Thank you, Bella. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today on the call. My name's Tim Looi. I'm the Managing Director and CEO of Smartgroup. Joining me today on the call is Anthony Dijanosic, our Chief Financial Officer, and Sarah Haas, our Chief Operating Officer. We'll provide an overview of financial performance for the full year to December 2022, our key operational performance, our progress on Smart Future, and what we're seeing in the demand for electric vehicles. First, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I'm speaking to you, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. As this event is broadcasted nationally, I would also like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the various lands on which you all joined this call.
I recognize the continuing connection to land, waters, and culture, and pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging. Let's turn to page 3 of the investor presentation. 2022 has been a mixed year for Smartgroup as we managed through another year of challenging headwinds in the form of vehicle supply chain disruption, a tight labor market, high inflation, and a rapid rise in interest rates. Despite these challenges, the business has had a steady operational performance and continued to achieve multiple successes throughout the year. We achieved this by focusing on service excellence and by launching multiple digital interaction tools to better engage customers. In November 2022, the federal government approved the Electric Vehicle Discount Policy.
This has had a positive effect for our business, and we will give an update today on what early signs we are seeing for electric vehicle demand within our client base. The summary of 2022 is as follows: first, we delivered NPATA of AUD 61.2, which is at the top end of the guidance range we gave several months ago. The revenue is at AUD 224.7 million, which is 1% higher than the prior corresponding period. Meanwhile, EBITDA and NPATA are lower than PCP, which reflects the continued car supply constraints and higher operating costs. Second, we've been able to generate strong leasing interest and demand throughout 2022. Leasing leads grew by 14%, with digital being the most significant growth channel.
We also recorded a further 25% growth in the excess new lease vehicle order pipeline. We are seeing some strong interest and demand in electric vehicles. This is due to the passing of the federal government electric vehicle discount policy late last year. In Q4 2022, EV quotes have risen 270% to comprise 15% of the total Novated leasing quotes. We continue to make good progress on the Smart Future program. During 2022, a number of new digital assets were delivered, including the new Smartsalary website and salary packaging calculator. We recently went live on phase one of our car leasing portal. It's early days, but we're pleased with the results so far. These digital tools are enabling our customers to interact with us digitally 24/7, 365 days a year.
Finally, our capital light business model means we generate a strong level of free cash flows. After tax operating cash flows, we're at 117% of NPATA. This strong financial position has allowed us to declare a final ordinary fully franked dividend of AUD 0.15 per share and a special fully franked dividend of AUD 0.14 per share. This brings the total dividends for the 2022 year to AUD 0.46 per share, fully franked, representing a payout of 100% of NPATA. Turning to page four. We recorded an increase in uptake in salary packages to 379,000. This is despite the loss of a large client. Our Novated leasing car park declined to 57,700 from both the loss of the large client and also the continued constraint in car supply.
A long lead time for vehicle delivery has resulted in the car park being artificially low due to cars being held in a pipeline, as well as more customers choosing to pay out their lease at term end. When car supply normalizes, we expect to see more cars being delivered and customers choosing to change over current vehicles for new vehicles. This should return the car park to growth. Lastly, on the right, our fleet managed vehicles have seen some organic growth in spite of vehicle supply constraints. Our funded lease pilot program continues with a small number of vehicles held on balance sheet supporting a dozen clients. Turning to page 5. Through 2022, we have seen positive Novated lease lead momentum.
Total leads for the year are up 14% on the prior year, driven by an increase in digital leads of 20%. These statistics demonstrate that customer interest continues to remain strong. At December year-end, our backlog of opportunities for open leads is 50% higher than the prior year. We estimate these incremental open leasing leads are worth approximately AUD 2 million-AUD 3 million of revenue, assuming normal conversion rates. There's no doubt our main Novated funder exiting the market in the year resulted in significant operational disruption. Our team members had to do far more work engaging with customers and reworking credit approvals with new funders. Combined with resourcing challenges, this impacted our ability to convert on the higher lead volume we saw. It's great that we have now completed these transitions.
