Earnings Call: H2 2021

Aug 17, 2021

Thank you, and good morning. It's a pleasure to be delivering the full year 2021 results for CIMS. Joining me on today's call is the Group Chief Financial Officer, Stephen Mickelson and Chief Operating Officer, Global Metal Operations, John Blythe. A slide presentation that we will run through has been lodged with the ASX along with the results release. As you can see on Slide 3, the format for today is that I will run through a general overview of performance and the highlights for fiscal 2021. I'll then hand over to Stephen, who will take us through our financial results before I discuss some of the company's strategic priorities, short term outlook and medium and long term drivers. Following that, there will be time for Q and A. Now turning to Slide 4. After what was a very traumatic 2020, it is very pleasing to see the business bouncing back and performing so strongly. What started off as a solid first half has turned into an exceptional second half, delivering an annual underlying EBIT of $386,600,000 our strongest result in 13 years. All financial return measures across all business regions and divisions show significant improvement. Stephen will detail this shortly. I'm particularly pleased with our return on productive assets exceeding 20%. We have also continued implementing our long term strategy. Sims Resource Renewal now has planning development approval at Rockley. And after considerable analysis, We can confirm that we will be producing hydrogen from Campbellfield, not electricity. Latest modeling shows Campbellfield will materially exceed the 15% internal rate of return hurdle. Moving to Slide 5. This slide underlines my previous comment that all financial performance measures have materially improved. Cash balance is down, but this is entirely expected considering the extra working capital in the business from higher volumes, prices and the strong inventory position. Stephen will cover this in more detail later. While the full year dividend per share represents 600% increase over FY 2020. It is a lower power ratio than recent prior years. The improved proportional size of foreign source profit during FY 2021 resulted in a lower relative profit contribution from Australia and therefore insufficient franking credits for dividend payout ratio similar to recent prior years. The company has sought to find an appropriate balance between returning profits as dividends and ensuring those dividends are fully ranked. Accordingly, the FY 2021 final dividend who will be 50% frank. Moving to Slide 6, our safety slides. The good results and safety I presented at the half year have improved even further for the full year. I'm pleased to report our lowest ever recorded number of injuries. This was the major driving force to us also achieving our lowest ever total recordable injury frequency rate of 1.2. This was an excellent result following a concerted effort on critical risk incident management and continuous improvement of our environment, Health and Safety Management System and its framework. Moving now to Slide 7 on sustainability. Sustainability is at the core of our business. Earlier this year, we launched our FY 2025 and beyond sustainability targets. We are pleased with the progress we are making against these despite the COVID-nineteen disruptions. This past year, we have reduced our carbon emissions by more than 5%. We have started converting our electricity consumption to come from renewable sources Acosta Operations, with now over 12% coming from renewable sources. We continue to look at ways to reduce and eliminate our missions and have built a pipeline of projects that we've started implementing. I look forward to updating you as we continue to make progress. I'll briefly turn to Slide 8. Presented here for convenience is a summary of the Group financial performance. As always, business unit performance behind these high level results are covered in later slides. Also covered in later slides is the successful achievement of the promised cost savings and the main driver behind the significant Jim Item Adjustment, which is entirely a technical accounting matter. I'm turning to slide 9, which provides charts on market conditions. Looking at the charts, it's a pretty simple story. Ferrous and non ferrous prices have well and truly recovered from their lows in April 2020. The recovery has shown some volatility as you would expect, given the world is still dealing with COVID and that periodically produces illiquidity in the market. However, this also highlights our ability to navigate this volatility and protect and grow our margins. This has been greatly improved by our new global functional structure, bringing the buy and sell together under Michael Moffsas and Chief Commercial Officer, Sims Medall. I'm very excited about taking this to the next level of coordination once the new VLP is implemented and we will have a close to real time understanding of our global inventory position. Additionally, the COVID-nineteen pandemic has prompted unprecedented Fiscal Terminals Packages across the world, which has supported economic recovery. It is also pleasing to note that global volumes are returned to FY 2019 levels. This is currently not consistent across all regions with North America showing the best improvement. I'll hand over to Stephen and now to take us through the numbers in more detail. Thanks, Alastair. I'll quickly move through Slide 11, which shows for convenience the summarized EBIT and volumes by division. I won't talk any further on this slide, Vixler's subsequent slides 12 to 18 contain more detail and I'll expect each of them separately. Moving to North America on Slide 12. 3 strong themes across all metal regions. Firstly, higher prices combined with excellent margin management have reduced a significant uplift in margins per tonne. Secondly, everyone has delivered on the cost savings initiatives. Finally, sales were materially up over FY 2020. The unique aspect to NAND's result is that in the second half, the average monthly intake volumes Exceeded FY 2019's average. Data shows that economies that have been enjoying higher levels of activity as measured by the latest PMI are those that have eased restrictions the most. What we saw in the U. S. Was manufacturing activity reaching strong levels in the second half of twenty twenty one. And just to emphasize how strong the recovery has been, March Manufacturing Sector Index was the highest in 37 years. Turning to slide 13. ANZ performed well lifting underlying EBIT by over 100%. The same themes drove this improvement as mentioned on the previous slide. ANZ continued to show good signs of recovery in its intake tonnes of the low of the first half of FY twenty twenty one. However, it is still below the average monthly intake experienced in FY twenty nineteen. We expect business activity returning to normal will help lift volumes to the FY 2019 levels, although this will be volatile, as evidenced by the reintroductions of lockdowns we have all experiencing to varying degrees and severity. Moving on to slide 14 and UK Metal. In many ways, I find the turnaround in the U. K. To be the most impressive of the 3 