Good morning. My name is Abby, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Qube Holdings Limited Full Year 2023 Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press Star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again, press Star one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. Mr. Paul Digney, Managing Director, you may begin your conference.
Thank you, and welcome everyone to Qube's, Qube Holdings full year 2023 results call. We released a presentation this morning, so I'll refer to that presentation throughout the call. I will start on slide five, which is a Plan to Thrive. In 2023, we saw the launch of our Plan to Thrive, clearly identifying our values and our priorities. So it's worth spending a few minutes on it to reinforce what drives Qube. A clear vision and strategy has remained consistent since Qube was established, with an ongoing focus on all key stakeholders to thrive: our people, our customers, and most importantly, our shareholders. Delivering improved returns, positive outcomes in a manner consistent with prudent ESG and risk frameworks. I'll now turn to page, slide six: Financial highlights. The numbers speak for themselves. Exceptional financial outcomes across all metrics despite challenges this year.
In addition to a record underlying NPAT of 239.6 million, up 19.4% on last year, cash flow was also very strong at around AUD 498 million, representing a cash conversion of 107%. Underlying EPS, EPSA increased by 28.3%. Pleasingly, our return on average capital employed at 9.1%, improving towards Qube's target of 10%+ . This was driven by the operating division's return on capital, increasing in the periods of 10.5%, up from 9.6% in the prior year.
As a result of these strong results, the board has declared a AUD 0.0435 per share final dividend, bringing the full year dividend to AUD 0.081, a substantial increase on last year. Turning to slide seven: safety performance. Overall, we achieved another excellent safety result, exceeding industry benchmarks. In 2023, management continued its focus on critical safety risks through introducing new awareness programs, engineering controls, and enhancing innovative ways to mitigate safety risk. Today, we released our sustainability report, which highlights our successful year across safety, health, and sustainability factors, including decarbonization, which I'll touch on in the next slide. Slide eight, decarbonization.
We continue to make good progress on our decarbonization plans, with a 3% reduction in our absolute Scope 1 emissions and a 3.6% reduction in our absolute Scope 2 emissions. There's a range of things that contributed to that, but most notably, the fact that 90% of our heavy vehicle fleet has now been transitioned to Euro V and Euro VI technology. A significant investment, asset investment by Qube over a number of years. That's put us well on track to meet our target of 95% by 2027. We also made investments in electrifying our small mobile asset fleets, and we continued to roll out solar and LED lighting across our assets.
In terms of our emission intensity goals, we achieved an 18% reduction in our emission intensity compared to last year, and a 30% reduction based on our full, on our 2018 baseline, which is a very positive result. But we know we have to do more, and we obviously operate currently in a very hard-to-abate sector. But we are determined to actively seek out opportunities to drive out our emissions while balancing commercial considerations. We've conducted a number of alternative trials through 2023, and we'll continue to scan the market and test new, new technologies and innovation in 2024. And with the new reporting standards also on the horizon, in 2024, we'll also be considering what additional steps we need to take to meet those standards, including a full implementation of the TCFD. Now turning to slide nine, growth drivers.
As we said at the half year, Qube has multiple volume and value drivers that will support revenue and earnings growth. Not all will apply in every period, and some markets will have different growth outcomes to others in a given period. Overall, as a whole, in 2023, we're proud to say we've ticked all the boxes on this slide. Well, we want to again emphasize here that there's no need to change our vision or our strategy or move into new unrelated markets or riskier services or products just to keep growing. However, we will continue to explore new logistics markets, such as the renewables market, which we are now exploring at present, or the New Zealand containerized logistics market, which we've done through a recent acquisition in Pinnacle.
As I will cover later, we expect further growth in 2024, despite some unavoidable challenges, and we see plenty of organic and acquisition growth opportunities ahead of us. Now turning to Slide 10: Performance overview and our key markets. I plan to spend a bit of time on this slide, as it gives me an opportunity to go through how we performed in each of our key markets this year, and to demonstrate that the diversity of our business means we do not need or expect all of our markets to perform each year to deliver overall earnings growth. In our experience, as you can see on this slide, in 2023, we had five green traffic lights, two reds, one orange across our core markets, and we were still able to deliver a very strong earnings growth.
I'll now take you through each of these markets. Containers. In 2023, we had solid activities across all levels, road and rail haulage, warehousing, container parks, container repairs, freight forwarding, and customs and quarantine services, which all delivered good earnings. We saw high container volumes across most of our logistics infrastructure, significant infrastructure that we have built over many years, and we have benefited from the prior year's weight rebalancing outcomes in the year. These two factors delivered pleasing revenue and earnings and margins in the Logistics and Infrastructure space. Although there was some softening in the second half, which mainly impacted Patrick's. In regards to Agri, we had high volumes, which were broadly in line with the prior year across Qube's two grain terminals in New South Wales, rail haulage, and upcountry storage facilities.
Newcastle Agri Terminal contributed 12 months of volumes compared to nine months for the prior year, and this was the largest uplift in revenue in Agri for 2023. Agri margins benefit from effective utilization of infrastructure and rail assets in this space. Automotive sector. A positive year for Qube on the back of the, of the recovery in the motor vehicle import volumes, followed by the easing of easing of global supply chain issues. The automotive and general cargo facilities, AAT, which sits within the logistics and infrastructure business unit, had a great year as they benefited from the recovery of import car volumes and high general cargo throughput in 2023, as well as higher storage volumes due to quarantine-related congestion issues. AAT is a typical infrastructure asset, which with highly...
With a high fixed cost base and therefore margins benefit when high volumes get delivered during the period. Qube Ports and PrixCar also benefit from higher vehicle volumes, which supported stevedoring and processing, storage, and delivery activities. However, congestion at the on-wall facilities at AAT and MIRRAT during the period resulted in some operating inefficiencies for Qube Ports, which slightly reduced margins in this part of the business. Forestry New Zealand. Qube has invested significantly in this business to build out its integrated offering, including marshaling, transport, storage, and stevedoring logs in New Zealand. More recently, investments have been made on lifting equipment and scanning technology to improve safety and productivity outcomes.
Like most of Qube's activities, this substantial investment means Qube delivers healthy margins in an average year, average volume year, exceptional margins in high volume periods, but lower returns when volumes are below trend. Lower volumes is what occurred in 2023 as we experienced extreme weather events, including two cyclones in the first part of the second half of the year, which impacted most of the operations in the North Island of New Zealand. Then there was some reduced demand for logs from China later in the year. This meant that log volumes were down 10% on the prior year and around 20% lower than 2021. On the positive side, as we flagged in our first half results, management has successfully implemented out-of-contract rate increases for all of its customer base, has also implemented a number of cost-saving initiatives.
So we have a business with a strong market position and offering. All we need is a return to normalized volumes, and there's significant upside to this part of the business. While we expect some improvement in 2024, and we think the first quarter of this year will continue to be subdued, it'll probably be not until 2025 for this part of the business to realize its real earnings potential again. Forestry Australia. Main activities here are harvesting, marshaling, transport, stevedoring activities focused on South Australia and Northern New South Wales and Australia. Although volumes were in line with expectation, the shortage of drivers meant that earnings were well below target due to the cost of overtime and additional subcontractor costs. The driver shortage also resulted in missed opportunities in this sector, but we've been seeing improvement in 2024. The resources sector in our bulk business.