We are left with a more diversified, Novated funding portfolio, providing better business and customer outcomes. During the year, we have also seen strong and rapid rise in interest rates. This resulted in some customer hesitancy in decision-making, as well as a reduction in credit approval rates by around 2 to 3 percentage points. This has ticked back up in the last several months, and we're seeing good order levels in early 2023. Historically, pre-COVID-19, new Novated leases as a percentage of total leases sat at around 78% to 80%. This ratio has fallen in the last three years to 74%. This was initially due to the uncertain impact of COVID, and then due to a lack of car availability
Despite this lower new lease proportion, leasing yields increased by 4% during the year as a result of higher vehicle value and an improvement in attachment rates for products. Now turning to page 6, please. This graph shows the increase in the timeframe for the average vehicle order to delivery for Smartgroup's top 30 car models. As you can see, we have seen a significant increase in the timeframe over the last 24 months. There was little change to the vehicle delivery time frames in the second half of the year. However, there is some variance by make and model. The current average delivery timeframe for our top makes and models is much longer than the prior period and pre-COVID.
This lengthy and also changing delivery schedules have caused additional work in our sales pipeline management in the form of credit reapprovals and logistical work. Given the continued delays, we have been and will continue to increase resourcing to meet this additional workload. Moving to page seven. This graph shows vehicle orders are still running above vehicle deliveries. We've also seen the decision timeframe for customers to order a car extending by around 20%. Delayed revenue from this excess vehicle order pipeline is at a record AUD 15 million, which represents high-margin future revenue. This revenue will be recognized as and when vehicle supply returns and those vehicle settlements are completed. At this stage, we expect supply constraints to continue into half one 2023. Turning to page eight, we continue to play our part in a broader community.
Our strength as a business comes from the diversity, the experience, and the skills of our team members. We continue to support and encourage diversity as a powerful and distinct part of our culture. We retain our Workplace Gender Equality Agency tie citation for the third year. We were also recognized for the fourth year as an inclusive employer by Diversity Council Australia. Both are testament to our focus and efforts over multiple years. In 2022, we were proud to commit to our first formal sustainability strategy, including a range of initiatives and targets. We have made a commitment to reach net zero carbon emissions in our direct operations by 2030 and rolled out a range of initiatives to play our part in driving uptake of electric vehicles in Australia.
Smartgroup service performance was again recognized by the Customer Service Institute of Australia, the peak body for service quality. The work done by the Smartgroup Foundation reinforces our commitment to supporting the not-for-profit sector and the communities that we work with and service. The foundation, in its fourth year, supported 17 organizations and their grassroots projects. Turning to page 10. We've made good progress on our Smart Future deliverables. Since Smart Future was announced, we have redesigned internal incentive schemes to better align with the customer outcomes and delivered the foundational platforms on which our digital experience, the APIs and data tools will be built. We've also improved our digital tools to enable better customer interaction and engagement. Our leasing calculator visitation to lead conversion rate improvements, and we're already seeing an uplift worth AUD 4 million of revenues per annum.
We launched an integrated appointment booking system in H2 2022. Initial data already shows an uplift in Novated leasing quotes from the field sales channel. Our Smartsalary website, salary packaging calculator were launched mid-year. We have seen increased views as well as increased engagement as measured by time on pages. Just last week, we rolled out to specific clients our car leasing portal, enabling customers to interact with us after hours, expanding, extending the sales opportunity pipe. Pending a successful trial, we will then launch it to a larger customer base. I will now hand over to Sarah Haas, our Chief Operating Officer. Sarah has been with Smartgroup coming up to almost a decade now. She's responsible for Novated leasing function. I'm optimistic about the customer interest in electric vehicles that we're seeing.
I will let Sarah take you through our early observations and conclusions.