regions. It is not just the significant uplift on last year's results, but it also represents well over 100% underlying EBIT improvement on the FY 2019 results. Sales and intake volumes have increased, margins have risen and a disciplined cost control program have combined produced a significantly improved outcome. Intake volumes remain a fair distance below FY 2019 levels, but much of this was deliberate as we closed loss making sites in FY 2020 that were producing unprofitable volumes. Turning over to Slide 15, I will run through CIM's Life Cycle Services results. GSLS has had a great year and is now delivering on the strategy and EBIT uplift promise we have been talking about for the last 18 months. We have developed strong relationships with many of the major providers of cloud services. On a like for like basis, the business has lifted underlying EBIT by 651.7 percent to produce a meaningful $21,800,000 result. We've learned a great deal about the market and our position in the market. We have developed a more meaningful measure of the market and therefore our share of the addressable market. The measure is repurposed units and Alistair will cover this in more detail later in the presentation. Moving on to SA Recycling on Slide 16. By any measure, SA Recycling has had an outstanding year. We haven't specifically discussed SA Recycling in the last couple of years. Sir Alister has included a discussion on them in the strategic progress and outlook section of his presentation. The overall themes for ethane recycling similar to the other metal businesses. Higher prices, combined with excellent margin management, have produced a significant lift in margins per tonne. There are 2 further drivers of their results, however. Firstly, due to the competitive dynamics of where they operate, Increased sorbit sales prices don't always materially raise prices intake trend and therefore the sales price increase flows through to the EBIT line. Secondly, their volumes have recovered to well above FY 2019 levels. This is a combination of acquisitions and a faster recovery in the states in which they operate. On to slide 1718. The material points to note on these two slides are firstly, increased expenses in corporate due largely to increased variable employee expense benefits in FY 2021. In FY 2020, variable employee expenses were close to 0. Secondly, there are early green shift signs of recovery in SMR as market prices show some increases. Remember, they made a loss of $2,800,000 on a constant currency basis for the first half of FY 'twenty one, that managed a $6,300,000 second half to produce an annual EBIT of $3,500,000 And finally, LMS produced a very credible result despite the collapse in electricity and related products pricing. I'll now move over to slide 19. Very pleasing to note that we delivered $75,000,000 of predominantly fixed cost savings compared to FY 'nineteen. This is $5,000,000 better than our original target of $70,000,000 This is a particularly good result if there are not many costs that are genuinely 100% fixed across different volumes outcomes and FY 'twenty one volumes were a bit higher than we originally thought when setting the target. Moving on to slide 20, which looks at the cash position. Understandably, the closing cash balance was lower than the opening. This was almost entirely driven by an increase in working capital due to much higher prices and a very strong inventory on hand position at the end of the year. It is also worth noting that there is a lag in dividends received from SA Recycling. Dividends are received quarterly in arrears and therefore only the Q3 of the very strong second half result has been received in cash. The 4th quarter dividend of $42,400,000 will be received in the Q1 of FY 'twenty two. Turning to slide 21. As you all will be aware, a CapEx freeze was instituted when we first entered the COVID pandemic. It was slowly eased over FY 'twenty one, which resulted in FY 'twenty one sustaining CapEx of $88,000,000 being above the $75,000,000 of FY 'twenty. We need to catch up on this in FY 2022 and are currently forecasting $160,000,000 for sustaining CapEx. This will take the 3 year average across FY20, 'twenty one and 'twenty two to a more normal level and closer to depreciation excluding leased assets. We will also commence our first Significant Capital Expenditure on resource renewal in FY 'twenty two. On to Slide 22. I need to spend brief periods talking about the impact of yet another left field accounting change and the impact it has had and will have on the recording of costs associated with implementing the ERP. Firstly, let me make this very clear. The change does not impact cost, It does not impact cash and it does not impact the benefits we expect to realize. Put simply, we can no longer recognize the ERP as an asset and we have to expense it entirely as it has occurred. For FY 2021, we've had to write off expenditures to date of $60,800,000 For the next couple of years, as we complete the ERP, I will call it out and present EBIT excluding that expenditure. You may, of course, treat it how you want when performing your analysis. The point is that I will be very transparent with the number. I'll now hand back to Alastair. Thank you, Stephen. The next few slides are going to look at SA Recycling in a little more detail as well as our cloud initiative and progress on Sims Resource Renewal. Firstly, to SA Recycling on Slides 24 25. Firstly, an update for everyone as to where SA Recycling operates. As you can see from the map, SA Recycling has significant operations in Southern California and throughout the South and now reaches over to Florida on the East Coast. This footprint nicely complements CIM's footprint of broadly Northern California, Chicago and the East Coast. SA Recycling has quietly gone about acquiring some excellent assets over the last 5 years in strategically important locations. These ten acquisitions have added approximately 600,000 tonnes per annum in FY 2021 compared to FY2017. Slide 25 also shows the upward trajectory in the production of Zorba. As with Ferris, SA Recycling operates in markets where it gets a lot of the sorbet at source, which results in better margins. SAR also has unique operational advantages over its competitors in the markets it operates, allowing them to benefit more from higher sorghum pricing because they do not have to raise their buy prices for shredded feed at the same rate. Moving on to Slide 26 and the great strides SLS is making. It still remains early days for SLS and its plans to become the premier provider of services that minimizes waste as the cloud continues its astonishing growth. SLS's value proposition of providing sustainable, Safe and Secure Solutions at Scale has proven to resonate well with our customer base, which currently includes some of the top 50 global digital companies as ranked by Forbes. We are developing with the market. The focus for our sustainable customers is moving towards redeploying, reusing or selling material at its end of cloud life rather than simply recycling it through a shredder. We have adapted to this and the key measurement we are monitoring is the number of repurposed units we