Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Sims Limited FY 2022 results webcast. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Today's presentation may contain forward-looking statements, including statements about financial conditions, results of operations, earnings outlook, and prospects for Sims Limited. These forward-looking statements are subject to assumptions and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those experienced or implied by these forward-looking statements. Those risk factors can also be found on the company's website, www.simsltd.com. As a reminder, Sims Limited is domiciled in Australia, and all references to currency are in Australian dollars unless otherwise noted.
I would now like to hand the call over to Alistair Field, Group CEO and Managing Director of Sims Limited. Please go ahead.
Good morning. It's a pleasure to be delivering the FY 2022 full year results for Sims. Joining me on today's call is the Group Chief Financial Officer, Stephen Mikkelsen. The slide presentation that we will run through has been lodged with the ASX along with the results release. The agenda for today is that I will run through a general overview of performance and the highlights. I'll then hand over to Steph, who will take us through our financial results before I discuss some of the company's strategic priorities, short-term outlook, and medium to long-term drivers. Following that, there will be time for Q&A. I'll turn straight to slide five, which covers the key takeaways from the results. By any measure, FY 2022 was a very strong year. From a safety perspective, we achieved a record low in our Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate.
We produced a record EBIT, which was consistent with our updated guidance and reflected excellent margin per ton across all metal businesses, including SA Recycling. Operating cash flow for the year was over four times higher than FY 2021. Total intake volumes also returned to pre-COVID levels, driven by North America. These excellent results lifted our return on productive assets to 39%. Finally, we have lifted our cash flow distribution to shareholders by 74% in the form of dividends and share buybacks. Turning to slide six. There is a lot of good information on the slide about the progress we have made on our strategic initiatives. I'm not going to go through them one by one, but I will highlight a couple. Firstly, we purchased a large strategic site at Pinkenba in Queensland.
This provides us with the opportunity to build a world-class recycling facility, including the potential for processing of shredder residue through Sims Resource Renewal. I will talk about this in more detail later in the presentation. Secondly, both Sims and SA Recycling secured a number of well-priced and well-located acquisitions, and they are performing to expectations. This continues the theme of market consolidation, particularly in the U.S. Moving to slide seven. The overriding theme for FY 2022 is that we produced a record year while having to manage some of the most volatile markets we have witnessed. Underlying EBIT was nearly double the prior year. This was driven by a 57% increase in sales revenues on the back of exceptional ferrous and non-ferrous prices and sales volumes, which improved by 12% for Sims and 33% for SA Recycling.
Inflationary pressure on costs continued in FY 2022 and are almost certain to continue through FY 2023. We are currently looking hard at opportunities to reduce costs through productivity gains and other cost improvements to at least partially offset the impact of inflation. Additionally, the business delivered strong operational cash of AUD 548 million, and this enabled the funding of a AUD 0.50 per share final dividend, a 66.7% increase on last. Most critically, all of this was achieved with a strong safety performance. Slide eight provides a summary of the financial outcomes in a convenient table. I've already spoken about the profit and cash flow measures on the previous slide. However, it is worth highlighting the improvement in return on productive assets.
This capital efficiency metric, which we have used for several years now, grew from 23% last year to 39% this year, a 16 percentage point improvement. I'll spend the next few slides talking about non-financial measures, starting with health and safety on slide nine. The priority for me and all Sims employees is safety. It is therefore very pleasing to report that we had the lowest ever Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate, and this continued the improving trend across all our lagging safety indicators. Lagging indicators do not improve without proactive safety initiatives. We had over 12,000 corrective action improvements identified in FY 2022, with a particular risk focus on traffic management and ergonomics. Moving now to slide 10 on sustainability.
Sustainability is at the core of our business, and it is pleasing to see some recognition for the effort that our employees put into ensuring that Sims is a leader in sustainability. This year, we achieved significant progress on our climate strategy. We brought forward our carbon neutrality target by 12 years and completed the value chain emissions assessment. There are many measures, initiatives, and cultural behaviors that drive outcomes which leads to these awards. Slide 11 presents the progress on our FY 25 sustainability goals as an example of these measures, initiatives, and cultural behaviors. We're making good progress towards achieving our FY 25 sustainability goals, which are to operate responsibly, close the loop, and be a partner for change, highlighting just a few of these. Our commitment here at Sims is to achieve gender diversity across all layers of the organization.
We have just had the first cohort completing the program, Women Leading @ Sims. This is a great initiative to connect our global emerging female leaders, and the feedback from participants has been overwhelmingly positive. This program continues, and we're meeting the second cohort in September. We also achieved our target set out in the sustainability goals for board gender diversity ahead of schedule. We are pleased that today, four out of our seven non-executive directors of the Sims board are women. On the operational front, we also transitioned Claremont, our largest global site, to renewable electricity. From a Partner for Change perspective, we became a signatory to the UN Global Compact. Before I hand over to Stephen, I'll turn to slide 12, which sums up FY 2022 and the start of FY 2023. The charts highlight several important points. Firstly, volatility in FY 2022 has been very high.
