, yeah, other growth except acquisitions. I mean, can you perhaps let us understand, you know, what that CapEx phasing and profile looks like going from here? Like, given the investments that you have made in the business over the past few years, and what sort of a, you know, ex-acquisition sort of CapEx guide that you sort of manage the business to?
Yeah, so yeah, again, excluding M&A, 'cause there's a big chunk, as you can see in the two that we've got there lined up. Maintenance CapEx, I think you'll see maintenance CapEx. I mean, I know I've spoken about it for the last few years, but we'll definitely sort of be, you know, in that 90% or there, maybe even lower range in FY 2025. I think that will probably be the case for the next couple of years. I think the guys are very focused on that. And then it's really growth CapEx, and that number could be much higher or much lower. We get an enormous amount of opportunities across our business, and I think, you know, the focus is that we deploy that capital effectively, and now we've...
As Paul mentioned, we've increased our return on capital hurdles. We've had that 12% hurdle sort of internally for a while, but we're now brave enough to go out and sort of, you know, share that with the market. So yeah, it's hard to sort of, you know, on a growth CapEx, you know, we could dial that right down if we needed to. But likewise, the guys have all got long pipelines of opportunities in front of them, and we evaluate them one by one.
Sounds great. No, thanks for the color. I'll pass it on. Cheers.
Thanks.
The next question comes with Matt Ryan, with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Hi, Mark. Hi, Paul. I had a question on grain trading, and whether you can give us some, I guess, color or better understanding about that business. I can see that it had about a 2% impact to your logistics margins. So can you just talk about, I guess, the inherent volatility in that business and I guess how we think about margins in that context?
Yeah, I mean, as I mentioned, we kicked that off in December. It's gonna be proven to be very strategically beneficial for us. We're already seeing that, probably better than expectations in the first quarter of this year, the amount of grain that we've been able to, I guess, buy ourselves and trade ourselves in the first quarter before the harvest starts, and we've been able to fill infrastructure up.
So strategically, not just the trade itself, but how it actually feeds our infrastructure. Probably, we got a bit of benefit out of that last year, but coming into this year, we can see and as I mentioned before, we don't know how strong this will be, and a part of this is really how effective this strategy is gonna be, but we're pretty confident that we're gonna get assets utilization over 12 months a year, where some other people don't get assets utilization over nine months. So, in regards to trading, we have a trading mandate that has guardrails around how we trade and what we trade and what risk we take.
Is there an opportunity to make some profit on some trades this year? Potentially, there is. But we've got a good mandate and processes in place, and we're, you know, within that timeframe, we've put together a pretty smart team. So we're really confident what that brings to us this year.
Thank you. And, with your upgrade to your return hurdle to 12%, I'm just interested in your comment a second ago, that you've had that target internally for a while. Can you just talk about, I guess, what you're seeing out there? You seem to have been reasonably active, with M&A, at least at the larger end, over the last year or so compared to prior years. Are you sort of thinking that that hurdle rate needs to be higher? And if so, can you higher than the past, that is, can you sort of dig into I guess, the drivers of say, sort of why you've landed on a higher number?
I think we can achieve the quality of our business, the size of our business, how we get synergy benefit going forward with you know, putting acquisitions or better infrastructure, buying assets, quality assets into our business that allows us to get more synergy value, but in saying that, we'll buy businesses that may not achieve that rate, but we know in the long term, they're a great asset, so we're not gonna go away from that, so it's been a bit of a balance for us. I mean, do we set 15%? But then we have wholly for short-term thinking, so 12% become the number that we feel that we can continue to do what we do, invest for the long term, but also deliver good earnings.
Just to put more color on that, Matt, on Slide 10, you know, that which includes the ROCE slide, we sort of talk about at and Paul spoke about the AUD 700 of CapEx, or sorry, of capital that's employed as at June, that's not really generating target earnings. In fact, some of them are losses. If you just exclude the two Moorebank terminals, our 9.5% ROCE would be 10.5%. That's just taking that capital out. You know, once we get all that AUD 7 18 million working effectively, plus there's other parts of our business where the returns are not where they want to be, so or we want them to be.