In 2023, volumes were fairly stable and in line with expectations. All expiring contracts were extended, and new projects and mines were secured. So generally, revenue was pleasing with good growth. Margins and earnings were reasonable, but would have been better had not for two following reasons: firstly, labor shortages in regional areas such as WA, Queensland, and South Australia, resulting in higher costs, as well as missed revenue opportunities. While there was some improvement at the end of June, there still remains some labor challenges for us. Secondly, as I discussed at the half year, in the bulk business, some contracts had a longer lag time to recover inflationary cost rises. However, the Qube Bulk team has proactively addressed the lag impact through recovering costs earlier within current customer contracts or through renegotiating new contract terms.
While these initiatives helped, they weren't able to mitigate the entire impact of the inflationary environment in 2023 in this sector and in this part of our business. However, as a result of these initiatives, an improved result is expected in 2024. We completed the acquisition of Kalari, which will also help revenue and earnings in 2024 in this part of our business. We're excited about the acquisition. The acquisition provides further geographic and product diversification and opens up opportunities for Qube to get more exposure in inbound mine supply logistics, which creates a new growth opportunity, as Qube's bulk business currently today mainly focuses on outbound mine logistics. So the acquisition is very complementary for Qube. Energy. The Energy activity delivered solid revenue earnings growth from its supply base facilities and services.
The BOMC facility in Southeast Asia missed, missed its expectations, mainly due to a delay in the start of a, of a major project, which did eventually commence in June 2023. The Energy business also benefited from further growth in providing services to the renewable sector. The last item on this slide is other. In that bundle, most other products had decent volumes during 2023, and given the number of products and services that we are involved in, there will always be positives and negatives here. But for example, this included healthy volumes in 2023 from other rail activities such as steel and cement, general stevedoring activities, project cargoes, and other logistics activities such as general freight and break bulk activities. Staying on slide 10 for just one more minute, just a quick outlook of Qube's key markets for 2024.
We currently expect all markets to perform roughly in line or ahead of the 2023 performance. The only potential exception could be the container market, which we expect some weakness, given the expectation of an economic slowdown, which could impact Qube and Patrick's. But having said that, July was the highest lift volume we have ever handled at Patrick's. So while it's too early to say if that was a trend or whether the market has improved or just Patrick's share, we're certainly pleasantly surprised by the start to 2024. And there are a number of opportunities for our container logistics business to gain market share in 2024, including the acquisition of Pinnacle in New Zealand. The other exception I'll call out here would be due to the uncertainty in the New Zealand log market to China at this point in time.
However, we are still confident of that being a better result in 2023 in that space. Moving to slide 11, and I won't spend much time on this. Again, it just demonstrates the geographic diversification of Qube, highlighting WA, Queensland, New South Wales as being the three most important states from a revenue perspective. Moving on to slide 12. Key challenges, and more importantly, our ability to offset these challenges. Other than than adverse weather in New South- in New Zealand and other parts of Australia that impacted operations, there were three main challenges that impacted Qube in 2023, which we expect to reduce it. Which we, we expect to be reduced in 2024: lower inflation, labor and skill shortage, and the economic downturn. I've largely already covered the first two of these challenges, so I'll go through them briefly.
Inflationary pressures, which impacted the business in a number of areas, including labor, parts, and new equipment, as well as higher interest rates. As our results show in 2023, we're able to effectively mitigate a majority of this through contractual protections, rate adjustments, and unit cost reductions from productivity initiatives and benefits of scale. We expect a reduced operational impact in 2024, given the benefits of our 2023 actions and initiatives, and the likelihood of an improved inflationary environment. However, we can't avoid higher interest costs from the full year impact of the higher base rates in 2024. Skilled labor shortages mainly limited to regional areas such as Western Australia, Queensland, and South Australia, impacting the bulk resources and the domestic forestry businesses.
However, we made progress on these challenges through the year through our recruitment and retention, and retention initiatives during the year, which will further benefit 2024. Staying on slide 12, the final key challenge relates to the impact of an economic downturn. I want to make this point: to understand how an economic downturn can only have a limited impact on Qube's total financial performance, I'll take you through each of Qube's key markets. Containers. This is definitely where Qube's earnings could be seen to be potentially exposed in 2024 from a major economic downturn. However, we're not overly concerned because most goods still need to come through the ports, so it's mainly consumer discretionary items that are impacted in a slowdown.
From a container perspective, the impact is also reduced to the extent that consumers will still consume, but just purchase lower-value products rather than no products. And as our business is driven by volume of goods and not by their value. Since 2009, the imported container market has only had negative growth twice and has an average of 2.5% compounding growth on each year, which highlights the resilience of this market, and that weaker periods are usually followed or are always followed by stronger periods. And that in this space as well, our logistics container business continues to grow market share each year, even when the container market is soft, mainly due to the industry being highly fragmented, with many opportunities for growth in this space for us.
In regards to vehicles, vehicles could be impacted in an economic slowdown, as new vehicle purchases can be deferred in challenging economic times. However, while new car sales may decline, there is currently a 12-month backlog in the supply chain, which should support good volumes for Qube Ports and AAT at least for the next 12 months. Volumes in most of Qube's other key markets are driven by the factors other than short-term economic conditions. For instance, Agri is weather dependent and global pricing dependent. At this stage, our volumes may be a little bit softer than 2022 and 2023. We see 2024 still... 2024 still looks like being a reasonable year for volumes for us. Resources. Once a mine is operational, volumes are generally fairly stable unless the mine becomes uneconomic, or the mine life ends.
As Qube is involved in a wide range of customers, commodities, and mines, there would need to be a material or sustained decline across multiple commodities in Australia for Qube to be materially impacted, and we don't see that likely. Energy Qube is servicing major projects that reflect many years of planning and billions of AUD of investment by large energy companies. Therefore, we think it's very unlikely that these major energy companies will change their operations or activity levels based on short-term economic conditions or any shutdown. Any shutdown has over a decade of logistics work to demobilize. Forestry New Zealand. Volumes are influenced by log pricing, which is largely a function of Chinese demand, so a weakening Chinese economy may impact volumes in a period or for two periods.
However, should this occur, there's likely a stimulus measure introduced by the Chinese government at some point in time, and there will be a recovery. Qube has also, it's got exposure to other range of products such as renewables, fertilizers, cement, steel, et cetera. Some of these will be impacted by a downturn, while others will benefit from government policies on ESG or any economic stimulation. Overall, the diversity of Qube's activities mean that we're not expecting a significant impact on activity levels overall. Obviously, a more positive economic environment is helpful, but it's not essential for Qube. Our strategy to diversify has offset every time any impacts or major impacts of any slowdown. I'll now move to divisional performance. Slides 14 and 15 just highlights a strong performance driven by the logistics and infrastructure business.