Secondly, price for our main commodities began rapidly rising in late calendar year 2020. They peaked between March and April 2022, depending on the commodity, and have subsequently fallen closer to the FY 2021 average. Thirdly, the average FY 2022 price is significantly higher than FY 2021. Finally, freight prices have also come off the FY 2022 highs but display even more volatility than commodity prices. I will hand over to Stephen now to take us through the results in more detail.
Thanks, Alistair. I will turn straight to slide 14, which summarizes the group results and some key metrics. The substantial increase in revenue of 56.6% was driven by higher prices and volumes. This in turn led to a 43.6% increase in the trading margin of the metal segments as we nicely managed the metal buy-sell spread through the period. Operating costs increased by 24.4%. Internally stronger volumes, some catch-up in maintenance, and new businesses were part of the reason for the increase, together with higher incentives related to stronger financial results. Externally, the impacts of inflation increased throughout and placed significant pressure on costs. As Alistair mentioned in a previous slide, we're investigating sensible measures to keep costs under control. EBIT grew by 95.6% to AUD 756.1 million, which was a record result.
Slide 15 provides further breakdown of the AUD 369.5 million improvement in FY 2022 EBIT. There are two points worth highlighting. Firstly, the strong contribution from SA Recycling, which forms the bulk of the AUD 144.8 million improvement in JV contribution. Secondly, non-acquired growth in volumes contributed over AUD 100 million in EBIT. When this is added to the sizable AUD 307.8 million in margin growth, you get a AUD 412.7 million increase in margin from the pre-existing metal businesses, partially offset by a AUD 170.9 million increase in costs to produce an additional AUD 241.8 million in EBIT. On Slide 16, for convenience, we've summarized EBIT and volumes by division and provided trading margins for the metal businesses.
In this slide, I would like to highlight that our trading margin in percentage terms remains strong at 19.9%. It is slightly below the previous year because of high metal prices seen in FY 2022 and a higher mix of lower percent in margin on non-ferrous retail. The product mix is presented in the appendix slides for your convenience. Looking at our North America metal result on slide 17. NAM's sales revenue was up 66.8%, driven by higher sales prices and volumes. Sales were up 17.7%, while intake also improved. In fact, higher than pre-COVID levels. Trading margin increased by 55% as a significant proportion of the trading margin spread in percentage terms was retained due to higher commodity prices.
Operating expenses increased by a sizable 42%, largely driven by increased volumes, some catch up in maintenance, capital growth projects, and acquisitions. Inflationary pressures also continued to mount during FY 2022, driving costs higher. The end result was a 114% increase in EBIT to AUD 293.4 million. Turning to slide 18. Like NAM, ANZ also delivered a strong result. Revenue increased by 54% on the back of a 55% increase in sales prices. Sales volumes were flat. Trading margin increased by nearly 35%. Costs were up 16.5%, a significantly lower increase than NAM's due to flat volumes and immaterial costs from acquired businesses. Increased inflationary pressure was, however, a common theme shared with NAM. In total, underlying EBIT increased by 80% to AUD 186.9 million.
Moving to the UK on slide 19. Sales volumes increased by 9% and prices rose by 47%, resulting in a 60% increase in sales revenue. Due to market structure and competitive dynamics, UK was not able to hold on to as much of the sale price increase as NAM or ANZ, but it still improved trading margin by 23.9%. This resulted in a very respectable 53% increase in EBIT to AUD 69.8 million. Costs were up 18%, some of which related to a stronger pound against the Australian dollar. The timing of workforce mobilization and inflationary pressures were the other main contributors. Intake volumes were up 14% in FY 2022 compared to FY 2021, but still below pre-COVID levels due to a combination of closure of non-profitable sites and COVID-19 impacts. On to slide 20.
SLS experienced a disrupted and somewhat disjointed year. Repurposed unit volume grew by 29%, which was approximately three times the growth of the overall market. This increase was still less than expected, as supply chain constraints meant that data centers were not receiving new material, and therefore they held on to existing infrastructure. We remain confident that this material must eventually be repurposed and is only a timing issue. SLS EBIT fell by 25% to AUD 16 million. The largest contribution to this fall was the 30% reduction in prices for units resold, driven by reduced manufacturing activity in China due to COVID lockdowns. As the Chinese government imposed intermittent lockdowns in many parts of the country, the demand for units that were packaged for resale declined, lowering the price of those items. Moving to slide 21.