So I think, you know, that's where we're sort of gives us confidence to move it to 12%. I mean, but again, as our investment committee and we look at things, you know, we might want to, you know, invest at something that's lower than that, but we know that, you know, three, four, five years down the track, it's gonna, you know, start to deliver returns well above, you know, say, 10% if we chose that one. So yeah, I think we're confident that we can get to 12% and, you know, it's I think just focusing on those ones that we've already got that aren't contributing will get us almost there anyway.
Thanks. And just a really quick one to finish. The AUD 180 million-AUD 200 million range that you've given for asset sales, does that include any part of the interstate terminal at Moorebank?
It could. We've got a number of assets that we feel like, do we actually need to keep them? Is there a better owner of those assets? Is there a better use of our capital? And we're flagging that potentially there might be some divestment. We're not selling anything we don't think that we will need in the long term, or if we do sell it, we can use it in other ways, like I mentioned before, in the interstate. So to answer your question, yes, but it may not be the interstate terminal.
Got it. Thank you.
The next question comes with Andre Fromyhr with UBS. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning. Just firstly, on the proposed MIRRAT acquisition, could you give us a bit of an update on your level of confidence or progress on achieving the required approvals, for example, with the ACCC? And then whether or not you've got strategic plans for that asset that are greater than just continuing the RoRo services. Are there options to use the space differently?
Yeah, we're making good progress. There is the ACCC has given a date for a decision, being the 12th of September. We're working towards that. We're confident that that date can be achieved with what we're doing in regards to getting the approval process and our undertaking accepted. We've already got an undertaking. We just need to overlay the AAT undertaking with MIRRAT. Yeah, we're in a good space, but we're always in the hands of the ACCC from a timeframe point of view. In regards to the asset.
It's an asset we know really well. It's an asset we can actually manage very well going forward. So we like the asset. We've made that assessment. We had the opportunity to buy the asset, and most people are probably well aware that, you know, the AAT assets, and what we, what we've done with those assets. So, yeah, we're really excited to own that asset when we do.
Okay, and there's a comment in your presentation about the potential for special dividends when circumstances justify it. Could you say more about what those circumstances are, and does it relate to your earlier comments around potential asset sales?
Yeah, look, I think there's always sort of an opportunity for that, but you know, from our perspective, it would really need to be on the back of a sort of a major sort of capital you know, return, as was so for example, the Moorebank Warehouse Precinct, you know, that obviously was a huge return back, and we wanted to give some back to shareholders. But you know, in the absence of that, like the AUD 180 million-AUD 250 million you know, at that, as I said earlier, that will help top up our liquidity. So and we're quite conservative on our liquidity, so we'd like to sort of keep that there ready. And as I also said earlier, we've got numerous investment opportunities in front of us.
You know, I don't think they should be holding out for special, anyone should be holding out for special dividends in the absence of a sort of a large sort of capital return, which is not, you know, not being, you know, as in, sale of an, a, a large asset to get a huge amount of money back in, which is not being contemplated at all.
Sure. And just one last one following up on the commentary around the grain trading business. Mark, you made a comment around it contributing about AUD 140 million revenue, and that being predominantly second half weighted. So should we think about a full year run rate of roughly double that? And I know there was a comment around sort of the volatility, you know, sometimes profits, sometimes losses on the actual trading. But given the role that it plays in strategically underwriting some of the volumes through your terminals, is it like should we think of it as longer term break even or even loss making through the cycle?
Yeah. Look, I think you should longer term think it as it's gonna be, you know, have a small contribution to the group. We don't, you know, and that's up net of paying for all the, you know, the investment of the people and resources required to run that part of the business, and also its working capital contribution to pay for its working capital that's it's using. In terms of, you know, it's key, you know, the strategic reason is that it allows us to sort of feed our infrastructure in a really controlled manner, which helps to deliver profits in those parts of the business. From a trading perspective per se, you know, we've got very prudent position.