I won't go through these slides, as I've already covered a lot of the key information on the previous slides. So I'd just like to highlight the EBITDA result here in logistics infrastructure of AUD 225 million, up 54%, and a 3.8% margin improvement, despite Moorebank being in its early stages and having a loss of AUD 5.5 million in 2023. This result just demonstrates the strength of the infrastructure we've built across logistics and infrastructure, across infrastructure such as Agri, auto, containers, and rail terminal infrastructure. Moving to slide 16, Moorebank Terminal update. This morning, with our ASX announcement, we also have released a video showcasing the Moorebank Terminal, and it's worth a watch. Update on the IMEX Terminal. Construction and testing is progressing nicely.
The final phase of completing the automation is going well, and the IMEX remains on track to commence operations in early 2024 in its full capacity of automation. The costings remain consistent with our previous total estimate of around AUD 400 million. We've also decided to incorporate an empty container park within the terminal footprint, which we think will really benefit volumes and operational efficiencies of the terminal and for all users of the precinct. While we are in the testing phase, the terminal is generating losses. In 2023, underlying losses, as I mentioned before, was AUD 5.5 million. We have on this slide, we have provided some indicative volume and financial targets on this slide to give a feel for the sort of returns the IMEX can generate on a standalone basis in the future.
It is important to note the actual volumes and final taxes here could vary from these indicative targets, but the targets hopefully provide an indication of the minimum base case that we are working towards. These indicative targets are for the terminal handling activities only. Please note, they don't include significant revenue and earnings that Qube expects to generate from related logistics activities, such as running trains into the terminal, road and haulage from the terminal to catchment areas, empty container park operations, warehouse operations, general container storage, and other ancillary services from Moorebank. Interstate Terminal update. There has been progress during the period, with some positive developments and some less so.
On the positive front, the partners in the terminal, National Intermodal Corporation, LOGOS, and Qube, have collectively agreed to appoint Qube as the initial operator of the terminal for the first five years, commencing in 2024. There's been a lot of interest from the major interstate rail operators to use the Moorebank Interstate Terminal from day one. We're very confident of reasonable volumes within a short timeframe of the terminal being operational. And this is likely to include Qube Operating Services as well. Recent challenges with the terminal. There have been some delays and cost increase, mainly due to the scope changes and weather delays.
There is a current disagreement with the head construction contractor to agree on a revised cost and timetable, but our best estimates, based on the current information, is that the total cost is likely to increase from the previous estimate of AUD 154 million up to potentially AUD 200 million. And the completion date is now likely to move to where we were hoping to have all completed before Christmas to early in the new year, just after Christmas. This is not expected to have a material impact on the project or the final pricing model. Slide 17, Ports and Bulk results. I've already covered the key information on the previous slides, so I'll move now to Slide 18. Patrick's financial performance.
Reasonable underlying revenue and earnings, EBITDA and EBIT growth, although the second half was a little weaker than the first half. Qube's impacts are from Patrick's decline slightly from the previous year, mainly due to high interest expense within Qube, resulting from the higher base rates and higher net debt. However, cash distributions were very strong, increasing by over 50% from AUD 22 million to AUD 129 million. Next slide, slide 19, market volumes and market share. Despite the market growing 2%-2.5% in the first half, market volumes softened in the second half, and as noted earlier, there is a long history of the market volumes growing by around 2.3%-3%.
2%-3% each year, with weaker periods followed by stronger periods within two years. So while at this stage, we aren't expecting 2024 to be a strong year for market volumes, we don't think long-term trend has changed, so we expect strong growth in the periods ahead. From Patrick's perspective, full year volumes were down by 2.6%, so market share did decline only slightly. Following a number of service changes throughout the year, Patrick's market share had rebounded by the end of the period. We continue to expect Patrick's long-term market share to be in the range between 41%-43%. During the year, Patrick's continued to progress a number of projects aimed at increasing productivity and capacity, as well as safety, as well as having safety benefits.
And these projects should continue to support revenue and earnings growth, as well as modal shift to rail. Moving to slide 20, Patrick's valuation. We have provided this indicative valuation of Patrick's for the first time. The reason for providing this information is that Patrick's converted some shareholder loans to equity at the end of the period, which required a calculation of the equity value and a share price. The process and the methodology for valuation was consistent with the internal DCF valuation that Patrick's undertakes every six months as a part of its impairment assessment, utilizing a range of assumptions based on their business plan. We ordinarily don't share the output of these valuations, these valuation exercise by Patrick's. However, the latest valuation can be determined by Patrick's accounts, which will be publicly available once lodged.
So we felt it was important to provide transparency to ensure all shareholders are aware of this, and can form their own views as to the implications for the value of Qube. The output of this valuation was an enterprise value at 30 June 2023, for 100% of Patrick's at just over AUD 6 billion, resulting in equity value of Qube's 50% shareholding being around AUD 2.43 billion. This compares to our original investment of AUD 1 billion in August 2016. And noting that we have already received around AUD 549 million in cash distributions to 30 June 2023. So based on this valuation and the cash we have already received since Qube's investment in August 2016, Qube's total pre-tax return on its investment is almost AUD 2 billion. A pre-tax IRR of around 19%.
Obviously, any valuation exercise is highly dependent on the achievability of the key assumptions, and the actual value that would be realized through a sale process could be much higher or lower. I note here, Qube is currently not a seller of its interest in Patrick's, as this has been an outstanding investment by any measure, and we believe there's plenty of further value creation to come.
Moving to slide 21. Slide 21 just shows the proportional results when you add in to Patrick's 50% EBITDA revenue and EBITDA financial results. So this slide just gives a flavor of the size of Qube's revenue and earnings on a proportional basis that includes Qube's 50% revenue, EBITDA, and EBITDA, as I just said. Showing that Qube's on that basis, Qube's EBITDA was over AUD 217 million in 2023. I've said enough now, and I'll hand over to Mark Wratten to continue the presentation.
Thank you, Paul, and welcome to everyone on today's call. It certainly has been another great result for Qube, and with very strong revenue and earnings growth that Paul's just presented to you. I'll take you through some financial performance, cash flow, and debt slides, and then I'll hand back to Paul to close off. Starting with slide 23, our statutory results. Qube's statutory earnings are set out in this slide, exclusive and inclusive of the discontinued property division. As with prior reporting periods, our view is that the financial performance of Qube is best reflected in the underlying earnings that Paul has spoken to earlier, and that I'll focus on.
The reconciliation adjustments from statutory reported to underlying results are consistent with past practice, with the key adjustments being the reversing of the impact of AASB 16 lease accounting, and adjusting to remove any impairment, fair market gains or losses, and other one-off items, such as M&A transaction costs, Oracle implementation costs, and other major software development costs. There's further information in the appendix to the investor presentation and in our financial statements, which went up today as well. Moving on to Slide 24, our underlying results. Paul spoke already in detail around our results, so I'll just focus on a few other items.