provide. In FY 2021, we repurposed 2,100,000 units, up 26% over FY 2020 and we are forecasting 2,600,000 units in FY 2022. To put this in context, the size of the market is huge. It is estimated there to be 85,000,000 units in the cloud and storage alone, which is a big driver of units and is expected to grow at 2 50% over the next 5 years. Turning now to Slide 27 and Sims Resource Renewal. It has been a big year and a successful year for SRI. Importantly, we received statutory planning approval for the Rockley pilot facility. We intend to prove up this proprietary technology and deploy it at Large Scale at our Global Sites. We completed a significant trial at scale using our shredder residue at a demonstration facility in Oregon, USA. This confirmed that our Campbell Peel facility will produce hydrogen from syngas rather than generate electricity. Carbon dioxide that is produced from the Syngas process at Camberfield will be fully captured and because of it is such a high purity, it is likely to be sold into the food and beverage industries. Avoiding sending shredder residue to landfill makes such good sense for us. It contributes to our purpose, which is to create a world without waste to preserve our planet. We also expect it to add significant value well beyond our 15% internal rate of return. It removes the significant and growing cost of landfills and provides revenue streams through the sale of hydrogen and food grade carbon dioxide. Onto my last slide on the FY 2021 results and outlook. In summarizing fiscal 2021, It is really pleasing to see the business delivering financially for our shareholders. It is also pleasing to see substantial progress on our strategic initiatives, which will provide shareholders with solid and growing revenue streams from adjacencies to our metal recycling business. FY 'twenty two has started very well. The consistently strong quarters in the second half of FY 'twenty one have continued into July actual results. COVID still remains the biggest direct and indirect risk to disrupting this very good start, whether it be through disrupting demand, supply or the supply chain. Looking further ahead into the potential drivers of the medium to long term, we expect to see the impact of stimulus spending to increase the demand for recycled metal, whether it be infrastructure spending or retail consumption. Our view is that cloud repurposing and recycling is an ever growing opportunity that perfectly suits CIM's capabilities and sustainability credentials. Global Decarbonization is a Multi Decade Issue. Steelmaking and Electricity Generation are huge industries that must make significant contributions if we are to achieve a lower carbon world. Recycled metal will play a vital role in this. Finally, I would like to thank all Sims employees. FY 2020 was a really challenging year and it would have been easy to slow down in FY 2021 as the business improved. Rather, our employees have captured the opportunities in a very safe and sustainable manner. Congratulations to all of you. Operator, back to you. Thank you. Your first question comes from Lee Power from UBS. Please go ahead. Morning, Alex. Yes, Steven. Can you maybe just talk a little bit around, you talked about a strong start to 'twenty two. What kind of run rates have you seen thus far comparing to what you talked to in the second half? Thanks, Lee. Yes, July certainly has continued the trend that we saw in the 3rd and 4th quarters of '21. So yes, a really good start. Okay. And then, I mean, I guess it's hard because there's been so many disruptions across the business. You can see that in terms of the intakes with ANZ, I mean is SAR, can we use that as a guide, The cleanest guide is to where intake volumes would be without kind of COVID disruptions ex the acquisitions obviously? Naturally, it does differ from region to region. SAR has had a really strong performing year across its whole southern region of the United States. And Obviously, from a regional point of view, those states have obviously economically operated far sooner than the other New Jersey, New York that was shut down for quite a bit of the first half last year. But it does go from region to region. The UK has probably been a little bit more consistent in and out COVID. Australia has typically, as you can see from last year, improved. But I do get the sense that the period that we're in now We'll just create a buildup of material and that will be released, I would suspect, once COVID lockdowns have closed. But it is regional. I think SAR is quite unique in its operation in Southern USA. Yes, I guess it's just hard trying to split out what's COVID and what's just the recovery because it obviously seems to have come back probably slower than I would have thought. In terms of SIM's lifecycle, can you just maybe give us an idea of the percentage of EBIT that comes from repurposed resale units and maybe how the margin differential between doing that versus shredding the product? I'll comment and then I'll hand over to Stephen. Obviously, for us, shredding is not the ideal in terms of margin operation and Our movement of measurement of that business from tons, which is typically a metal play, which is all about shredding is obviously not what our customers are seeking. So That switch and that ability to listen to the customer from that division was very focused on listening and then obviously switching to a refurbish, reuse, resale type proposal and that is certainly from a margin improved basket compared to just a shredding operation. So Stephen, I don't know if you want to comment. Yes, sure, Alastair. So the two points I'd make. Firstly, The contribution from repurposing reselling, redeploying is getting larger and larger. During the year, there was still a reasonable contribution from the straight recycling. But what I would say is, We see the growth. So we see the numbers going forward. It's going to be the repurposing business, which or the repurposing Product or the offering is going to be by far and away the most significant part of the growth because that's the way that our customers are wanting to go. I mean, They're all trying to achieve sustainability standards as well. And I guess the gold standard of sustainability is reusing, redeploying, repurposing. Sorry, just the and the second part sorry, I just forgot the second part of your question there. Yes. So the first part was just on percentage, you have an idea of how what percentage is still to go with? And then, there was a question around relative margin, but it sounds like So the relative margin of repurposing is much, much larger because it's mainly done as a service, if you like. So we're not taking on ownership. So we don't we can recognize a sale and then take a margin off that. We provide that as a service. The actual margin is significantly larger. Yes. Thank you. I might leave it at the moment. Thanks. Thank you. The next question is from Peter Stein from Macquarie. Please go ahead. Good morning, Alastair and Keon. Thanks very much. Just wanted to hone in briefly on the SAR. With that $85 a ton EBIT margin, just curious exactly how much was essentially attributed to, let's call it, this extreme level of