We hedge, you know, hedges aren't perfect, but they're, you know, grain is not a very volatile commodity. So, we don't think that there's gonna be any much in the way of downside risk, for us in that regard. In terms of revenue numbers, given the outlook for the New South Wales crop, it's probably, you know, take our first, sorry, second half number, double it, but add a little bit more, I'd say, too, 'cause we were only just ramping up, don't forget, during the course of the second half. So I think, you know, it's hard to predict what it will be, but we, you know, we think it's gonna be materially higher than double.
Great.
Again, like I said in February and like what we did now, we will be again very transparent around what that business revenues and margins are and the impact, because we do need to carve it out when you look at the group margins, because it will have the impact of maybe, you know, dampening them down as it does at face value with the numbers that we've got here.
Sure. Thanks.
The next question comes with Cameron McDonald with E&P. Please go ahead.
Good morning. So a couple of questions from me, just in terms of the Patrick guidance. You've said NPAT-A down 10%-15%. How much of that is actually the higher interest costs versus the underlying normalization of volumes at the EBITDA level?
It's mostly the latter, the volumes and the market share and that line. Finance costs-
Okay.
Just slightly going up.
Perfect. Thank you. You've previously talked about New Zealand and wanting, you know, and Pinnacle and the opportunity to create a, you know, a footprint in New Zealand with that sort of, you know, represents more like what you do here in Australia. Can you give us an update on how you're thinking about New Zealand more broadly?
Yeah, it hasn't changed. The team's obviously been bedding down Pinnacle, which is now called Qube Logistics New Zealand. We rebranded it. There's some opportunities to bolt on organically and that they're working through at the moment. So yeah, it's a step in the right direction. Is it gonna be large in the next year or two years? No, it's just gonna just be incremental.
Okay. Thank you. And then just in terms of those asset sales, so are you suggesting that, MITCO could be completely sold or, or just sold down to a more minority stake? And are you talking about selling any, you know, assets that are currently sort of strategically being held, like, rather than anything that's income producing?
With MITCO, anything's on the table. I mean, the only assets we're looking to sell are assets probably need long-term strategically, because of things have changed since we owned them six or seven years ago. All their assets that we don't really need to have anymore. And if there's a right buyer there at the right value, you know, a number of assets that way. But I mean, we're just looking at our capital management at the moment, and if there's an opportunity, do we sell anything? Maybe not. I don't know. But we think between two or three assets we're looking at the moment, probably one of them will, we will divest. So that's why we're giving that guidance.
Maybe ask that in another way. Have things changed in the last five or six years with some of these assets, that the alternative use of these assets is actually worth more than what could potentially be used from an operational perspective?
Potentially, or we've developed another part of our business that we can consolidate into. So, it's just a combination of things.
Okay. And then sort of linking into that, I mean, Mark's also talked about the gearing going, you know, up to the midpoint of the guidance range. You know, how much pressure do you have to sort of bring that back down before you need to, you know, or have got the capability to do something larger in terms of the CapEx?
Yeah. No, no, I mean, no real pressure. I mean, we've well within our covenants, so we've got plenty of headroom there. Look, I think we will peak probably at December in terms of the gearing, and then see it tick down a bit by June of next year. And that, that's, you know, on the assumption there's no more big M&A, and just with the sort of the capital that we've guided to. But yeah, there's no real pressure in that regard. So, you know, we'll continue to look at opportunities, but, you know, the bigger ones like Colemans and and/or, you know, MIRRAT, they don't come along that often.
Okay, thank you.
The next question comes with Scott Ryall with Rimor Equity Research. Please, go ahead.
Hi, thank you very much. I was just wondering if I could ask a slightly different question on Patrick. The primary union down there is part of the CFMEU, which is about to be put into administration, you know, could be as early as the end of next week. What does that mean for Patrick, please?
I don't think it means anything, to be honest. The MUA is a separate branch. That's not going into administration.
Oh, it's not?
No, not the maritime branch of it. It's only the construction.
Yeah. Okay. Is there the potential, though, that maybe there's some sort of change in, I guess, behavioral aspects from the union, do you think? Or is that unlikely?