Thanks, Tim. Turning to page 12. The introduction of the Federal Government Electric Car Discount Policy in November 2022 will provide substantial savings to our Novated leasing customers. We're excited to help our customers as they start their journey into an EV. We are well prepared to ensure that their transition is seamless, simple, and cost-effective. While it has only been a short time since the legislation was passed, we have already seen strong demand coming from all segments of our client base. You can see from the top graph that EV quotes in Q4 2022 approached 16% of all quotes compared to low single-digit percentages 12 months ago. Just as importantly, we are seeing increased demand for EVs across all client segments, with a strong acceleration of interest in Q4 2022, particularly from corporate and government customers, as represented in the bottom graph.
Hospitals and PBIs are also showing strong interest. We expect that level of interest to increase when the available range of EVs increases and the price points for EVs reduce. We are pleased with both the level of interest and intent shown by customers in the early days. Given the timeframe for progressing interest to commitment is measured in weeks, our quote to order conversion rate for the interest shown so far will only be known in Q2. On page 13, there are some interesting and early client-specific observations coming out of the EV statistics that I wanna share with you. Traditionally, the participation rates for salary packaging in corporate and government clients have been mixed.
What we have seen in quarter four and into the new year is that this corporate client, a large financial institution, and this large government client, have experienced an increase in total Novated leasing quotes of 79% and 51% respectively versus the prior corresponding period. While total Novated leasing quotes have increased, EVs as a percentage of total quotes for these two clients have also increased from single-digit proportions to almost 30% for the corporate client and 15% for the government client. The legislation has only recently passed, but we are confident that electric vehicles will activate more engagement with new customers in segments that have traditionally been passive in their interest and engagement. At present, the electric vehicle price points are somewhat higher than our traditional Novated leasing cars.
On page 14, you can see a number of the new electric vehicle makes and models that we expect in 2023. The increase in availability over the next and future years will bring more choice in vehicles and price points to consumers. Together with the electric car discount policy, the savings from GST, and our procurement power, this will make ownership of EVs more affordable. I will now hand you to Anthony, our CFO, to take you through the financials.
Thank you, Sarah. Turning to the profit and loss on page 16, you will see that we achieved modest revenue growth despite continuing global vehicle supply issues and with some restrictions to on-site client sales activity still in place for much of the first half of the year. The 4% improvement in Novated leasing yield referred to earlier by Tim offset 2% lower settlement volumes. Disclosed at the half year, 2022 revenue also includes AUD 1.8 million of one-off items related to the successful transition of our primary Novated lease funding provider to other financiers. I would note that for the 2021 year, we also called out a similar level of significant one-off revenue items. The revenue booked excludes the AUD 3 million increase in open vehicle orders, as we only record revenue on settlement of Novated leases.
Our open excess order pipeline now represents AUD 15 million of future revenue, for which most costs have already been incurred. Our total order pipeline is around AUD 19 million. We again started seeing some revenue come through in the form of interest on client accounts, which contributed around AUD 1.8 million in the year. Our operating EBITDA margin remains strong at 42%. At the half year, we stated that some cost inflation was coming through on the staff cost line, arising from a mid-2021 group wide pay review and from increased market rates for new and replacement roles. We were also seeing cost inflation evident in the other overheads line, both of which continued in the second half of the year.
To address some of these inflationary pressures, we have commenced a targeted cost review that will be actioned progressively in 2023, while continuing to invest in the sales areas to meet the current high levels of leasing demand. I also draw your attention to the amortization line and the add backs below the net profit after tax line. These have reduced as acquired intangible assets are now largely fully amortized. Both of these lines will be negligible in 2023. Page 17 again highlights our high cash conversion. During the year, we negotiated an upfront payment of future performance fees from St.George Bank on completion of the transition of Novated funding to other financiers. Excluding this one-off payment, operating cash flow generation would have remained high at 104% of NPATA.