profitability by being able to delay intake price increases. Can you give us a bit of a sense of that? Okay. Sorry, I'm going to assume that it's slowly normalizing. Yes, I'm happy to answer that one. If you like, Alistair, it's a little bit more We're all dealing remotely on phones and we can't be together. So if you're happy, Alastair, I'll go with that. I think describing it, I mean, it is definitely good margins. Extreme margins, I think, is describing it a little dramatically. What we're looking at as well at the moment is if you look at the and it's across all of our businesses, not just across not just across SIR. If you look at the margin percentage, it's actually it's really a lot more stable. And what's happening is that Our margin percentage, we're holding fairly steadily just across a higher price. So really The view about whether or not that margin per ton will normalize and I use the word normalize and inverted covenants and come back down to A sustainable level is really a function of the price. So it's what you think about, what you view the price of the product is going to be and then the margin is a percentage terms of that sales falls out of that. So, I think that's a much That's a much more stable way of looking at it. I'm not sure if that makes sense or not, Peter. Yes. Thanks, Steve. So, yes, it does. I guess, we can probably take the coloring in of that offline. I guess I'm just curious whether the competitive That you have in SAR, therefore, begets at these kind of prices a sustained level of Margins. So you would not expect any degradation in that $85 a ton if current conditions remain? The history would show that our margins would be maintained, yes. But I mean, These are very these are high prices. And you would I guess, over time, you would expect some competitive reaction. But the high prices also draw out high volumes and so supply is there as well. So it's a dynamic equation. What I would say is that our margin percentages actually stay surprisingly stable Across all of these price ranges. Okay. Thanks, Stephen. Appreciate that. And then just a quick question on the Sims Resource Renewal. You started the start up first half of calendar 'twenty two. How are we to think about the return profile? Does it ramp up reasonably quickly? Or is there a bit of Process involved in that, if you wouldn't mind just giving us a bit of a sense, Alastair. Sure. We'll probably the Campbellfield facility will obviously become operational more in the beginning of 2023. So that period of commissioning typically takes 3 to 4 months. And I think, obviously, depending on how we contract negotiations with regards to the offtake products that we're going to produce. But I would say that it's going to be fairly slow and we want to get very comfortable with the operation of that. So I'd say over the following 2 years, it's starting to see a good return. Perfect. Yes, sorry, I was picking up the rocky dates. Perfect. Thanks. Thanks, Alastair. Appreciate it. No problem. Thanks, Peter. Thank you. The next Question is from Simon Sakwa from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Thanks. Good morning, Alex. Good morning, Stephen. Thanks, Simon. And a follow on from one of Lee's questions, if I may, just in terms of the external trading environment. Just in terms of between ferrous and non ferrous, I mean, Your own chart is showing just a slight softening in pricing. But where are the key export markets that you're seeing Still encouraging signs of growth in both ferrous and non ferrous at the moment? I think when you look at Farris. We've obviously, as you know, Simon had a diverse strategy in terms of not only just feeding Turkey, which is typically off the East Coast of the U. S, We've obviously gone into the sort of the whole Middle Eastern region. That area still for us outside of Turkey, there are still opportunities over there from market. South America, obviously, that depends on the economies, but we do obviously diversify around South America. But I think part of the challenges is where the demand is picking up and that is quite different at different times of the year and we're seeing And Australia has obviously got a very strong domestic market currently. And therefore, we're selling into Southeast Asia like most folk are, but not directly into China. And I think there are Southeast Asian markets Feeding China and we're obviously Feeding Southeast Asia. So it's a bit of a push and a pull. But I think we're quite diversified across the globe. There's no real clear suddenly start out. And I think part of that is also to do with where By COVID at the moment, we're seeing Southeast Asia a little bit quieter. They're going through quite a challenge as we are in Australia. Indeed. No, that's helpful, Alastair. And appreciate very much the bit more detail there on SAR. It's extremely helpful. I just want to get a sense of SAR's market position in the U. S. In non ferrous in In terms of its relative size, particularly post all the acquisitions it's made and how consolidated that market is already? Are there additional For SAR. So it's size now and the consolidation opportunities, SAR. Sure. SAR obviously has a really strong retail non ferrous business as well as the products that they put through their shredding facilities, which generate Zorba and Twitch. The opportunities for them continue. They are I'm extremely good at bolt on acquisitions, small at source material opportunities. So I still think there's room for growth for SAR in the United States field. I think non ferrous is obviously a strength of theirs as well as Ferrous. So I think they would always approach it on what is the best opportunity and it could be in both Ferrous or non ferrous or just a singular non ferrous company if there was an opportunity. There's not many outside those that are owned by steel companies, large non ferrous opportunities just flying around, otherwise they would have been taken already. But no, it's a good performance from that group and quite focused and strategic. No, that's super helpful. And then just a couple of housekeeping ones. I mean, I noted that in all regions other than North America, headcount is down again, but the North American headcount just went up pretty much in line with volume. Just want to understand where we are on that journey and how much The headcount reduction contributed to cost out. And do is that it, I guess, now from rightsizing The business from a headcount perspective and will that headcount just sort of grow more in line with volume now? That's a good question. So Obviously, in North America, we did open a number of feeder yards. As we've shared with you, we do have some organic growth and those yards obviously opening up and obviously acquire or require personnel. I think the volume ramp up obviously is obviously a component of our variable costs and that we have seen that go up to match and that would continue to mean same story for declines. But I think from a headcount point of view, we're not going after any a purposeful reduction. I think we've got a lot of work on our plate and a lot to deliver. So at this stage, it's pretty much status quo in that point. Alex, I think it's