I'd like to say potentially, but I'm not too sure.
Okay. All right. We'll leave it there.
Yeah.
You also released today your sustainability report. I was just wondering, you've been trialing a range of different technologies to decarbonize your broader fleet. I was wondering if you could just give us an update as to what you're finding, you know, is working, what's not working so well, just in terms of thinking about the next few years of change in use of technology?
Yeah. I think the roadmap on our scope twos is pretty clear in regards to having green energy to operate our facilities in the midterm. Technology around light vehicles and EVs, around that, you know, there's a good roadmap there, and we've started to replace our equipment that way. Large, heavy haulage equipment, it's still difficult. I mean, we're looking to find the real solution there. We have been trialing a number of different technologies and with different OEMs, and I think our position at the moment, we will continue to do that. We haven't got the game changer yet, but we're trying as much as we can, and keeping it commercial at the same time.
Yep. Okay, and then the last question is just on Colemans, and you've answered a couple of questions on this, but I was just wondering how... You know, given the nature of activity, with highly sensitive, you know, freight movement, can you just explain to me how that actually has synergy with the broader network in Western Australia, please? I get the business might make perfect financial sense, you know, on a standalone basis, and you've highlighted the assets you're buying and the price you're paying and all of that, so I'm not questioning that side of it. I'm just wondering, you made a few comments on it, how it fits with your network, and I'm just a bit confused on that, just given what it does.
Yeah. So in all the locations, we've already got locations. We're already, you know, we've got management teams, and so there's a real alignment around that, in that bulk space, around synergies. You know, with the Kalari acquisition, we were before Kalari, we were more about the outbound logistics, you know, getting mining commodities from the pit to the port. This complements our sort of inbound supplies, service abilities, a bit like Kalari. So, and given the quality of the asset, the uniqueness of it, it fits in so we can, you know, we can store and deliver SSAN products going forward.
Can you use the same-
Yeah.
Can you use the same trucks to go into a mine site as you use to take commodities-
No.
From pit to port? No.
No. No.
Okay.
Not with this type of product.
Yeah, that's what I thought. Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
Yeah.
Perfect.
You won't get the synergy in regards to the haulage part, but there's a range of synergies around location, what we offer to customers.
Yeah. Yeah, okay. All right, thank you. That's all I had.
Cheers!
The next question comes with Owen Birrell with RBC. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, guys. Just, I guess the first question for me, just on the logistics business, I wonder if you can provide a bit of color around what happened in the first half with respect to your margins? I look at EBITDA margins, and they were running at around about just a little bit over 21%, last year. First half, they jumped by about 200 basis points, and then in the second half, they've come back down just below 21% again. I just wondered, what caused that jump in that EBITDA margin in the first half?
Yes. So, Owen, the first half, even though we had a very poor, you know, I guess, outcome from the agri, with the volumes being down there, we had a very strong performance in the other parts of the business, and particularly automotive, and that's quite a high-margin business as well. So it's sort of, it's really just a balance of those things.
And so what you're saying is, in the second half, has automotive come backwards, or-
It's come back a little bit. It's come back a little versus the first half, for sure. Yeah.
I guess what I'm asking, should we take second half as being kind of more normalized levels of the, I guess, portfolio margin?
I'd probably take the blended for full year.
But we've got agri-
Okay.
We've got a whole different scenario with agri in that space being much better than.
Yeah
... than last year. So I wouldn't take that approach.
Yeah. We'd need to-
Okay.
Yeah, grain trading in the second half too, Paul Lewis just chipped in, and he's correct, 'cause that—if you take off AUD 140 million of revenue,
I've already adjusted for that.
I already done that.
Yeah, I guess.
Step down.
Yeah. Okay. Gotcha.
Yeah.
Gotcha. Yeah. And just the second question for me, the increased target to 12% over the medium term, you know, acknowledging the comments that you've said there, that the operating ROCE is around sort of call it 11%-11.3%, and the group ROCE is around sort of 10.5%. Just wondering, in terms of what you see as the key drivers to improve that ROCE, is it, is it really just about increasing utilization of underperforming assets, or is it more about cost out? Just trying to get a sense of how you're gonna drive that ROCE up, that extra 200 basis points.