As promised, we are disclosing significantly more information over the next two slides on SA Recycling, given its significance to the group result. As with NAM, SA Recycling had a very strong year, with EBIT up 89% on FY 2021. Sales volumes were up 33%, which included the benefit of recent acquisitions, particularly PSC. Conversely, operating costs were up 58.5%, driven by new acquisitions and inflation. Underlying EBIT was up 89%. Slide 22 provides some historic context to the results. SA Recycling's trading margin percentage is relatively stable, but is higher than NAM's. This is a result of it buying much more at source, similar to ANZ. Consequently, its EBIT per ton in FY 2022 of $125.50 is more similar to ANZ's $122. Turning briefly to slide 23.
Increases in operating expenses in global trading and corporate were largely driven by internal reorganizations, where people were transferred into corporate and global trading, as well as increased incentives reflecting our improved financial performance. Sims Municipal Recycling returned to profit in FY 2022, benefiting from better paper and plastic prices. It is also worth noting that for the last five months of the year, we only consolidated 49.5% of EBIT due to the sale of the other 50.5% to Closed Loop on first February. Moving to our operating cash flow on slide 24. This chart bridges our EBITDA to operating cash flow. We invested a further AUD 58.8 million in working capital, mainly due to higher inventory levels as we confronted shipping challenges and an unprocessed material stockpile in Queensland due to flooding.
It is important to note that this is not a price risk on unsold inventory. It is slower inventory movement due to supply chain constraints. SA Recycling's policy is to pay approximately 60% of EBIT as a dividend quarterly in arrears and retain the balance for growth. In FY 2022, that meant that the cash flow distribution was $138.7 million lower than our recorded share of profit. The last point I will make on this slide before moving to slide 25 is that the conversion of NPAT to operating cash in FY 2022 was 94.5%, compared to 45.5% in FY 2021. The first point I will make on slide 25 is the benefit from selling non-productive and/or non-core assets and recycling that capital back into the business.
We will continue to show discipline around ensuring all assets on the balance sheet are earning their keep. Our strong operating cash flow allowed us to maintain a solid balance sheet as well as complete acquisitions totaling AUD 74.4 million, purchase the strategic Pinkenba site for AUD 93.5 million, maintain and invest in core growth assets totaling AUD 182.7 million, while also distributing AUD 264 million in the form of dividends and buybacks. My final slide is CapEx on slide 26. At the March Investor Day, we anticipated sustaining CapEx to be approximately AUD 130 million for FY 2022. It has come in a bit higher at AUD 148 million. The main reasons for the increase were, firstly, rolling some right-of-lease assets into outright purchases.
Secondly, needing to pay for long lead items much earlier than expected due to supply constraints. Finally, higher costs than anticipated due to inflation and competition for equipment. At the March Investor Day, we also estimated that FY 2023 sustaining and environmental CapEx would be approximately AUD 175 million. I'm seeing this closer to AUD 220 million now, largely due to increased spending on environmental CapEx together with increased costs from inflation. Regulations are correctly getting tighter around the world relating to the environmental sustainability of metal recycling operations. Overall, this is a positive for us as it both reduces unsustainable participants from entering the market and participants with poor environmental practices from remaining in the market, which supports the trend of consolidation in the industry. I'll now hand back to Alistair.
Thank you, Stephen. The next few slides provide an update on our strategic initiatives. Beginning on slide 28, which shows the progress towards achieving our FY 25 targets, first published in April 2019. Our strategy is enduring, and despite the last 2 years of COVID interruptions, we continue to advance towards realizing the targets. The next 3 slides look at our growth initiatives, including acquisitions. Turning first to slide 29. The metals business undertook 3 acquisitions in FY 22, and all are performing well. From a non-ferrous perspective, Alumisource was the most significant, delivering an annualized 77,000 tons in the second half of FY 22. Importantly, Alumisource produces a high-quality aluminum product using advanced technology in which Sims did not have the relevant expertise. Atlantic Recycling Group delivered an annualized 224,000 tons using FY 22 sales.
It provides more at source material, which is an ongoing strategy for Sims, allowing us to enter a complementary market and strengthen our already solid East Coast footprint in North America. Recyclers Australia is a much smaller acquisition and great example of a tuck-in consolidation that further enhances our Queensland operations. Turning to slide 30. I'm very excited about the opportunities provided by the Pinkenba purchase. It is a 14-hectare site, ideally located with a private deep sea port. The plan is to build an integrated facility that receives and processes scrap using best-in-class shredder technology. Potentially, the residue from the shredding process will be supplied on-site to Sims Resource Renewal to further process into other products, including hydrogen. This will virtually eliminate the need to send anything to landfill, and there are other carbon reduction benefits as well.