worthwhile adding that in terms of maintaining the cost out that we've got. We do need to get the ERP up and running as well because we are going to get consolidate the savings around centralizing and standardizing our global processes. So, I wouldn't expect, Simon, I wouldn't expect any further sort of major Cost reductions, I think we did really well with what we've done. Yes. And it's now getting it's now about consolidating around that. That's helpful. And while I've got you both there, one final follow-up on the dividend. You've just looked at the $0.30 final, I think the market would have the Street had about $0.50 for the final Dividend, can you just talk to the decision around the $0.30 ordinary for the final dividend? Yes, sure. So It's all to do with ranking credits. We our actual statement that we made to the market back in April 2019 and one that we continue to make Is that our desire is to pay 100 percent frank dividends, which at the end of the day means that to pay 100% frank dividends, They're only generated in Australia. They're not generated anywhere else. Even in the ANZ result, you've got to back out New Zealand, you've got to back out Papua New Guinea, You've got to back out transfer pricing of corporate costs. So it's only Australia that produces them. Now the issue we've had is everyone's done everyone's Had a great year, very, very good year, including Australia, but the proportional size of the foreign sourced earnings has now got higher. So we decided that we would back away a bit from our paying 100% frank dividends and go for 50% frank dividend. But as you point out, mathematically, that results in a lower payout ratio, despite the higher profit. Okay. All right. Thanks. I'll leave it there. Thanks, gents. I appreciate it. Thanks, Simon. Thank you. The next question is from Peter Zolfson from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Thanks. Good morning. Good morning, David. Can I just clarify on the comments of FY Anjou, starting well and continuing the trend? Do you mean that in an earnings sense, I. E. The earnings Over the last two quarters you repeated? Or do you mean that in a volume sense that volumes have continued at 95% plus of FY 2019 levels? Yes, volumes have continued as well as earnings. Yes. Okay. So given that, and I guess that given that prices are high, but they're stabilized, what you're saying is that in the second half of 'twenty one, There was nothing exceptional in those results related to timing and the change in price. It was There's nothing exceptional in second half twenty twenty one that you want to call out? Alastair, I'll have the first. So, the direct answer to that would be no in the sense that, FY 'twenty one the second half of FY 'twenty one Was very consistent quarters and pretty consistent months. You always get some variability. So what it did reflect is, as I said before, it simply reflects the margin percentage we make at that price. So there was no particular when you look over the whole 6 months, there was no particular exceptional Gains on inventory position or anything like that. It was just a very good management margin management 6 month period. Okay. And in terms of the strategic targets, Is there any update on the ferrous targets for FY 'twenty five? I noticed there wasn't any bullet point there. Are those targets still in place? Yes, they are. Those targets obviously were set 2, 3 years ago. We obviously do have a program of work that we undertake to achieve those targets, and we're on that journey. Obviously, acquisitions get slowed down during pandemics, etcetera, but we still have the file and we obviously still progressing some of that. So both organic as well as bolt ons. When would you expect to see material progress there? Is it this year or is it in latter years? No, we're obviously busy with that now. So some of these take a little bit longer given travel restrictions around at the moment, but in the next couple of years, we certainly should be acquiring. Okay. And then on cash flow, Stephen, So you attributed much of the poor cash outcome to an increase in working capital and inventories as well as the 1 quarter delay of the SAR dividend. Can you confirm whether as of, I guess, the end of July or today, what that cash balance is and whether those two factors have reversed? I can confirm that they are certainly starting to reverse. I write better quite the number on the call. I guess they are starting to reverse. And I guess what it is and at these pricing levels where you've got Zorba at $1600 $1700 you've got Firis at $450,000 $500,000 some cases even above $500 Our main focus is on optimizing EBIT. And so therefore, we didn't take a position to maximize cash flow at the year end, which we could have done. I mean, we could have, I think done some suboptimal sales early to make sure that the cash was in by the 30th June and we would have produced A significantly higher cash balance. I'm just looking at the numbers in the 4E that we quote. There's about another $300 odd 1,000,000 we've got in inventory in June 30, 2021 versus June 30, 2020. We could have taken a view to, if you like, clear the decks, but I think that would have been a suboptimal outcome from an EBIT point of view. And we took the decision, I think the correct decision that we should be optimizing EBIT and the cash flow for where the cash falls. And At the end of the year, we had a lot of money in working capital. Can I ask what the strategy is there? I guess many other businesses would seek to minimize inventories when you're at peak prices. So I'm just wondering what the strategy there is and effectively kind of what pricing environment You're anticipating. Right. So let's make clear those inventories at the year end are not unsold. They are inventories that are sold that we haven't yet Rich or largely sold that we haven't yet received the cash for. So our strategy is 1 around risk management where we constantly monitor sales price versus what the data we're getting back and the input we're getting on buy price. And we look to clearly, we look to minimize risk and maximize margin in that equation. The cash is the final outcome. Don't worry, the cash definitely flows, but it's the final outcome. And just the way we The way the market was in the last few months of FY 2021, it just means that we had more inventory on hand, Sold inventory, not inventory that we were sitting there waiting for the we didn't make those big decisions, let's go long inventory because we think the price is going to rise And hopefully that will be the better outcome. It was completely not that. It was a constant managing of our margin, optimizing that equation on EBIT and then the cash flow through Cash Flow. Solid inventories. Got it. That's all for me. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from Daniel Kang from CLSA. Please go ahead. Good morning, Alastair. Good morning, Stephen. Hi, Daniel. Hi, Daniel. Hi. So I just wanted to Maybe a quick update on, I guess, scrap market conditions, if we can just go around the regions. We have seen prices ease back in recent weeks as pig iron prices soften. Also in that context, if you can talk about recent and likely China policy moves? Certainly. Look, I mean, the regions are varied. As I mentioned, Southeast Asia from a Ferris point of view, fairly quiet. We've seen some challenges in Turkey, be it floods, fires, etcetera, but the demand seems to be consistent in July, August from the shipments that we're seeing. So I think Turkey, with its COVID, seems to be managing very well through this period of time. So we are not expecting any changes around that at this stage. I think China in terms of its growth, it's such a large beast and it turns around very quickly. We don't sell ferrous directly into China. As you know, it's more non ferrous and our non ferrous business is quite diversified as is the Ferrous business. The policies that China have opened up in terms of ferrous, we have not seen a large uptake in that. It is sort of opinion that, that will start picking up in the coming years. The non ferrous, I think we're still seeing quite a strong drive for copper aluminum via the auto industry and obviously the shortage in semiconductors as well. So I think both ferrous and non ferrous from a global point of view, Whilst there seems to be a bit of a lull at the moment, that's part of that is also the Northern Hemisphere has that summer holiday and we do expect Northern Hemisphere to be fairly quiet during these periods. But the prices seem to be holding up. There still seems to be demand and there is obviously the promise of Stemetis across the globe. So, I think fairly positive in our view. Thanks, Alex. Great color. I guess on the other side of the equation, I'm interested in your take of the level of buying competition for sourcing scrap. Obviously, it was an issue when Prices were a lot lower a few years ago. Have the increased supply from higher scrap prices meant reduced competition for the buy price? Yes, just a bit of color around that, that would be great. Sure. I think part of it depends on what we're buying. So if you're talking about high quality and ferrous material, be it in the U. K. Or Australia, there is obviously still competition for that, particularly that which is the opportunity for non ferrous material within that purchase. So I think there is definitely when you take Australia as an example is some competition for particularly motorcars because of the high value in non ferrous product fare on. So I think that's where you're starting See or continue to see good competition is around the non ferrous purchase globally. Great. And just lastly in terms of SLS, can you just remind us of the competitive landscape, who your key players, I guess, key rivals are? You've seen some good growth there. Are they really mainly regional local players? Look, the focus for us has been North American. We're a global operation and that's part of the offering we have with these large tech players. So I think being able to meet the customer expectations of being a listed company, a sustainable company, global operations, does put us into a different level against the local competitors. So I'm sure there are competitors that are in and around the North in region, but it's really our positioning as a global player that I think is really the advantage at this stage. So there's nobody that stands out other than the companies themselves wanting to do that work. So your customers are global are mainly all global players? Yes. Got it. That's it for me. Thanks guys. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you. The next question is from Lyndon Fagan from JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Thanks very much. I was hoping to pick up on the conversation around managing the business for EBIT rather than cash. I guess I couldn't help but think managing the business for cash would give you more cash to pay dividends and shareholder returns. I'm wondering if you could perhaps walk me through the rationale there a little bit. Yes, Stephen here. So I made the statement, so I guess it's my obligation to justify it. This is a short I mean, we know This is a short term thing. What we do is when by managing the business for EBIT, we're managing risk. And That's what we should be doing. We should be minimizing and might be minimizing the gap between the time we buy and the time that we sell, We can't buy and sell instantaneously. So we tend to I'm talking Ferris in particular here, which is where the bulk of the cash flow is. We sell in large shipments, 30000, 50000 tonnes at a go, and yet we're buying on a daily basis. So managing that risk It's very, very important. I guess the point I was making was that by managing for EBIT and managing for cash flow, I mean, a value point of Centura managing for the identical amount. We're only talking maybe weeks of difference between When the EBIT is recognized and when the cash flow happens. And I guess my point was that, in particular, as we were coming into the End of June, we just saw we saw opportunities to be maximizing EBIT And the cash flow just flows a little bit later. The cash flow flows in July, August And that just seemed a more appropriate way of doing it as opposed to saying, well, let's get $20,000,000 on the 30th June rather than on the 5th June and yet we're sacrificing we're either taking on more risk or we're sacrificing dollars 500,000 of EBIT. I understand it's a trade off, but I think we got the trade off right. Okay. And I guess the other thing I was hoping to do is a bit of a bridge between your EBITDA, which is $580,000,000 and your operating cash flow, which is $129,000,000 I know there's give or take $30,000,000 of tax and interest, but Obviously, all of that's working capital. Are you able to break it down a little bit and maybe Give a sense of whether some of that unwinds in a material way next half? Or do we actually make a downturn to really see that working capital come off. I guess, Yes, it will unwind. I mean, but in order for the whole lot to fly back and you would need to see a decline in the market and it flows back pretty quickly then, which gives us, I guess, a natural hedge against declining markets from a cash flow point of view. But provided the prices stay around these levels and we're seeing the EBITDA that we're performing, eventually that working capital will flow through the business and yet we may have had a one off investment in that working capital. But from then on, you would expect the EBITDA conversion to be pretty good like it has historically. I guess what I'm saying is, At these price levels, you're not going to see us constantly increasing the working capital like we have as prices have moved from $2.50 up to $500 So I would expect to see a much better EBITDA conversion in FY 'twenty two. Great. So there's no easy way of splitting How much is related to? The bulk of its inventory. I mean, if you look at it, if you look at it, if the Obviously, the results have just come out. But if you go into the detail of the 4E, you will see there's a cash note in there and an inventory note in there. And you'll see that the bulk of it comes from inventory for two reasons. Firstly, yes, we are carrying more inventory at the year end than we were in June, but I must stress that that inventory was largely sold. It was not a position we were