Yeah, it's really. We've got a whole toolkit, really. It's improving earnings, which could be through from, you know, cost management. Higher utilization is always good. Price management is another one of those. You know, extracting underperforming assets out, as well, you know, either.
IMEX.
You know, those types of things. So there's. It's not one, you know, one focus, you know, each of the. I think there is such a strong focus within the group around return on capital at all levels that management even at the operating management line are always focused on how they can do more with what they've got, improve their productivity, et cetera. So. And then obviously, we've got, as I said, we've got pricing opportunities, cost out opportunities, et cetera, et cetera. So it's all of those things will, you know, hopefully work towards getting us above that target.
Okay. No, it's just that increase in that target, how much of a trigger has that been for the comments around selling assets? You know, are these predominantly gonna be underperforming assets that you just don't think you can turn around?
Not necessarily. No. No. No.
Okay. That's great. Thanks, guys.
The next question comes with Robbie Koh with MS . Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you, and congrats on the result. Just a couple of quick questions. Just for your asset sales, and I hear what you're saying about assets you don't strategically need. Included in those things under consideration, is there any, like, real estate that you'd sell and then lease back?
Potentially, but not... Yeah. Potentially, maybe not leaseback.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's not financial engineering. It's not financial engineering, so I'm not trying to just book a profit or whatever. It's about, as Paul said, assets we just don't need anymore 'cause we can consolidate, or similar to what we did with the Chalmers transaction, for example. If there's a better owner-
Yeah, right.
And there's a value to it that we think we wanna take at this point in time. We'll consider it.
Yeah, I hear that as the primary driver. I just wanted to double-check on the other bit, and just so that's clear.
Sure.
All right. I guess my next question relates to the grain business that you've set up, and thank you for all of the granularity of detail there. How should we think about how the business would go in like a really tough drought year, like, I don't know, 2019, 2018? Is that the utilization even in those years goes down, or are there maybe other crops that you can use the infrastructure for?
There'll be some assets we can't utilize. Again, that's a reality. The grain trading arm is one of the reasons we've done that is really to help us out in, you know, medium to low seasons, where we can be able to trade or, you know, pick up grain where the grain's available to move through our assets. So, the volumes aren't as low as probably been waiting on customers to use our assets. It gives us some leverage during those tougher periods, so that's a part of that strategy as well.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. All right, and then just last question from me is on the long-term incentive plan from, I guess, FY 2024, where you've got, among other metrics, you've got an EPSA CAGR range, and you're off to a very good start there, so hoping for the best. Just wondering if you could give us any color on where the adjustments would be made for acquisitions. Is there like a threshold size or does MIRRAT fall within the existing target? Or is there... If you could give us any color on that, please.
Good question.
I think it'd be a matter for the board at the time there, but to answer that last part, no, there's no adjustments for MIRRAT. I think the intention is more just that under the plan, you wouldn't want it to be a disincentive for doing a significant acquisition. Like using this purely as an example, if Patrick, for example happened in the last year, and by doing that, the right thing strategically makes a lot of sense, but it would mean you wouldn't hit a hurdle that you otherwise would, then that would be a consideration. Ultimately, the board would need to be comfortable it's the right balance between shareholder value creation and being fair, but there's no hard and fast rules. It's for the board to determine, having regard to all relevant considerations.
Okay, great. Yep. Thanks, Mr. Lewis. Makes a lot of sense. All right, thanks. That's all for me.
Thanks, Rob.
The next question comes with Andrew Hodge with ACC. Please go ahead.
Thanks, guys. I've got three questions. First is, for the asset sales, I think you made a comment before about saying six, seven years ago, from memory, the only two you made in that period would have been Moorebank as well as MCS. And so I'm just trying to figure out, like, whether or not you're, if we're looking at Moorebank as well, and the comment about saying it's not something you can't turn around, can you give a little bit more explanation for why you'd wanna sell something which you still think you can turn around?