As mentioned earlier, we're now earning a modest amount of interest income on our client floats as a result of increases in the RBA cash rate, which is shown as interest received from operations. AUD 9.2 million of Smart Future costs were capitalized during the year, with AUD 6.4 million of that in the first half. The level of capitalization reduced as we shifted to our new program delivery model. As the year went on, we were increasingly able to implement a more cost-efficient model, reducing our use of expensive third-party IT resources. We also continue to provide a small amount of on-balance sheet fleet funding as a pilot for a handful of clients. We have now funded a little over 200 fleet vehicles and are seeing this offering resonate with those clients.
The balance sheet on page 18 shows that we ended 2022 with small net debt positions following payment of just under AUD 40 million in special dividends in March. The 2022 final ordinary and special dividends declared amount to around AUD 38 million to be paid in this March. With that payment, we forecast our net debt position to remain low at around 0.6 times EBITDA. Now, page 19 sums up well the strength of our business model. From 2020 to 2022, we declared fully franked dividends of around AUD 1.62 per share, funded from our strong and consistently high cash flow. In the last three years alone, we've paid out over AUD 200 million in fully franked dividends, representing around AUD 300 million in shareholder value when factoring in franking credits.
That is despite the significant impact the lack of vehicle supply is having on our earnings. I'll now hand back to Tim.
Thank you, Anthony. Turning to page 21 and in summary, that we're pleased to deliver NPATA at the top end of our guidance. While we still record revenue growth, our profitability has been adversely impacted by the continued car supply constraints and high operating costs. We are currently undertaking a targeted cost review to address some of these inflationary pressures. We're off to a pleasing start for 2023, and our year-to-date financial performance is in line with the prior year. We had strong leasing lead growth throughout 2022, and this leasing lead volume has continued in the start of 2023. This elevated level of open Novated lease interest represents a good opportunity for continued momentum for the year.
With the Electric Vehicle Discount Bill passing late last year, we have seen strong initial demand and interest coming from across all of our client base. Most notably, we have seen elevated interest and engagement from clients and customers that historically have low interest and low participation. That together with the expected increase in range, supply, price points of new EV makes and models, electric vehicles are expected to be a positive for our business. We have delivered strong foundations for the Smart Future program. In 2022, we further enhanced digital customer interaction tools, and we're seeing good customer engagement with them. We're pleased with the early indicators from the recently launched car leasing portal. This self-service digital tool will enable customers to progress their interest after hours. We'll be reviewing and then rolling out this digital tool to the remaining client base over 2023.
Our capital light business model continues to generate strong cash flows with conversion at 117% of NPATA. This has enabled us to declare a total of AUD 0.46 per share of fully franked dividends for the year, reflecting a payout of 100% of NPATA. It's important to note that over the last 3 years, our financial results have been challenged by vehicle supply delays. Despite this, we have returned approximately AUD 300 million back to shareholders in the form of fully franked dividends and franking credits, as well as maintaining a very conservative balance sheet. While 2022 has not seen the improvements in motor vehicle supply that we had hoped for, we are proud of what we have achieved.
We continue to generate high quality earnings from a diversified client base, and the business has performed well operationally with further external recognition for its service levels. Looking forward, we are well positioned for the future. Improvements of the vehicle supply will release revenue from the order pipeline, as well as reduce operating costs, the increasing demand for electric vehicles will create a positive momentum for Smartgroup. The continued investment in Smart Future assets will lead to better experience and engagement, lowering our cost to serve and our cost to acquire. Before closing this teleconference and asking for questions, I want to acknowledge the news released at ASX this morning about my decision to retire. After 14 years of service, the last three as CEO, I am immensely proud of the organization that Smartgroup has become and excited about its future.
I will remain in this role until a suitable successor comes on board to ensure a smooth transition, and I look forward to seeing many of you in the coming days. Thank you, and over to you, Bella.