The port facility will allow us access to vessels up to 50,000 tons, providing scale advantages and also optimize logistics within Australian waters and between Australia and New Zealand. It is also worth mentioning that Pinkenba eliminates the risk associated with flooding at Rocklea, which happened again this year. Moving to slide 31. SA Recycling's recent acquisitions will add meaningful volume through the addition of 36 facilities and 8 shredders. SA Recycling's major locations are deliberately complementary to Sims. It also has export optionality with access to 3 deep water ports. The most important being in Southern California, where it exports through the deep sea port at the Port of Los Angeles. Turning to slide 32, which provides an update on SLS. It has been a difficult FY 2022 for SLS, as Stephen described on a previous slide.
Supply chain disruptions have meant new cloud material was sporadic, and cloud providers held on to equipment initially slated for replacement. Furthermore, the lockdowns in China severely hampered the reselling of components. None of these difficulties detract from the very strong medium-term opportunities for SLS, and it has continued to position itself well as a global leader in providing end-of-life cloud services. It has signed new contracts with large-scale cloud providers enabled by its strengths in customer service, newly designed circular centers, and global footprint. As a result, it has more than doubled its market share in 3 years. Moving to slide 33. The Rocklea pilot facility is progressing well and is expected to be operational in February 2023. Due to flooding at Rocklea, this is about 8 weeks later than originally planned. Proving the pilot plant is the next critical step in releasing funding for the full-scale operation.
As I've always said, we'll be very disciplined around committing capital. Simultaneous with the pilot plant process, we have accelerated the development of Pinkenba as the preferred location, and we are engaging with governments, stakeholders, and key partners. None of these activities require committed capital. The final slide in this strategic update is slide 34. On this slide, I summarize progress over the last year to deliver strategy by embedding a safety culture throughout the organization. A disciplined execution of our strategy to deliver FY 25 targets. Growing volumes organically and also by acquiring good businesses at reasonable valuations in NAM, Australia, and SA Recycling. Effectively recycling capital to fund growth. Enhancing the necessary building blocks in SLS in readiness for the inevitable increase in activity. Making substantial progress towards realizing the Rocklea pilot plant. Strengthening our sustainability credentials. I'll move on to now slide 35.
FY 2022 was, by any measure, a very strong year. We did, however, see a sudden softening commence in the latter part of June and thus has continued into July. The main driver of this softening is reduced demand for metal, driven by higher interest rates and slowing economies. As we begin FY 2023, ferrous prices have been as low as $320 per ton, but are currently closer to the $400 per ton. My sense is that we'll continue to see this volatility, but the lows will be higher than previous years. Non-ferrous prices have also come off, but not to the same extent as ferrous. For example, Zorba is still trading above $1,500 per ton. The rest of FY 2023 will be a function of how quickly and to what magnitude global markets recover.
This will drive the demand for steel and therefore scrap. Inflation will also play an important role. We are seeing significant cost pressures throughout the business, and while we are taking sensible measures to manage costs, we will only be able to partially mitigate the impact. I believe the impacts on our markets due to high interest rates and inflation will remain for much of FY 2023. This does not change the positive macro trends over the medium to long term. Infrastructure spending is required globally and it is metal intensive. Decarbonization is a global multi-decade issue for the metal industry. EAFs and recycled metal will play a vital role in achieving this. Cloud repurposing and recycling is an ever-growing opportunity that perfectly suits Sims' capabilities and sustainability credentials. Before I move to Q&A, I'd like to thank all Sims employees for the last 12 months.
You have delivered a great result, not only financially, but importantly also from a safety, sustainability, and strategy implementation perspective. Congratulations. Operator, back to 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're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Matthew Abraham with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi there. Good morning. Thank you very much for taking my question. My query just relates to trading margins, which, you know, we've spoken about a bit throughout the result. You know, historically, trading margins have been quite consistent, and that's something that you spoke about a bit at the investor days. You know, there's been this decline in trading margins at this result. Do we expect a reversion of the trading margins back to, you know, around that 22% for the group's level? Or can we expect this to be, you know, the go forward trading margin for the group now?
You know, Abraham, you can very much expect it to return. The point I would make is that at extremes, the trading margin percentage we're talking about, not, 'cause the trading margin in absolute terms are very much improved. On a per ton, very much improved as well. You look at North America was up 30% per ton. Australia was up 41% per ton. The U.K. was up around 14% per ton. If you've got prices at $650 versus prices at $200, your trading margin percentage will obviously vary. We had over FY 2021 very high prices. Just by definition, your trading margin percentage will fall a little bit.
I would still contend, though, that if you look back through history, it is still surprisingly more stable than dollar per ton. At the prices we're back down to now, you know, we're seeing around $400 per ton now. You would absolutely expect our trading margin percentage to return back to those sort of, you know, those early 20%-22% type level.
Okay, great. That's helpful. Thank you. Yeah, just to clarify, I am just talking about the percentage trading margin.
Yeah.