A few points to note, underlying net finance costs for FY 2023 were circa AUD 20 million higher than the prior period, reflective of the material increased base rates experienced during FY 2023. We do continue to capitalize some interest, although smaller, on smaller components of the IMEX terminal and also the Interstate Terminal, which is now well into the construction program. Both terminals should be completed during FY 2024, and so capitalization of interest, which was circa AUD 11 million in FY 2023, will wind down during the FY 2024 year. The shareholder loan to Patrick has also halved from AUD 200 million to AUD 100 million, and so interest income will reduce in FY 2024. That said, AUD 64 million of that loan reduction was in cash and was applied against Qube's own debt.
The share of profit from associate, associates increased 24.9% on prior period, driven by a materially stronger result from our other associated, non-Patrick associates, particularly PrixCar and IMG, which between them, improved something like AUD 8.6 million against FY 2022, which is a great improvement for both of those businesses. EBIT, EBITDA margins improved from 8.6%- 9.4%, driven by the significant improvement in the logistics and infrastructure margins. This gain was partly eroded by the decline in Ports and Bulk, EBITDA margins, and Paul has covered off factors driving those earlier in his commentary. Also, as Paul highlighted earlier, underlying earnings per share, adjusted for amortization, increased by over 28% to AUD 0.136 per share. This was mainly attributable to the significant growth in earnings.
However, it was also assisted by the share buyback program completed in May 2022, which reduced Qube's shares on issue. On the back of this strong performance, the board declared a fully franked final ordinary dividend of AUD 0.0435 per share, bringing the total full year dividend to AUD 0.081, which is the top end of our dividend payout ratio policy. The FY 2023 total dividend is over 15% higher than last year's dividend, which you will remember also included a AUD 0.007 per share special dividend on the back of the successful Moorebank warehouse divestment. Ordinary dividends increased by 28% versus 2022, which was in line with our EPSA growth. The final dividend will be payable on the seventeenth of October, and the DRP will not apply.
In regards to Moorebank and the monetization, Qube received an additional AUD 247 million of deferred consideration from LOGOS during the period. The final AUD 53 million linked to the construction of the Interstate Terminal will be received progressively across FY 2024. Moving to slide 25 on capital expenditure. In FY 2023, Qube invested gross CapEx of AUD 583 million, broken down into a number of components. AUD 132 million was on growth CapEx, which included warehouses, storage sheds, rail assets, and other mobile transport equipment. AUD 217 million on maintenance or replacement CapEx, plant and equipment. This represented around 118% of underlying depreciation, which was significantly higher than the 85%-95%, which I guided to you at this time last year.
The main reason for this was a decision by the business to swap out older leased rail locos with new Qube-owned locos. This CapEx was circa AUD 41 million in FY 2023, and adjusting for this, the maintenance CapEx to depreciation ratio would be 96%. Most of these new locos will be delivered by the end of Q1 FY 2024, and so some further final CapEx of this nature will flow into FY 2024. We also incurred AUD 90 million on interstate and IMEX terminal CapEx. That included the AUD 11 million of capitalized interest I spoke about earlier. Growth CapEx spent on the Interstate Terminal was approximately AUD 74 million. However, Qube, given Qube will ultimately only own 65% of this terminal, we account for an adjusted amount of AUD 48 million in our CapEx line.
The balance goes against provisions, which we've created for National Intermodal and LOGOS's 35% share of this asset. IMEX CapEx spend was circa AUD 31 million in FY 2023, bringing the total project to date spend on that asset to AUD 367 million. The interstate amount I just mentioned excludes any receipt of deferred proceeds from LOGOS. As I mentioned, we received... Well, in the AUD 247 million of that is related to, is linked to the construction of the Interstate Terminal. Qube completed two acquisitions at the back end of FY 2023, being 100% of the Kalari business from Swire and a 50% share of the Pinnacle business in New Zealand, for a total cash CapEx spend in the year of AUD 142 million.
We did spend AUD a few million in working capital adjustments early in FY 2024. I'll talk to both of those on the next slide. Our acquisition pipeline does remain healthy, and we are expecting funding will be applied to this area again in FY 2024. Although due to the uncertainty, we have not guided to any specific quantum as yet. Moving on to slide 26, focusing on the acquisitions. As I said, in early May, we announced the acquisition of 50% of Pinnacle and 100% of Kalari, both on the same day, both after lengthy periods of due diligence and negotiations.
We are very pleased to have both businesses become part of the expanded Qube Group, and to date, both are exceeding expectations in regards to operational and financial performance, and are expected to deliver a return on average capital invested of at least our target hurdle of 10% and be EPSA accretive in FY 2024. I'll spend a minute on both businesses. The Pinnacle 50% was acquired for Australian around AUD 30 million, and that business will generate revenues of around NZD 70-80 million. Key services, as Paul has said, include empty container parks, container transport, and refrigerated container maintenance and repair, which is very similar to the Australian container business. This is a low-risk entry into the New Zealand containerized logistics market, partnering with experienced operators in an industry we are fast experiencing.
The intention is to leverage our combined customer relationships and operational expertise to grow this business. We do expect to move to 100% ownership later in the first half of this year, at which time it will become part of the logistics and infrastructure business unit. Until then, Pinnacle will be equity accounted for. Moving to Kalari. That business was acquired for AUD 117 million, which was mostly underpinned by an extensive asset base. Revenues for this business are expected between AUD 140 million-AUD 150 million on an annualized basis. Kalari is a high-quality business, well-managed, and has been integrated now into our bulk business. It provides further geographic and product diversification, as well as bringing in a high-quality and deeply experienced management team and workforce.
There is significant opportunity, as Paul mentioned, to leverage the Qube and Kalari operational capabilities, given to expand the range of services provided to both of our customer bases, given Qube has historically been more focused on outbound mine supply logistics, while Kalari's strength has been inbound mine supply. Moving on to slide 27, return on capital. As we spoke about at our, at our Investor Day last October, we continue to focus on improving Qube's return on invested capital.
And with our strong performance this year, we have further improved this key metric, with Qube lifting to 9.1% at the end of FY23, and Patrick also increasing its returns to 8.3%.... It should be noted that both Qube and Patrick have material amounts of capital that are either currently not generating returns or at their targeted returns, as they are either capital work in progress or the assets have only recently been completed or deployed. In Qube's instance, the main asset in this category relates to the two Moorebank Terminals, which I've spoken about. If we adjusted just for the Moorebank Terminal assets alone and their current returns, Qube's return on capital would be closer to 9.8%. Taking you on to cash flow, slide 28.
Qube's net debt at June 2023 was AUD 945 million, and major cash flow items for the year included the Moorebank monetization proceeds, a total of AUD 258 million, which included the 247 I spoke about earlier and a few other items. Tax payments of AUD 195 million. Most of that was the capital gains tax paid on the Moorebank transaction in December 2022. Net capital expenditure, which I spoke about earlier, of AUD 562 million, which included those acquisitions. Cash received from associates of AUD 68 million. That was predominantly dividends and interest payments from Patrick, and also the AUD 64 million repayment of shareholder loans.