holding. It was Just that's what it was. But secondly, clearly the price of that inventory is significantly higher as well. Yes. I guess I was just trying to get down to whether there was a missed shipment or several missed shipments or anything like that that might have Might unwind fairly quickly, but that's Everything we did was deliberate. Like there was not there was not we weren't impacted by Anything in particular where we thought a ship was going to come in and be fully loaded and out on the night of 30th and then ended out on the night of 2nd. Everything we did Was a deliberate plan. Yes, great. And Alistair, if I may, I just wanted to touch on growth. So I guess, Sims has now got a bunch of things going on. You've got the traditional scrap business, but then with Recycling Cloud Infrastructure, where we're trying to extract value from waste dumps. I'm just wondering what your sort of how you rank These opportunities as far as growth, what is the top of the list in terms of your priorities to grow the business? Is it more Traditional scrap, is it the cloud approach or would you actually consider looking at some new metals like say lithium and building some capability to recycle car batteries, which I imagine in the not too distant future, there will be significant waste related to car batteries. Good question, Arun. As you know, the structure of the organization that I presented 3, 4 years ago Has the core of our business still being metals obviously, and that's obviously into ferrous and non ferrous. But the other divisions, the SLS, We obviously were in e waste, but this is really refocusing and repurposing onto the cloud growth. And that for us was a really clear and fast forward in terms of that growth. And I think you've seen the start up sort of trends that we're seeing in that business. So That, in our view, is an absolute division on its own and quite capable of growing to substantial numbers as well. Sims Resource Renewal, again, is also a promise that we made in terms of delivering our purpose to our shareholders, and that was to create a world without waste. And So we don't want to stick that 1,000,000 tonnes of ASR into landfill. And by obviously using the Plasma Gasification Process and obviously producing hydrogen and CO2. That's a new revenue stream for us. And instead, it's currently a large cost and an impost frankly because it's a rising cost and obviously doesn't match our purpose either. So again, another the 3rd division. So I think all of the divisions that we have, in my view, are critical to giving us that diverse approach, but as a circular economy right across our business. So the idea being obviously we want to remain sustainable, be here for another 50, 100 years, but I also want to make clear that each division has to make its money and they are at different paces. The metal division is 104 years old, SLS is 2 years old. So each one of them are fairly new and that's all part of the long term strategy. We never looked at this as a 3, 4 year picture. This was a 20, 30 year a view that the Board took and how we presented our strategy. So we're on target to deliver that, and I don't think there's anyone that I'm going to give any favor to. I expect and have expectations of each one of those divisions to deliver what we can. So hopefully that gives you an all around sense of The strategy for us is really about delivering the purpose and the commitments we've made, but it is long term. And any quick thoughts on lithium recycling? Yes, sorry about that. With the team, I've gone through the whole issue of battery cycling and it doesn't match our purpose. It's not a part that I want to get into. I think there are so many players in that game and whether you choose the right battery to recycle lithium being one option. I think there's going to be fierce competition. I think we've chosen our path forward. Okay. And final question, just on hydrogen, you mentioned you're looking to sell that to customers. Could you maybe elaborate on how What sort of quantities, how material could that be? And is that an area you'd like to grow more into? Well, this is the first plant Campbell Field. And obviously, for us, we're just going through the final hydrogen engineering Stages now, so I won't give you any volumes at this stage and we will share that with you when we can. The opportunity for us is definitely the quality of the Syngas we have allows us to produce an industrial class hydrogen. Now obviously, for us, it's about the blue, the green of hydrogens and that Spectrum still needs to be stabilized or agreed to here in Australia. But our idea of using renewable energy to generate and Hydrogen, etcetera. He's obviously on one of our programs to make sure that we do produce a green hydrogen. It will take time to do that. You'll go through the phases. So we're actually quite clear that this is going to be part of our future, producing hydrogen and CO2. Now it's around getting that IP stabilized and hence the Rockley plant and how we can actually scale up of this division. And we've got a very competent team, led by our Chief Technology Officer. And obviously, for us, This is definitely a return on a project that we are expecting much greater than 15% return. Right. Thanks for all of that. I appreciate it. You're welcome, Lynn. Thank you. The next question is from Jack Gab from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Thanks for the opportunity. I just wanted to follow-up on actually one of Lindon's questions. So If you're not interested in recycling batteries, does that put you at a disadvantage when it comes to recycling EVs? And Let's say that the U. S. Gets to their target of 50% by 2,030, are you going to be able to set up to be taking those sort of EVs when they come around to be recycled? Thanks. I think part of the process of recycling, Jack, is you always take the batteries out. You would never put a car with batteries through a shredder. 1, it's environmental, but secondly, it's highly dangerous. So any battery, whether it's lithium or other, has to to come out of a motor car. We can recycle the rest of the motor car very easily. So the batteries we typically hand currently and in the future, we'll hand to the battery individuals that actually want to recycle batteries. And we viewed that in the past as not something we wanted to do, both financially, but also environmentally. So We don't see we will miss out on that at all. We actually could unsell those batteries to anybody. Perfect. Okay, thanks. And then secondly, do you have a view on the European Union obviously coming out trying to ban ferrous exports. Obviously, you're not set up there, but would it benefit your U. K. And U. S. Business? I think it's the ebb and flow. I guess if the Europeans ban export of scrap, that Scrap will obviously have to be sold domestically, but if there's a shortage in the market, the demand will rise and therefore the price will rise and potentially that might overcome any tariff and you might see that being exported anyway. And we've seen that play across the world. So I think the supply and demand The equation will play out in the short term. If that happened, yes, we probably would benefit that