No . The Moorebank, the Moorebank Interstate Terminal was always secondary to the IMEX in our strategy, and it was an obligation that was basically put on us by the federal government to build. Our view at the moment, we may hold it. We may stay there at 65%. But given the open access regime and given that, we've always said it won't make it. We, the earnings won't be as great as the IMEX going forward. The jewel in the crown is the IMEX. So, to make that work, and if there's other players that wanna have a an equity stake in it and potentially bring volume, we're listening to them. That's basically what's happening.
I think the other point to make just with the joint venture is, unlike, say, the IMEX, we don't control it. There's joint venture partners. So what we've typically done on other sites is we can take an asset and use, optimize it. There's much less ability to do that because there are other stakeholders, and therefore, the approval process is not about Qube, it's about the joint venture. So it's much more a standalone asset, which, as Paul said, operation-wise, we can use it to run trains if we ever wanted, but strategically, in terms of what we normally do and where we maximize value, much more limited.
Okay. Second question is, for the FY 2025 growth, how much of that is based on, MIRRAT and Colemans?
Well, we haven't sort of, we haven't guided to that, but, you know, it's a contribution for sure. I mean, I wouldn't. I don't wanna throw off the top of my head because I couldn't tell if it's 25% or 30%, and I probably wouldn't if I did know. But it's, they're gonna contribute, without a doubt. Not a huge amount at NPAT, because of the, you know, there will be funding costs as well. But they'll be part of our growth for sure. Depends on how-
Sorry?
I said I'm just cognizant of the ACCC stuff with MIRRAT, that's all.
Yeah, yeah. That's right. Yeah, well, we're sort of obviously MIRRAT in particular, because that hasn't completed, you know, we've sort of within our guidance, we've got it pegged in the first half, and if that sort of, you know, is delayed for whatever reason, that will have a potentially small impact.
Okay.
Qube being Qube, and the what goes up somewhere goes down somewhere else, and we always get where we need to get to.
..A nd my last question is, the Colemans transport business. I mean, the brothers were trying to sell this business about a decade ago, and couldn't get it done, and I'm just curious, like, why now? Like, did you guys look at it then when they tried to sell it? And what gives you comfort now, given its, I guess, leverage to mining, that you guys can do it better?
I think they're 10 years older, and they were willing to sell, being 10 years older, at retirement age. That was-
Fair enough.
That's probably why the transaction occurred, actually.
Yeah. And we've... Part of our due diligence, you know, we've obviously done a really close assessment around all of the customers and where their product ends up, et cetera, and, you know, obviously, we're very cognizant of lithium and nickel prices and what's happening in that space. So, you know, we're pretty confident that this business is not gonna be impacted by that.
Awesome. Thanks, guys.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. The next question comes with Ian Munro with Ord Minnett. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Just with respect to the outlook slide, with resources, I noticed some green and some amber on that outlook slide. Just conscious of, or keen to understand how your key resource customers are indicating forward volumes, and perhaps whether you have any customer, I guess, contracts up for renewal over the next couple of years, and how you're generally thinking about that exposure into the mining cycle at this point in time. Thank you.
Yeah, and I think it's not. Given it's the same sort of half amber, half green, it's no different to what it was last year. We'll continue to grow as we do. We'll grow modestly in that space. You know, we've got some challenges with some customers. We had some challenges last year, and that's, you know, some mines going to closure, and we managed through that and transitioned around that. We've got some contractual protections working through with one of the customers at the moment. But overall, we see growth and we've taken that into our guidance. There is some challenges that's factored into our forecast.
Thanks, Paul.
I think we're gonna have to actually wrap up.
I think that's the last question.
Yeah. That's the last question?
Yeah.
Okay. I think.
There are no further questions at this time, and I'll now hand back to Mr. Digney for closing remarks.
Thank you for everyone on the call, and I'll see some of you guys soon. Thank you. Bye for now. Cheers.
That does conclude our conference call for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.