The other 36 million of shareholder loans was, was converted into equity at June 2023, and so our shareholder loans to Patrick has accordingly reduced by AUD 100 million. That was... The conversion of shareholder loans was mostly driven by Thin Cap tax rule changes. During FY 2023, we funded dividends totaling AUD 136 million. And finally, but most importantly, Qube generated AUD 498 million of operating cash flows, which represents circa 107% cash conversion ratio of our underlying EBITDA of approximately AUD 465 million. Pleasingly, our cash conversion improved materially from the 71% that we reported at this time last year, and so there's a bit of a catch-up this being above 100%. And, as a business, we will continue to sharply focus on our cash management.
Moving to my last slide, balance sheet and funding. As mentioned earlier, we ended the year with net debt levels a little over AUD 945 million. During FY 23, we undertook, or we took advantage of our strong liquidity position to rebalance some of our debt portfolio, which included, reducing some facilities and upsizing and extending the tenure on others. We terminated AUD 610 million of revolving bank debt facilities, some of which were close to maturity. We also put in place AUD 380 million of new or upsized facilities and extended tenure on another AUD 385 million of our existing facilities. The weighted average tenure of our debt increased to 2.5 years, up from 2.1 in June 2022.
If we excluded the subordinated notes, which expire in October 2023, our weighted average maturity increases to three years. Our net leverage ratio or, sorry, our leverage ratio was 23.7, and that's similar to what we ended last year at and well within our covenant. As of June 2023, we had AUD 425 million of facilities, including the AUD 300 million of ASX subnotes that mature around October 2023. The drawn amount of these is AUD 335 million, which is classified as current borrowings in our financial statements. Our available liquidity, comprising undrawn debt facilities and cash, was just over AUD 1 billion at June 30. A medium-term funding plan has now been prepared and was recently approved by the Qube board.
We'll commence implementing the plan over the next few weeks, with the aim to have it completed by the back end of first half 2024. This plan includes paying down the ASX-listed subnotes and putting in place additional funding facilities to further strengthen Qube's available liquidity. Given our strong revenue and earnings growth, sound balance sheet, and strong liquidity position, Qube remains well positioned to fund future growth, both the organically driven opportunities that the business brings forward, as well as through new acquisitions. And with that, I'll hand you back to Paul.
Thanks, Mark. Moving to slide 31, Qube's strategy. I'm not gonna go through this slide entirely. It's just here to emphasize, as I said at the start of the presentation, that our consistent strategy is the key to our success. All the points on this slide have enabled us to build a quality business with strong market positions and to deliver increasing shareholder returns, that I'll talk about in the next few slides. Slide 32, Qube's financial targets. At our strategy day last year, we outlined our key financial targets. Pleasingly, for 2023, we've comfortably hit all targets here, other than the return on average capital employed, which was achieved by the operating division and was vastly improved from at a group level, heading towards our target. We remain confident in meeting the group hurdle in the year to midterm in the midterm. Please note, as Mark just-
Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, this is the operator. A senior line has disconnected. Please hold one moment while we reconnect our line. Mr. Digney, you have been connected into the call. You may proceed.
Hello, are we back on?
You are live, Mr. Digney. You may go ahead.
All right. Sorry, I apologize for that. We dropped out for some reason. So staying on slide 32, Qube's financial targets. At our strategy day last year, we outlined our key financial targets. Pleasingly, in full year 2023, we've come for a hit by our targets other than the return on average capital employed, which was achieved by the operating division. As I mentioned before, I don't know if I was cut off or not, but where I was at is that we're getting close to the target at a group level, and as Mark mentioned, if we back out some of the development CapEx and the Moorebank Terminals, we would be very close to that target right now at 9.8%.
Moving to slide 23, staying on Qube's financial targets. These charts here on the slide highlight that we have consistently delivered a very strong, very strong growth. Over the past four years, we have delivered compound annual revenue growth of 18.7%, compound annual EPSA growth of 23.6%, enabling compound annual DPS growth of 15.9%, with all dividends having been fully franked. As I said early on, the growth opportunity is far from complete, with multiple volume and value drivers outlined earlier, which will enable Qube to continue to generate positive financial outcomes into the future. Turning to slide 34, full year 2024 outlook. We expect 2024 to be another positive year for Qube, despite ongoing challenges. In the operating division, expect solid growth expect...
We expect solid growth expected overall, albeit we expect some moderation in the expectation, from the exceptional performance of the logistics and infrastructure business unit, and an improved performance from the Ports and Bulk business unit. This mainly reflects an expectation of some moderation in volumes and activity levels from containers, Agri, and AAT volumes compared to the 2023 year. But with stable and high volumes across other key markets, including resources, energy, general stevedoring, plus other benefits from the recent acquisitions, and some improvement in volumes of export logs from New Zealand compared to last year, although there's significant uncertainty given the Chinese weakness. I'm sure there will be some unexpected challenges for the business in some parts of the market during the full year 2024, but hopefully, they'll be more than offset by the opportunities.
I know that's been Qube's experience historically, and we see no reason for that to change. Moving to Patrick's. We expect that Patrick's will be able to deliver another year of operating earnings growth at an EBITDAR and an EBIT level, despite our expectation of a broadly flat overall volume market. The growth will come from the full period impact of the additional volume commitments and services secured in the second half of full year 2023, and will be driven by the full period benefit of higher landside and other ancillary charges that were implemented last year, and some productivity and issues I touched on earlier, which will help mitigate and impact higher costs, such as labor and rent.
Although the earnings should be higher, the operating earnings should be higher, Patrick's overall NPATA contribution to Qube is expected to be flat due to the higher interest, higher interest costs, as we've mentioned before. Moving to slide 35, corporate. The largest drag on Qube's full year 2024 earnings outlook is expected to be the higher interest costs. We currently forecast Qube's net interest expense will be around AUD 40 million-AUD 45 million higher than last year. Similar to Patrick's, this is mainly due to the full year impact of rate rises that occurred in 2023. It's also partly due to the lower capitalized interest in 2024 relating to the Moorebank, IMEX, and Interstate Terminals. In regards to CapEx, as all this is hard, this is hard to accurately forecast, given it depends on suitable investment opportunities.
However, our current estimate is around AUD 400-500 million total CapEx, excluding any potential acquisitions. Staying on slide 35. For the Qube group, we are currently going into another year of NPAT and EPSA growth for Qube, although the growth rate is expected to be modest compared to the strong 2023 growth rates. This guidance is subject to a number of assumptions, as noted on this slide, and we will provide an update if there's any material developments. However, I'm pleased to note in finishing, that trading so far in 2024 has been ahead of our expectations. Container volumes have been better than expected, and Patrick's July volumes, as I mentioned before, were the highest ever month. There's been continued high volumes across Qube's automated infrastructure facilities and steady volumes in most other parts of the group.
This has partly been offset by lower-than-expected forestry volumes in New Zealand, due to the weaker global log prices, which has reduced export volumes. In finishing today, Qube's ability to continue delivering earnings growth despite much higher interest rate, interest costs, increasing losses from the IMEX while it's ramping up, and ongoing challenges in the economy, and some of key markets really demonstrates the breadth of growth opportunities across the group and the resilience of Qube's operation and strategy. I thank you all. I will now hand back to the moderator for any questions, questions, and answers.