not being sold into Turkey and Thank you. The next question is from Owen Birrell from RBC. Please go ahead. Hi, Alastair, Stephen. Look, the first question, I guess this is kind of been done in a few different ways already on the call, but I'm just talking looking at the ferrous Metal Margins. The $150 price increase that you've seen half on half or year on year, I'm just wondering how much of that $150 per tonne are you guys able to keep at this point or is that all being passed through to the scrap suppliers. Stephen, you want to try that? Yes, sure. We're able to we're absolutely keeping a reasonable portion of it, which has driven up the result. But if we had to pass the whole lot through, then we wouldn't have achieved the result that we do. And I guess that's why I've been looking at it and I think I'm focusing more and more on what is our trading margin that we make on the sales price. And that trading margin has been surprisingly consistent, which shows that as the what it basically shows is as the price rises, We maintain our trading margin percentage, but because we're making a percentage on the higher sales price, it flows through to EBIT. Okay. So as a percentage is the best way to look at it in terms of? I think so. And we disclose Quite a lot about that in the 4E. So I'm happy I think over the next few days, I'll talk through it with as I speak to various people, including you guys. And The information is there in the 4E that allows you to look at what is the trading margin percentage we've been making over the last 3 to 5 years and surprisingly consistent. Okay. Can I ask with the shipments to Turkey, Have you seen the bulk premium return? Because I remember this is something that evaporated about 12 months ago. Yes. Good question, Arun. Yes, you do see that in the U. K, particularly where we're seeing such a freight challenge where you've got containers in such demand. The competition obviously has a challenge then in not being able to get containers and obviously for us in the bulk business both LA well as the U. K, we do have a benefit. Can I ask actually is that premium higher now than it was, say, once or 2 years ago? No, pretty much the same I would suggest. Okay. So it's just returned. And can I ask in terms of the grade demand, Are you seeing significant demand for premium grades in the market? And is that causing Any issues with your ability to supply those premium grades? We can certainly supply them. We I wouldn't say it's obviously not the whole market, but certainly we do see when there's a bit of competition for a high quality material, A lot of the players drop off and then a fewer high level competitors that can provide that quality, but it's also around Timing. If you've just sold a product now and a request comes up for some more high quality and you just don't have that in that particular region, Somebody else might fill it. So it's a timing issue, but certainly from a Steel mill perspective, they're definitely wanting high quality material. And I think that goes to efficiencies as well. Yes. Can I ask you, similarly with, I guess, in terms of end markets for Twitch and Zorba, the Illumisource acquisition in the U? S. Has that changed your destination mix in terms of where you're sending your non ferrous product? The AlumiSource acquisition was really focused on being able to allow us to get closer to the end source. So yes, that has happened. And secondly, the actual Alumi quality that we provided at that facility is also a much higher level than we normally provide. And that was strategic growth. I guess where I'm coming from is, are you exporting as much non ferrous as you were, say, a couple of years ago? Yes, we are. That AlumiSource is more domestic at this stage. And just for the UK market, you've closed a number of sites over the past 2 years as you sort of rationalize that platform. We've seen a very big bump in volumes this period. I'm just wondering how what levels of utilization Would you think you're running at in the UK? How much more volume can you take on? I'm going to ask John, John Glaser, our Chief Operating Officer to give his view. Yes. Thanks, Alastair. Look, we closed bought in sites. They were largely unprofitable sites, We still have plenty of capacity to cope with increased volume. We have one shredder idle that could be easily returned to production Very, very quickly. So capacity is not a problem. That's perfect. And look, just one final question. In terms of this production of hydrogen out of the Campbellfield site, is that hydrogen that's being extracted from the gas? Or are you using the gas to generate electricity to then generate hydrogen? No. The hydrogen extracted out of the syngas. Okay, perfect. Thanks, guys. No worries. Thank you. The next question is from Scott Vile from Remo Equity Research. Please go ahead. Hi, thank you very much. I just had two questions on your on some of your newer businesses. Just following on, on the resource renewal business, Could you just clarify why you ended up choosing to make hydrogen, not electricity, please? And do you Are you going ahead with our offtake, I guess, for both the hydrogen and the glass product? Thank you. The hydrogen for us was an outcome of the high quality Syngas, that we ran a trial in Oregon, which I shared with you last year. That trial, which was with our ASR in particularly produced a very high quality syngas. And what clearly came from that was that there's a large amount of hydrogen then Just using that in the form of generating electricity is not a long term and sustainable process for us. So That was always just one off the thinking of having energy produced there. Hydrogen has obviously allowed us to have the long term view that we've always wanted. And With that quality of Syngas and that quality of hydrogen that we can get, the viability of that project is far greater for us. So That is really pleasing for us that it is hydrogen and not the generation of electricity. Okay. And are you do you need offtake before you go ahead with that project? We have plenty offers, but I think at this stage as we of closing off the final design of the hydrogen plant, etcetera, etcetera. Those negotiations will start taking place at a more meaningful level. But we certainly will make sure that we negotiate for the long term as well. Okay. And any idea That the volume of hydrogen we can produce? Not at this stage. Obviously, I do have an idea, but until we finish the engineering design, I'll share that post date event with you. Okay. And then on your Life Cycle Services business, Could you just what's the lifespan of data center equipment that you recycle typically? 3 to 4 years. Wow, that's short. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back for closing remarks. Thank you very much to all of the listeners. Thank you very much for your questions and look forward to talking to you over the next few days. As mentioned, I think strategically, Sims is very aligned in its strategy and going hard after its purpose. So I'm very pleased with the overall performance of Sims, and the employees I think are doing a fantastic job in the COVID circumstances. So to all of you, travel safe and be safe.