At this time, I would like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, press star then number 1 on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Scott Murdoch of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Thank you. Morning, Tim Looi, Sarah Haas, and Anthony Dijanosic. Scott Murdoch from Morgans'. Just if I can start, maybe firstly, Tim Looi, well done on your tenure at Smartgroup. It's been a very successful long tenure. Just onto the questions. I guess maybe can we delve into the conversion a bit here? Leads up 22.5% and orders down 3%. You know, clearly there's been some conversion pressure. Can you just sort of
Run us through, I guess, how that's played out through the half and where you're exiting on that lead conversion and any improvement that you've seen.
Yeah. No, sure. Of course. Hey, Scott. Thanks for the question. Quite clearly, you know, we in half 2 last year, we were coming off a transition from our primary funder. If you think about it, right, where almost 9 out of 10 deals were dealt with the one funder, and we had to transition that pipeline of deals through that process to a couple of other funders. So that had caused immense work and immense double handling. When you throw in the increasing interest rates, right, that happened from May onwards, again, right, the workload was quite a bit. Clearly, what we haven't done was convert as well as we could have done during that transition. We were a bit short on staff back then, right? Obviously that double handling, triple handling did not help.
I'm happy to say, right, as we exit 2022, we are seeing a good number of backlogs, right. The backlogs are now well staffed by our team. We're recruiting a couple more people to come on board to make sure we handle these open or, as we call them, open orders and open opportunities to land them. Customer sentiment has been hampered as well. We're seeing, you know, the timeframe extend by about 20%. I think it used to be from around about a month and a half, right, is when we traditionally see someone go through the process, it's now extended to about two months, right.
That said, right, we will know in the next couple of months, right, what's happened to all these open orders. I think, you know, with the additional resourcing and focus we have on it, we will land a good portion of them.
Okay. Thank you. Just on the, on the spike in leads, and obviously that sounds like it's continued into this calendar year. Can you sort of give us an indication, is it all EV led? Is there actually increase in leads in traditional ICE vehicles, or is it all EV led? Second part of that, assuming that it's a vast majority of EVs, have you actually got the ability to execute on them given the availability of EVs and the range of EVs, can you actually convert them? Is there stock there to convert?
Look, EV has certainly been of interest, right, Scott. But you gotta understand the tax effectiveness of EVs is still relatively unknown throughout our customer base. Right. I just spoke to a really large technology corporation yesterday actually, and they were not aware of it. This is a pretty large organization and we have now, we're now talking about, you know, doing a series of presentations to educate their staff. Certainly the uplift in Novated leasing leads is partially driven by electric vehicles. Certainly, I think overall as we look into it's both for combustion engine vehicles and also EVs.
Okay. Thank you. I'll just ask 1 more because I know there'll be plenty on the line. Just with the contract loss, it is old news around DET. Can you, I guess, give us a better feeling of what the net impact of that contract loss has been? You've obviously had some package wins through the half, just a bit of a recap understanding of what that contract loss means financially into the new year. I guess your January statement reflects that you're in line with the PCP, and correct me if I'm wrong, the PCP was better than the half that you've just delivered. I guess it implies the earnings run rate is sort of ticking up from what we've seen here in the second half.
Yeah. The two things I wanna tell you, Scott. The first one is that Education Victoria left us at the end of October, right? For November, December, January, February and ongoing, right, we're not gonna see the leasing leads and vehicle orders we would have seen historically. I'm pretty happy to say that despite the loss of Education Victoria, which was a large client for us, it contributed, I think, around AUD 11 million of revenues. Despite that loss, right, our leasing vehicle orders have been maintained, right, throughout those period. Again, you know, January, early February, still early days, but we have been able to make up that gap, right, in January and February.
Okay. Thank you, Tim. I'll allow others to ask. Thank you.
Yes, thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Tim Lawson of Macquarie. Your line is open.
Hi, Tim, Sarah and Anthony. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a couple. Just in terms of result, obviously felt just slightly over the top end. Was that just the way the numbers sort of fell out when you pull them together or is there something to call out that you thought you did better in the end of November and December than you'd expected?