At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star and the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Justin Barratt from CLSA. Your line is open.
Hi, guys. Thanks very much for your time today, and I just wanted to ask around your Patrick internal valuation. Just wanted to see if you're willing to share, I guess, some of the longer-term metrics or assumptions that really underpin your, your DCF for that valuation, please?
Paul, do you want to share?
Yes, sure. I guess firstly, to clarify, it's not Qube's valuation, it's Patrick's valuation.
Sorry.
It's the most important point. And secondly, no, I mean, it reflects their business plan, so like most companies, they prepare their sort of medium-term forecast, which looks at a whole range of assumptions, market growth, market share, stevedoring rates, infrastructure charges, CapEx, all those sort of issues. And that's commercially sensitive, given they're in a competitive environment, so we can't share that. But obviously, it, it's no different, as Paul said, to the process they go through every six months. So there's a lot of assumptions that need to be proven out, but it reflects their best judgment around the medium-term forecast.
Okay, thank you. And then really keen to try and explore a little bit more about some of the commentary about the positive start that you've had to FY 2024 from your container exposure. Appreciate your commentary around that July being the highest ever month. Can you sort of draw on that a little bit more? What do you think is driving that? Is it around a new customer acquisition or contract acquisition, or is there something else sort of at play there?
We've seen better numbers, I think. Some of the businesses that we've won or extra volume that we secured in 2023 is a part of that reason. And in the logistics space as well, the same. So probably a little bit more unexpected that we got better volumes out of our customer base overall. Is that gonna be an ongoing trend? It's probably too early to tell.
Okay, thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of James Wilson from Jarden. Your line is open.
Hi, guys. It's Jake Cakarnis, just on James Wilson's line. Can I just ask a question about the net interest guidance? Obviously, the Patrick shareholder loan got repaid, as you mentioned in 2023. You also got AUD 10 million of income, interest income from that loan. Does the guidance encapsulate that you won't have that income in 2024, please?
Yeah, that's right, Jake. Yeah, so that guidance is comprehensive of everything around a reduction in the capitalized interest, but we expect a reduction in the interest income from that Patrick loan reduction, as well as. The biggest impact is the higher base rates over the full year versus, you know, this year we've had climbing rates over the course of the year.
Understand. Thanks, Paul. Just one for Mark, if I can please. Just looking at the operating division, is it right to use the second half 2023 EBITDA and EBIT margins for the operating division as the appropriate base into 2024, or is there something that's gonna be changed there? And just in your commentary, was there any skew to the timing of the price increases within the divisions there, please?
Yeah, that was, that was me. That was, Mark that answered that last one, TJ.
Oh, sorry, mate.
That's all right. Paul and I joined it here. But I'll probably let Paul Digney answer that one around the momentum. I mean, the business does have some-
Yeah
you know, moving pieces around and not necessarily around
Price.
Yeah, price or, you know, just the timing of the year. So it's really probably not something that you can just take for granted, that you just take the second half and roll it in.
Yeah, I've. It's, there's some lumpy, lumpy moments. There's some issues around in the Ports and Bulk business, around just labor shortages and additional costs to, you know, to provide the service. So we think we believe that a lot of that has been fixed in some ways. Some of it still remains, so all going well, there's margin improvement there, so we should do it more efficiently with less additional cost. So that's an area where we will see that. We've got a magnitude of different businesses, and pricing has changed somewhat in some areas. We've got some benefit of that pricing this last year.
So it's a combination of volume, pricing, and cost initiatives, and we see overall there'll be improvement across those three metrics.
Thanks, guys.
Across the group.
Your next question comes from the line of Matt Ryan from Barrenjoey. Your line is open.
Oh, thank you. Just a question on the guidance and whether there's anything you wanted to call out in terms of, I guess, the first half and the second half, and just anything lumpy that might impact some of the things that you said?
In 2024?
Yeah.
Yeah, not that we could say. I mean, we expect not that we can really, really put our finger on at this point in time. I mean, I guess there is volatility, there's some an economic slowdowns. There could be some lumpiness in some of our volumes. We might see some good container volumes in periods that might, they might soften. We may see that in the forestry in New Zealand, that we think that will be quarter- by- quarter will be different. But will it be first half and second half, or will it be first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter? We just feel that there will be moments.
We've had a good start for, you know, six weeks or seven weeks. We're just being cautious about that being sustainable, given the, you know, what other people are saying about outlooks.
Fair enough. So I guess where you call out growth within your divisions, and then again, at the group level, that, that should sort of apply to the first half and the second half?
We believe so.
Okay, great. And, I mean, just as you've just touched on, I mean, I, I think you guys are in a pretty privileged position in terms of, you know, how broad that your business reaches and, and you-- I'm guessing you have a pretty good sense of, of the economy from talking to customers and the like. I mean, how, how are you guys feeling about things at the moment? And, I guess, again, coming back to your guidance, are you sort of assuming, you know, no further deterioration, if you like, within the macro situation?
I think in the macro, I mean, we felt a bit of slowdown in the container market at the back end of 2023. I mean, our view was that, you know, the first part of 2024 would be a bit slower. It's been a bit stronger for us, but it may be just our market share and what we've been able to win market share there. The automotive side of things, we think there's a lot of backlog in that, even with car sales. I've mentioned this before on the call. Forestry, we believe in New Zealand will be lumpy. I think in Australia it's going to be better. General stevedoring business, the commodities go through there, the energies will be solid. The resources business will be solid.
It's just a matter of making sure that we get the cost base right and the margins right there. So I think I called that out when I went through slide 10, but I was trying to give some sort of color around that. Yeah, so I think overall, that's probably what we're seeing. We are cautious, I guess. But at this point in time, that's our best judge. I think Agri we believe that there's we've got solid bookings at the moment. We've got you know, maybe the back end of the year might be a little bit softer than we've faced in 2023, but we'll need to get to that at the end of the year. At this stage, you know, the first half looks reasonable for us.
Great. And just a quick one on Patrick. Just interested in how the sort of redemption of those shareholder loans came about or what the motivation was, and is that something that Brookfield did as well?
We-
Yeah.
Mark, you might want to talk to that. Yeah, that was driven by the changes of the thin cap, Matt. Yeah, so it was done equally. So, during the year, the business also refinanced, and so we got obviously the AUD 100 million shareholder loan repayment applied equally to Patrick, sorry, to Brookfield. AUD 64 million came back to us from that refi in cash, and the other AUD 36 million was determined to be the prudent approach around that change of the tax legislation.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Ian Munro from Ord Minnett . Your line is open.
Good morning, and thanks for the extra disclosure around the MLP. Maybe just looking at your existing tenant book that's coming in over the next 12-18 months. Does that get you, you know, towards 500,000 TEUs or around those levels? And then secondly, just while the terminal is ramping up, just can perhaps give us a sense of the magnitude of losses that we might see between now and then. Is it sort of two to three times at FY23 or similar amount? Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, Ian. We'll probably see next year a slightly larger, well, a little bit more loss, I think, given that we've got more depreciation that'll flow through.