I acknowledge that there has been an increase in other, margin metrics. Just one point of clarification on that. You're saying that there is a reversion. Do you see that being, you know, the next half year result? Or what sort of period of time do you anticipate that reversion to take place?
Yeah, I would expect that by the half year result. You know, we manage margin very carefully. I restate my point that those really high prices, you would always expect to see the margin percentage be a little bit lower. Conversely, if you know, really low prices like we experienced, you know, a couple of years ago, down in the early AUD 200, you would expect to see the margin percentage higher. I mean, it's just mathematically, that's the way it would work.
Great. That's helpful. One more, if I may. So this query just relates to operating expenses. Again, something you've covered off on quite well, so thank you for providing that detail. You know, at the last half year, we spoke about operating expenses as well, and one of the comments was that there was, you know, a 40% increase in activity that was driving, like attributable to that OpEx increase. You've called out a couple of factors that are also contributing to a bit of this OpEx growth. Over what period can we expect or if we can expect a reversion of operating costs, you know, to a level that was prior to some of these steeper increases that we're observing?
I mean, volume will always. There's 2 very distinct aspects to it. You know, one I don't worry about and one I do worry about. Increases associated with volume, perfectly fine. It's what you would expect us to see. Same with acquisitions. That activity-driven stuff. The inflation one is obviously more concerning and something that we're going to focus on and are already focusing on, quite significantly. I think it's probably fair to say that we will, from a cost point of view, we will never, as you know, we're seeing these inflationary levels for the last, you know, 6 months, 12 months, whatever, at around, you know, 7%-9%, we will never be able to completely mitigate that from a cost point of view.
I would also make the point that generally speaking, there's a correlation between high inflation and high commodity prices. We'd have some natural hedge going on as well. I can assure you from a cost point of view, we are working diligently to combat as much of the inflationary increases as we can.
Okay. Just to clarify, can we expect an operating cost decline, you know, in the period, whether it be the next half year or thereafter? Or as you're saying, we won't be able to sort of mitigate these inflationary pressures and this could be, you know, a bit of a resetting of the cost base.
I think there is some, definitely some resetting of the cost base from result, as a result of inflation. I mean, I just think it would be too hard for us to sensibly, without damaging the business, pull out, you know, a compounding back-to-back 7%-9% increases. I think that's just too difficult. Just to reiterate my point, I think from an overall EBIT perspective, we do have a bit of a natural hedge going on with the correlation between inflation and prices.
Okay, great. That's helpful. That's it for me. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Megan Kirby-Lewis with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Oh, morning. Thank you for taking my question. Just firstly, just on the SA Recycling business, and you called out the higher EBIT per ton there. Can you just remind me of, I guess, sort of the differences between that business and yours? And then should we be thinking about sort of a trend towards the SA Recycling margin, or is there sort of a structural difference that would prevent that from happening?
Hi Megan, it's Alistair. There's a few issues. SAR, in particular, has a large supplier base, which is really what we call at source. In other words, there's no merchants really in between, George's business and the suppliers. That is a structural difference in particular in the regions that he operates in. The second point I'd make is obviously George's business in terms of size has grown quite a bit over the past year or so, and has a very strong presence of shredders, and acts as a factor that also absorbs. Slightly structurally different, and obviously a slightly different supplier base as well.
Perfect. Just on Alumisource, what are the plans for the rollout there for the next couple of years and the type of CapEx needed to increase volume?
Obviously the AlumiSource business is key part of our non-ferrous growth strategy, and we've got set targets for that. Obviously from a quality point of view, AlumiSource is something that we're wanting to strive and spread that further in our business in terms of higher levels of quality, and there's definitely growth trajectories for that business that is currently underway. As you've seen, the growth has, you know, outperformed what we expected initially, so it's a really well structured division with a very strong growth potential in it as well. The capital is not massive in terms of M&A. The capital literally to grow the AlumiSource division itself is more sustainability CapEx, a bit of quality improvements to some of the equipment. If any M&A come along, that would be a separate bolt on.
Perfect. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Scott Ryall with Rimor Equity Research. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you very much. I've two questions. The first one, Alistair, I guess is more strategic. You've certainly made hay while the sun was shining in fiscal 2022. I was wondering if you could just talk to some of the more strategic things that you might have done to protect yourself as the market, you know, inevitably was gonna come off at some stage and you've been pretty clear that you're seeing a softer market heading into fiscal 2023. You know, just give us a sense of what you've done in the last couple of years to, I guess, make your business a little bit more resilient to the downside, please.
Certainly. One of the key aspects for us was the structure of our organization and, we've had a large focus on systems in our business, the drive to one ERP system where we're really trying to centralize a number of our regions and structures across the group. This centralization obviously has a focus on efficiency but also has a reduced cost about it as well. It also gives us a much focus on live data. That for us, centralization has been obviously very key, centralization process for us. I think the other aspect as Stephen has alluded to in terms of capital, we've been very careful to spend capital.