Yeah. I think the only thing to call out was that as a, you know, we had good number of resources, a good number of focus. Sorry, a lot of focus on making sure we settle those vehicles in November, December. Right. I think the effort being put in by our staff to make sure that we handle our customers quickly and, you know, and promptly has meant that we were settling more cars than at the top end of range, right? That's simply that.
Yeah.
Uh-
I think the other thing to call out is, yeah, obviously we've been holding to deliveries of motor vehicles. Certainly when, you know, obviously that's been very hard to predict over the course of the last couple of years. In terms of what was delivered in the last part of the year, it was probably slightly above what we'd anticipated.
Yep. Yep. Just on, I think, Anthony mentioned capitalization. Can you just talk about the capitalization again, sort of first half, second half, and what it sort of rises to?
Yeah, sure. The, the bulk, I'll refer to Smart Future specifically. The bulk of that, about AUD 9.9 million was capitalized for the full year, and a bit over AUD 6 million of that was in the first half. As called out, and we called this out, I think midyear as well, that we were looking to change the delivery model. When we first embarked upon Smart Future, the intention was always that we'd have external help, but primarily internal resources, developing and delivering. We certainly found it difficult to find those internal resources in a very tight labor market. What we saw, I guess, earlier in the year was some of that IT resourcing, the labor market was a bit improved.
We started to shift more towards the delivery model that we always wanted to have, which was using externals for their expertise, but really developing the internal capability to deliver those digital assets. That's a reflection. That reduced CapEx level in the second half is a reflection of that changing model.
Okay, that's great. Just a few more quick questions. Just the sort of portfolio run-off rate in our valued leases, is that sort of higher than normal just with sort of credit, assessment getting a bit tougher? Are people paying out more loans than you would expect or is that the sort of normal run-off rate?
Yeah. Look, it's certainly higher than normal. Hi, Tim. Look, we internally, we have this metric, what we call a retention rate, and our retention rate for cars coming to end of life has certainly decreased, right? It's very simple reason for that when, you know, when because of the lack of car availability, you know, no one's happy to wait for six, nine months for the car that they want when a new car anyway. They pay it out. After a couple of rounds of refinancing, the residual gets to be a very low number, they pay it out.
Yeah, I think, but I think that is temporary thing, right. As we get more cars back on the table, as EVs get more traction, we'll see that retention rate tick up.
Yeah. Okay. Just two more quick questions if I could. Just on the yields, I think Sarah called out attachment rates. Maybe just talking a little bit more about the improvement in yields you've seen.
Yeah. Certainly, it's related to both higher vehicle values and to improved product attachment rates. Now, in terms of EVs, there's a spike in order levels, in quote levels, et cetera. We'll know the impact on order levels going forward. Certainly that's not playing a real part in the yield numbers that we're reporting. These yield numbers are based on settled transactions. Definitely EVs have a higher average price, but that's not what is driving that increase in the yield. It is both those newer, higher new car prices as well as improvements in the attachment rates of product.
Okay. That's great. If I can, maybe a quick question to Tim. I appreciate you've been in the seat for a long time, you know, over 10 years. With the supply about to improve, hopefully, and Smart Future underway, can I ask why now?
Yeah. It's always hard, right, Tim, to work out when you, when you wanna go. I think the position where I came from was that I think the business is in a really good state. The foundations are laid out. The path is laid out as well. We've got a good mix of new talent and existing talent. The macros look good, right? The transition itself of leadership will take a little while. I won't be gone tomorrow. I'll certainly still be here and until such time the new person starts, we find them and start.
you know, I'll be making sure the business is well run and executing on what we want to do so.
Okay. Thank you. Thanks for my questions.
All right, your next question comes from the line of Paul Buys of Credit Suisse. Your line is now open.