Right.
And We'll start depreciating most of, more of the asset in, and so that will come through in the D&A line.
That's where the automation will start in mid-year.
Yeah. So that, that from a financial perspective, that look, Paul, you can talk the volumes, I guess.
Yeah, and I think once we get it fully operational, which is sort of halfway through the year, then we're from a business point of view and a marketing point of view, and an operation point of view, you know, we did take some volume away from Moorebank and put it through some of our other facilities. So that will move through there from a volume point of view. The videos that we put on our website today sort of shows, you know, where Moorebank's at the moment, and we know LOGOS are starting to build a number of sheds.
I don't know commercially in confidence who they are at this point in time, but I know they're actively building facilities on the west side and getting ready. So that's from a precinct point of view, we're in a really good place at the moment. It's really tracking. And, you know, it'll be a number of years before we get to that 500,000 TEU mark, but we won't have as many impediments or speed bumps probably come halfway through next year. We can get from a logistics infrastructure management team point of view and the precinct and working with LOGOS, we will have the terminals up and running and ready to rock and roll.
Just maybe a quick one, please, on the Ports and Bulk segment margins. On going back a couple of years to, you know, sort of high, high teens, you know, 19, 19.5%, we're kind of just recalibrating the expectations medium term. From what you're saying, it sounds like there's some cost escalations to build into contracts and maybe a bit of upside, but are those kinds of levels still attainable or sort of halfway between? Thank you.
That's, that's, that's the expectation. So that's, you know, we, we believe that we can take it back to where, where it was. I think through the current issues coming out of COVID and the, the labor issues and that sort of stuff, it really impacted some of these margins and, and we, we need to do some work around our, our contracts in regards to, you know, reducing that lag in an inflationary environment. And then once inflation goes down, it might lead the other way for us. But, so yeah, to answer your question, yes. Yes, Ian.
The other element to that, Ian, is that, with the New Zealand business, you know, its performance the last two years, it's had a bit of a tough time for various reasons that Paul's mentioned. When that business gets back to what its capability is, that alone will drive quite a large margin improvement within the Ports and Bulk business. And then the other factor, as we spoke about at the half, was obviously these large inflationary cost increases that the bulk business had to absorb in. And now they're pushing, you know, they're working with their customers on rise and falls and other, you know, within contract renegotiations to sort of bring our margins back to where they need to be. So that, that's in progress and it's been working quite well. So we do expect to see those margins improve.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Reinhardt van der Walt from Bank of America. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Just one on Patrick. Is there upside risk to terminal access charges maybe over the next couple of years? Do you think that if, you know, the volumes maybe start to slow, could potentially offset some of that, that weaker activity with higher, higher tax, given that the ACCC looks at sort of the overall margin of the business?
I just think that, that'll be a fundamental of us getting a return on our capital employed and looking at, I mean, our ACCC monitors that volume, extra volume from shipping lines, shipping line load tariff increases, productivity, and reviewing the investment on the land side and getting a return on the land side will all factor out. I mean, everything's a risk in the business, but I don't think it's a risk as we keep delivering on a terminal. It's delivering more rail access, more modal share access, better infrastructure, better delivery to our customers. So- no. Yep.
Got it. Thank you. Just on the container business, I'm conscious that July was a strong month for you, but it, it seems pretty clear that the market overall is starting to slow a little bit. Have you started to see pricing move in container recently, as some customers may be anticipating a slowdown?
Pricing in shipping line, shipping on pricing or what? What pricing?
Just general ability for you to price across the supply chain.
No, I think the pricing at this stage has stayed the same. I mean, pricing is a fundamentally different conversations and the commercial conversations with different shipping services. Obviously, our windows and scheduling comes into it and performance. So, we're not seeing any real change at this point in time.
Got it. Thanks.
Your next question comes from the line of Scott Ryall from Rimor Equity Research. Your line is open.
Hi, thank you very much for that. I had a couple of questions. One is, in the Ports and Bulk, you, your outlook statement, I'm just trying to clarify, given you've had some timing issues around, cost, pass-throughs over the, the last 12-18 months. So is your... Is the more positive outlook for 2024 fiscal based on your expectation around volumes, or is it really that, that catch-up of, of cost pass-throughs that you're, you're expecting to get over the course of, the next 12 months, please?
There's been some new business wins over the period, so we'll get full benefit of those. And as you said, there's some areas of business where, you know, the margins did deteriorate because of issues around mainly labor and having a lag on inflationary cost increases that we've felt, we've got a better position on that, contractually, and in fairness with our customers, to make sure that we recover the right costs, aligns with a shorter lag time to recover these costs. So, that should improve our margins in 2024.
We also, Scott, we also get the benefit. Oh, sorry, Scott, I was just going to add that in Ports and Bulk, we also get the full year benefit of the Kalari acquisition, where we've just got two months, two months of earnings this year.
Yes.
No, no, I mean, that one I can kind of carve out. It's more just, you know, we're expecting to do your cost recoveries over the course of this fiscal year, right? That's really what I'm, the nub of it. Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's ongoing and, and the team have done a really good job in improving those, just as, as from the time we, we spoke to you guys last in February. And so-
Okay.
We'll get the benefit of that, but it's an ongoing challenge for the team, I can tell you.
Ongoing battle. Yeah, I can understand.
Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
And then the second one, just, if you could give a bit of an update on how you see, LOGOS going in terms of signing up new tenants to, to Moorebank, and just the, the latest, yeah, update on when you expect all the rail duplication works to, will be completed, because that's pretty imminent with, with the, the plans not so long ago. And, and so I'm, I guess I'm just wondering, when does the rail become far more competitive, from a service proposition perspective, please?
Yeah. In regards to LOGOS, I think I mentioned before, I don't have a complete line of sight exactly, and probably in commercial and confidence either at the moment, but they have got a lot of construction going on and a lot of builds and even spec builds are going on at the moment on the west side. So, yeah, I think that's looking positive. In regards to the rail, the duplication of the rail lines, I think off the top of my head, mid-2024 or maybe early 2024, that'll bring some good capacity. Also aligned to that is Patrick's finishing its second phase of its rail terminal at Port Botany and how that links to the terminal. I went down there last week, and that's November this year.
So, that'll bring on a lot of capacity just from between Patrick's and Moorebank and hopefully the other terminal operators, which we think they will bring on some more capacity too. So, there's ability to have a large modal shift between road and rail from Port Botany to the west and Moorebank. You know, 2024, 2025, yeah, that's when the infrastructure is gonna be really good, and I think our infrastructure is gonna be ready before that time. So, we're in a good place when that occurs.
Okay, great. Thank you. That's all I had.
Your next question comes from the line of Rob Koh from MS. Your line is open.
Good morning, and congratulations on the result. Just, I guess a minor question on the balance sheet and funding slide. I just want to just double-check my understanding. Your gearing ratio there at the year-end well below the level and... But I'm guessing that's not because you keep, especially wanting to keep powder dry, but it's because the sub-debt's getting replaced with senior. Is that the right way to think about it?