Any M&A we've really looked at trying to do that without going into any debt, and hence some of the resale of assets we've had as well. I think the choice of the acquisitions we've made be it Alumisource or Atlantic Recycling Group in Baltimore all have good synergies, have all outperformed. I think that capital discipline always allows us to work between the highs and lows of the commodity cycles. The third part I would say is we've always had a focus on cost management across the business.
We do know that we're gonna hit highs and lows and I think the structure of the organization is key for that, but also the cost focus and the discipline of management around continuous improvement sort of culture that prepares us for, you know, the highs and lows of business cycles. I think overall strategically we've made the right choices. We haven't gone out and spent fortunes of capital and then we've just been very disciplined around how we manage the whole business. We've had to put structures in place and some infrastructure which is normal for a business our size. Overall I think we're well prepared.
Okay, great. My second one is just on Pinkenba, please. Could you just give us a sense, you're starting shipments anticipated in 2023, which you've said in the presentation. In terms of, I guess, the more ambitious potential development in Pinkenba, what's the timeframe for thinking about that, please?
We're still going through the pre-feasibility on that, and as you know, I would like to have an integrated facility. In other words, it's got intake shredders, offline recovery plants and some resource renewal all in one facility that allows us obviously to export, metal straight out of the port and also import or do dual loads. In other words, get a load from another state and pick up the Brisbane load and take it out. In other words, higher volumes in one ship. So a cost effective measure. From a timing point of view, we'll obviously have to go through quite a lengthy process in terms of permitting and the like, which I would think take another 18 months. In terms of shipping, this is allowing us to use that site because it has a currently operating wharf.
We can actually bring a ship in and export our shredded metal, you know, in 2023. Sorry, that is really what we're talking about there. That's not actually the actual build that we're talking about. That'll probably
No
around 24, 25.
24, 25. Perfect. That's what I was after. Thank you. That's all I had.
You're welcome.
Your next question comes from Megan Kirby-Lewis with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Hi again. Just in terms of the outlook commentary and the comments around the soft market conditions, should we be interpreting that as having an impact on volumes, or is it more just in relation to the price move?
Megan, look, it's obviously early start of the year, but very clearly the price decline, you do see an associated drop in volume. As it went down to 320, volumes obviously slowed, and as it goes back up to 400, we expect some of those volumes to start coming back. There is a bit of a lag between this. That elasticity between lower prices and higher prices definitely takes, you know, two, three months to flow back into the market. I think the focus for us is really understanding what the sort of medium outlook is and then managing our business accordingly, particularly in relation to costs.
Understood. Thank you.
Next question comes from Lyndon Fagan with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much. I was just interested in the FY 25 outlook slide on page 28. Obviously there's a lot going on there. I've got a bunch of questions on it. In order to process 120 kilotons of ASR per year, can you maybe provide a bit of the sense of the capital requirements for that and what sort of returns you believe that sort of project will generate?
120,000 tons is probably two shredders, ASR volumes that typically would come out of that. In terms of the target, that is obviously aspirational, and we obviously in the pre-feasibility study, as I mentioned around Pinkenba, because part of Pinkenba's volume is, you know, Brisbane shredders around 65,000 tons. If we can bring another shredder's ASR into to Brisbane, which is obviously what we're working through in the pre-feasibility, that would set the target of 120,000. We haven't set out any details on the actual cost of capital or the actual cost of that overall capital spend at this stage. We would like to finish the pre-feasibility first.
Thanks. I guess I've got similar questions around the desire to sort of acquire or build 50 MW. Is there anything you can talk about in relation to that and the capital requirements?
We did an acquisition in Florida 18 months ago?
18 months ago, yes.
Yeah. That wasn't very happy on capital. I think we sent out a note on the actual acquisition at the time. I don't have that on the top of my head, but we're very cautious with acquisitions in that part of the world as well. We went through a number of process steps before we purchased that facility. It's a very well-run facility and has the potential to almost double the actual megawatt in that facility itself without spending too much capital. We're probably gonna do that first before we actually acquire anything else.
Lyndon, the way I would think about it if I were you, is that I think you should be happy that we showed discipline around capital. The 50 megawatts is an aspirational target. If we can't find investments to get our IRR hurdle, which is 15% post-tax nominal. If we can't find, we won't invest just for the sake of reaching that target because that won't provide shareholders with value. Whether we get to 50 megawatts or not will be entirely a function of whether or not we can find projects that meet that minimum hurdle.
Great. I guess if we just go back a slide, so we've got AUD 220 sustaining CapEx next year. That appears to have gone up from AUD 150 this year. Am I missing something there?