Morning, Tim, Anthony, Sarah. My first question, just on Smart Future, and just kind of taking a step back to the original objectives that you guys set out when you commenced that program of the AUD 15 million-AUD 20 million uplift by CY 2024, commencing second half 2022. Just wanna get an understanding overall of how you feel regarding the timing and quantum against those original financial objectives. You, you called out, I think, a AUD 4 million revenue uplift from the lease calculator, which certainly shows that you know, some of the stuff's starting to flow through as you expected for CY 2022. Just, I guess, wanting to see how it's going versus your expectations and I guess also what kind of contribution came through into last year.
Hey, Paul. why don't I start, then I'll hand over to Anthony, right? Certainly Smart Future, I think when we did that plan, we said, "Look, at the moment, you know, how do we get better customer experience?" We know we had a strong service levels, but, you know, making sure we have a good customer experience program on top of that means that, you know, we can get better referrals. As you know, referrals convert a lot higher than just cold calling, right? I think that's part of it. The other part was that when you look through our client base, we have 3,700 clients across all sectors. Some of these clients, right, don't contribute a lot. They should contribute a lot more.
Scaling the scaling of this of our reach was always gonna be difficult. We needed to make sure that we used digital to scale. Of course, lastly, right, how do we simplify our business? Those were the three pillars that we want to address. Certainly Smart Future, the first phase of it was making sure that we map out a good journey for our customers to go through. That's been done. The second bit really was around building the digital tools to make sure the interaction is sound and solid. That work is partially done. Certainly the car leasing portal has been delayed because it is a good tool, right, but it's a complex tool.
That's been delayed, but we're seeing good early signs. Now, as to the sorta numbers we put out there for AUD 20 million, Anthony will talk to it. I'm confident we'll get those numbers for sure. I think some of those numbers have been reinvested back in the business, whether it's in the form of, you know, discounts to customers or higher wages in the form of inflation. Anthony.
Yeah. Thanks, Tim. You're right, Paul. We did call out that we expected to start seeing an uplift from Smart Future in the second half of 2022. Obviously the leasing calculator was one of the early things that we put in place. The problem obviously is you can see pipe growth, VO pipe growth, but the car supply means it takes a long time and effectively it's not hitting revenue as we anticipated when we started. We also called out early or midway through last year that we said, "All right. Well, due to the change in delivery model, et cetera, what we're going to be doing was doing something with more sustainable cost." We expected the program would basically take about a year longer than we'd initially anticipated.
That hasn't changed. But I think what we're seeing at the moment in terms of some of the things we've delivered late this year. The booking tool has been something that has went live in July, but there's a 4-5 month implementation period where all of the bookings start are used on that, et cetera. We've got some initial data that we're really happy with. As Tim mentioned, you know, we're looking at a 15% uplift in quotes from that field channel, which has been helped immensely by that booking tool. And also the Smartsalary packaging calculator and website. The calculator itself went live in October. That's a really powerful education tool for customers to get comfortable with salary packaging.
Again, we've got early signs that that's been engaged with really, really well. And certainly, as Tim said, the car leasing portal, that was one asset that we're expecting really big things from. It was delayed, it's been delayed and delivered later than we were hoping. That's now in place and rolled out to a pilot group of clients. We are confident in the Smart Future assets generating the benefits that we first set out back in May 2021.
Got it. Thanks, guys. Something else that you, I think it was some stage last year, might have been at the first half. I think you called out at some stage a little bit of kinda customer drop-off in the rising rate environment. It might have been, I can't forget it was first half or the prior second half. It seems given everything you've described and the numbers you've shown on leads and orders since then, that that kind of that hasn't continued. It feels like that sort of order book stickiness is back where it used to be. I just wanted to confirm that or get your thoughts on that.