Well, yeah, we'll be replacing our liquidity, as I said, is AUD 1 billion, cash and available facilities at the end of June. We've obviously got that AUD 425 million that will come off in the first half. And so our funding plan will replace that, maybe top it up a little bit. I mean, we do like to have, the business has been quite conservative in terms of having a good amount of liquidity available to it, just to take advantage of, I guess, more M&A or other large organic growth opportunities as they present themselves. So yeah, we'll have really good available liquidity. We have it now, but by the time we finish the first half, it'll be, I guess, recharged.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, and then I guess, like, and apologies if this has been asked on the call, I joined late because of other company calls. But the slide on the Patrick DCF, which I take it to you, probably wouldn't have wanted to have given us, but for the thin cap rule change. Do you have a sense of where that valuation sits versus your valuation or consensus valuation? I presume you think it's a good start or yeah.
Yeah, look, I guess-
Paul's closer to the consensus stuff.
Certainly, it's above the average analyst valuation for those analysts who publish valuations, and there is a broad range. So I can certainly say that it's sort of broadly in line with probably the top end, but above the average analyst valuation. Obviously, bearing in mind, the analysts are sort of, I guess, generally applying a multiple one year, whereas the Patrick valuation is based on discounted cash flow. So they're quite different approaches. From a Q valuation, look, we're not a seller, as Paul said, so for us, we've never really valued it per se. We don't revalue it.
We know Brookfield obviously do as part of their fundamental, we don't have visibility in terms of how they report it, but they hopefully won't mind me saying, I think their view is it's a realistic, if not conservative, valuation from their perspective. From our perspective, look, as I said, we're not a seller. When Brookfield go to sell, we'll have a look at whether we want to buy it. We'll be very sensitive to, is it EPS accretive? Is it gonna... What's it gonna do to our ROIC? And so, as we've said publicly, at the valuation, and we'll look at it at the time, based on all factors, but we're certainly a happy holder. Is probably the best way to put it.
Yeah. Yeah, thanks, Mr. Lewis. I completely hear that. Just for your info, it's AUD 29 million higher than my valuation.
Oh, very good. Well, probably the only other thing to add is we do think it's a very, very high-quality business, and it's got pretty good earnings potential, so we certainly don't think it's a crazy valuation by any means.
Your next question comes from the line of Nick Page from RBC. Your line is open.
Oh, hi, Paul and Mark. Thank you very much for your time. Just a quick one on New Zealand and forestry, specifically. I'm just interested in your views around to what degree that issue and softness relates to China versus issues in New Zealand specifically. I know you had some weather impacts in New Zealand during the year, so yeah, I'm just interested in your view on what is driving that underlying softness, please.
So last year, we obviously we had some impacts on both, and I think the start of the second half of the year, we had those cyclones, which really impacted the business. And then volumes recovered, and there was a ramp up of volumes, and then we saw probably the last two months that there was a real downturn, and we've seen that in July as well on volumes. But our view is that there'll be probably periods, maybe quarters, every three months, that there'll be softness and there'll be some rebounding in restocking of volumes. And that's what we're hearing at this point in time, so.
So some ongoing volatility, but, or yeah, equal weather removed, we'll probably see a little bit of pluses and minuses throughout the year, or at least that's what you're expecting.
We're expecting to be moderately better overall, but volatile and lumpy.
Okay, thank you. Just the second one is just around your return or hurdles. I think you quoted 10% again, which is something you've spoken to in the past. I'm just interested in how a rising cost of capital world influences that hurdle. Is it something that can you take us through the cycle view, or do you move relative to the current cost of capital, please?
Yeah, we do. I mean, we do take a longer-term view. You're right. I mean, we might... I mean, a lot of our investment decisions, you know, we factor in other, a lot of other factors, like the type of business that we're looking at, the industry that's in. So we might apply other sort of factors and premiums that we-- premium type of returns that we'd like to get on that type of a business. But yeah, we see it as a longer term at the moment. Obviously, I got asked that question back in October, you know, around would we be increasing it? And I think my answer was that, well, let's get to 10% first, and then we'll take a view on going further.
But from a WACC perspective, we, you know, we've done a fair bit of work just on our rates across the different parts of our business. And obviously, you know, those take a longer-term view around debt as well, not just the short-term increase, but we're constantly looking at those types of things.
Sure.
I guess the bigger, I think the most important, the most important thing, Nick, is that, I guess, to highlight to, you know, to investors back in October and again in February and now, is that it does remain a very strong focus of the management team to improve our return on capital performance.
Okay, great. Thank you very much, and congrats on the result.
Thank you.
Your final question comes from the line of Adrian Atkins from Morningstar. Your line is open.
Hi, guys. Thanks for putting me in. Just wondering, you know, if supply chain constraints start to lessen, could that actually be a negative for Qube and Patrick's tariffs or ancillary charges?
Not over. I think at the end of the—I try to explain how diversified we are and, you know, when supply chains are constrained, we've got facilities, and we get more volume through it. When it's not, our operations become more efficient. How tariffs move is a, I guess, a fundamental thing around how good our services is, what our customers want to pay, and what we want to charge, so and the disciplines around that. So historically, no, and I don't think that's gonna change for us.
Okay, just one more question if I can fit it in. Just wondering if you could just briefly explain the long-term strategy of expansion into New Zealand and Southeast Asia? What we should kind of expect.
Yeah, well, the Pinnacle acquisition in New Zealand, I mean, we've been predominantly forestry over in New Zealand, and we've looked at the logistics space. The Pinnacle acquisition, and I don't know how long you followed us, but when we started, I think we saw it before we started Qube, we bought the P&O Trans acquisition in Australia. Very, very similar to Pinnacle in some ways, it you know, a network of depots and container parks. And we saw Pinnacle as being a similar platform to what how we started this business in Australia. So we thought that was a good and not I wouldn't say safe, but a really good foundation to buy a business and then look to expand from there.
So I think our expansion will be probably more organic than acquisition, but not to rule out other acquisitions in New Zealand in that space. So... And being that very complementary with common customers across Australia and New Zealand. So, that's what we've been looking at in recent times in New Zealand. I think we've executed a very good acquisition in New Zealand. Southeast Asia has been more around the energy space, oil and gas, but now also looking at some renewable opportunities that can operate in the facilities that we've got in Southeast Asia. So it's fundamentally around, I guess, some markets that we think that we can...
That is a part of our core, and we can add value, and we can, we can do it on a basic offshore from Australia. So there's that, that's the fundamentals of Southeast Asia and the, and the fundamentals of New Zealand in regard, in regards to our strategy. And we'll set, we'll set up a nice little case there. Yeah.
That concludes our question and answer session. Mr. Paul Digney, I turn the call back over to you.
Thank you for everyone for joining the call, and if there's any other questions that anyone didn't have an opportunity today, please reach out to Paul , and he'll happily answer any of your queries or questions from today's results and announcements. So thank you very much, and I'll end the call now.
This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.