No. We are definitely predicting a higher sustaining CapEx next year, and really driven and quite a lot by environmental CapEx that we're going to have to spend. The comment I would make there is that globally, the environmental standards, in our view correctly, are lifting quite substantially around what you need to be, you know, to run a shredder, what the environmental standards need to be, and we are going to have to spend money on meeting those environmental and exceeding those environmental standards. I think overall that is a good thing.
I think it provides. I won't use the word barrier to entry 'cause that's not quite what I mean, but it, I think it stops less scrupulous players from coming into the industry, and it holds existing players up to a higher standard, otherwise they will lose their licenses. I think overall that feeds into our theme of consolidation of the industry and the ability to buy some, you know, some bolt-on acquisitions.
Thanks. I guess just the total CapEx for next year, well, over AUD 300 million, that'll be, you know, a record amount, at least as far as that chart goes back. Is that the sort of spend we should be thinking about to deliver on that FY 25 slide with all of those ambitions? You know, should we be thinking north of AUD 300 per year CapEx is the new number for Sims?
No, I don't think you should because the biggest variable there will be growth CapEx, obviously, as to whether or not we get up to that type of level. That'll be a function of are there acquisitions that meet our minimum hurdle rate. I wouldn't view that as bedded in there at all.
Right. I guess just a final one for Alistair. I can't help but feel like the company is spreading itself quite thinly. There's so many different sort of opportunities being looked at. Can you perhaps talk about?
Whether there's an opportunity to shrink the portfolio a little bit and simplify it. I guess direct management attention more to the higher value-generating opportunities, or should we be thinking that there's all of these kind of startup businesses within Sims and it's a bit too early to actually look at which ones are core and which ones are non-core?
It is a good question. It's something that we do discuss, obviously. For us, about four years ago when we looked at the portfolio, obviously setting it out and then wanting to make sure that we get the best value out of each one of these divisions, was obviously a key focus for us. As I mentioned, previously, one of the key roles for us is then to look at these divisions, how they're performing now, and if they're not going to, you know, meet the future strategy and the growth potential we really want or expect from them, we certainly will make decisions to close or sell them off. That is always on the table for us, and I think from a focus point of view, you're absolutely correct.
We will be looking at that again in the next six months.
Okay. Thanks a lot, guys.
You're welcome.
Your next question comes from Simon Thackray with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
It's actually Simon Thackray. Hi, gents. Thanks for taking my question. Sorry, I was just on another call. You may have covered off on this, and I apologize. I just wanted to talk about your long-term commentary about diversification of end markets for both ferrous and non-ferrous. Can you just give us a sense of where you think you may be getting share growth in ferrous and non-ferrous, particularly again in the ferrous market with, as you rightly point out, the rise and rise of EAF production and which geographies are growing faster or slower than you expected?
Thanks, Simon. Obviously a focus for us, we have set out a number of those longer term targets. We have certainly focused on the USA as the growth opportunity for the consolidation and the growth of EAFs and obviously the growth in demand, and obviously also, you know, the performance of the USA business. That would be our primary focus, both in ferrous and in non-ferrous.
Just against that backdrop, Alistair, I mean, the shift, I guess from always being known predominantly as an exporter, and that was the shift in strategy some years ago. What do you expect going forward for domestic supply of scrap in North America to be?
Well, we still have the ability to obviously export domestically, you know, down through the Gulf.
Sure.
I think the combination of SAR and our NAM business is a very good mix, both feeding domestically as well as export. I think the export, you know, percentage, which, I think has been, you know, more focused towards, the Turkish or the Middle East area, that diversification we took to send volume down to South America, still exists and stays. We do have that opportunity, obviously, with our Chicago operations is to you know, grow that and continuously feed that into a domestic market coupled with George's business. I think we've got a good balance, Simon.
Oh, sorry, Alistair. I'm just sorry to be obtuse. I'm just trying to understand. What do you envisage for the mix of domestic versus export, you know, in say three years' time for the North American business?
I would still think that our East, West Coast are gonna focus on exports and probably the percentages remain as they are now.
Okay. Thank you so much for that. Appreciate it.
You're welcome.
Your next question comes from Matthew Abraham with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Hello. Sorry, just one more from me, if I may. Just on the trading margins, again, if possible. Just going back to that comment that you expect a reversion to the 22% group trading margin, at the next half year, and we spoke about the cost base, not reverting to, you know, prior levels because of that sort of sticky inflation. Can you just talk us through what you anticipate to be the key drivers of that trading margin reversion, you know, and given that we're sort of thinking that cost isn't going to decline from its current levels, is that then suggestive of an expectation for, you know, a pricing increase or potentially a mix change to drive that trading margin improvement?
Yeah, okay. Matthew, actually one point I didn't make previously as well, which I should have, is that there was part of the margin percentage which was a result of more non-ferrous as well.
Right.
Non-ferrous margin percentage is obviously lower than ferrous. Because, you know, if you're selling copper at $8,000 a ton, you know, you're going to make a lower margin percentage. You'd still make a very good margin per ton. I will clarify that. The other things are also. That's part of it. The other thing which will drive it is just simply where the price is, where the absolute price level is, that you know, we still have a margin per ton that we need to make to cover our costs, you know, to cover freight, to cover everything.
At $400 a ton, that margin percentage has to be higher than it is at $650 per ton. There's a certain amount of natural. It'll happen naturally, and when you look back through history you can see that. That would be my first point. The second point I would make is that, and I'm just repeating myself actually, is that, I was remiss in not referring to that non-ferrous margin percentage, as well.
Okay, there's a bit of a mix effect that's played out.
Yeah, there is definitely a mix. You know, Alumisource, the growth we're doing in North America around non-ferrous will have a mixed impact on the trading margin percentage. Clearly-
Right
the margin per ton will be growing.
Got it. Okay. You expect that mix effect to revert and normalize, which will be part of the drive of the uplift in trading margin?
If we're hugely successful in non-ferrous, you would expect that margin percentage actually to fall a little bit as well. You wouldn't expect it to fully revert. It will be a little bit of a function about what the Alumisource growth is, what the non-ferrous growth is in North America as well, 'cause that margin percentage is lower.
Yeah.
Let me really stress, you know, the dollar per ton is still excellent in non-ferrous and very strong.
Just one more on trading margin again. Apologies. The reversion and the mix effect and the uplift in margin, whether it be at a 22% or otherwise, can that be expected across each of the metal segments, or should we expect it to be more concentrated in one of those regions rather than the others?
I think that the overlay you put on top of this is the competitive environment and the market structure. I would say that I'm gonna make a general comment, and general comments are always a little bit dangerous. The general comment is you would expect it to be across the board because, you know, the same things hold true. The prices come down everywhere, and so therefore we need to make our dollar per ton, so therefore the margin percentage goes up. Overlying that, there is always different competitive tensions. Clearly, the U.K. market has a different structure and has always had a lower trading margin percentage, so maybe that will struggle a little bit more.
I would fully expect it in the U.S. and in Australia.
Okay, great. That's helpful. That's all from me. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Daniel Kang with CLSA. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Just a couple questions from me. Great to see the strong non-ferrous volume growth in FY 2022. Just wondering if you can talk about your expectations for growth into FY 2023, and also if you can comment on the recent pullback in Zorba Twitch pricing, how you see that panning out.
Thanks, Daniel. Obviously for us, we have the non-ferrous targets that we've set out for 2025. We're obviously carefully looking at opportunities to grow our business and that will continue. The expectations I have for 2023 are pretty much the same as you know the focus that we've had on 2022. Where we can find good acquisitions and bolt-ons, we're gonna do that in 2023.
Maybe I'll talk about the Zorba. I think Zorba margins have been surprisingly more robust than or sorry, Zorba prices than the ferrous prices. We've still got Zorba prices, you know, $1,600 per ton, thereabouts, admittedly off their highs of, let's call it $2,200 a ton. In percentage terms, a smaller price than we had in ferrous, which, you know, we peaked at, you know, maybe close to $700 per ton and got down to as low as 320, but back up to 400 now. The other thing I'd say is, you know, the Twitch, in a similar fashion to Zorba, Twitch prices are, you know, looking nice as well around that mid-1,500, 1,600 as well.
Oh, thanks, guys. Just on the SLS business, particularly, I'm interested in your best guess of when you expect supply chain constraints will ease up. Also really great to see that, you know, market share continues to be gained. Expecting that trajectory to continue into the next FY 2023?
Yes, I do think the logistics is gonna loosen up. We're seeing a little bit of it already. I think for 2023, we'll see that logistical supply chain open up. I think one of the issues is really gonna be around semiconductors and how that actually does come through to the US, and whether any growth of that product is created in the US, which obviously helps the logistics sides as well. That would obviously help the data centers and the refurbishing more new data centers that are coming in. We're hoping to see that improvement over 2023, in terms of the logistics setting it free.
From a market share point of view, yes, we are still expecting to see that same level of growth. We need to see that level of growth to hit the 8.5 million repurposed units by 2025. You know, I'm not seeing at the moment why they shouldn't be achieving that level of growth.
Great. Thanks. Just with the 30% cut in resale price, are we seeing any settling in pricing?
The price is still depressed for that resale, and it's very much driven by China. That price, it's a very simple thing. If and when China comes out of lockdown, the price will revert because most of that resale product, through brokers or whatever, finds its way into China, and that's where it's refurbished and resold out of. We need China to come out of lockdown.
Great. Thanks for that, Color. Thanks, Stephen. Thanks, Alistair.
You're welcome.
There are no further questions at this time, and that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.