Yeah, yeah. I think the... This is what it is, right, Paul? When the rates started rising from May onwards, you're talking about someone getting a re-quote that used to be like, you know, a 6% lease rate, right? Suddenly, you know, we call them up and say, "Hey, listen, your car's ready for delivery. We're going to re-quote you and, you know, make sure you get a new interest rate for your, for your lease." Comes at 9%, right? That is a pretty big sticker shock. Yeah. We saw a lot of customer hesitancy there. Now moving forward, where we are today, when we re-quote, your interest rate did not have a 300-400 basis point move, right?
It's a lot less than that. That's, a lot of it. A lot of that, a lot of impact probably, right, that sticker shock impact has passed and, I suppose it's just more, you know, consumer expectations, right?
Makes sense. Thanks, Tim. Last one, just, I guess on any comments you can make on new opportunities in the pipeline? Obviously there's some large contracts out there for retender, which are unknown in the marketplace, but just interested on your thoughts broadly on new opportunities or you're more focused on increasing conversion within your existing customer base?
Gonna do both, right, Paul. We're gonna do both. Big focus on increasing conversion. We know that they are the assets that we've built, efforts we've put in have led customers to a lead. We're gonna make sure we convert those leads, and we're doing that. In relation to the tenders and everything else out there in the marketplace. you know, we're, you know, we're one of multiple salary packaging companies that are interested in it. How we go, I... You know, we're competitive, I hope, and we'll see how we go.
Okay. Thank you very much. Tim, just wanted to echo comments made earlier and wish you best for your next stage. That's all from me, guys. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Paul.
Your next question comes from the line of Phillip Chippindale of Ord Minnett. Your line is open.
Hi. Good morning, Tim. Thanks for your time. A couple of my questions have already been asked. Just on the CapEx, just looking at calendar 2023, I haven't seen any references in the materials to sort of guidance levels for a CapEx spend in 2023. Can you talk to perhaps what you're thinking on Smart Future but perhaps to the aggregate as well? I think total CapEx last year was around AUD 10.4 million.
Yeah. The bulk of that, as you, as you're aware, was related to Smart Future that, you know, AUD 10 million with AUD 1 million of other CapEx. Certainly, as I said, the second half CapEx was AUD 3 million, and that was due to a shift in the delivery model. That shift in delivery model is one that we're intending to be a long-term one. Certainly we're not expecting the levels of capitalization that we saw in the first half of last year to be the run rate for 2023. In as far as other CapEx, you know, we always have a certain amount of CapEx expenditure, whether it be on computer equipment or fit outs, et cetera. They're relatively immaterial, and we don't see that changing significantly.
Okay. Just on the lead to order conversion, I just wanted to circle in on the EVs. Are you seeing the same gap emerge between those leads coming in on EVs to orders as you are seeing in the ICE segment? Tim, you made a general comment earlier, but just more specifically, I just wonder if consumers are using this as a, you know, information gathering exercise in part, you know, for their, you know, potential consideration for their first EV to go for, you know, to get that lead to generate a quote, but maybe see the numbers and sort of, you know, decide something else.
I think, Phillip, there certainly is both, right, by the way. What is really important for us is for them to see the numbers, right? When you see the numbers and you're ready to change over for a car or you're thinking about changing over a car, it makes good sense, right? Then the process goes to, well, what kind of car do you wanna have that's EV, and is it available? For us, our focus is very much on that customer interaction to make sure we get them through that stage of understanding what an EV is firstly, what are the myth busters that we have to go through. Certainly, you know, we have seen some good interaction, right, good engagement from customers.
It's still early days, right? Because the process itself from getting a lead to all the way to a vehicle order does take a number of weeks, right? We will know much better in the course of probably the next 2 or 3 months about what that true conversion rate looks like. At this stage, you know, I think our team's pretty positive on that, so.
Okay, thanks. I'll leave it there.
Again, if you would like to ask a question, press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. There are no further questions at this time. I turn the call back over to Tim Looi.
Thank you, Bella. Hey, listen, everyone. Thank you for spending the last 45 minutes with us. I look forward to seeing you all during our roadshow, and thank you very much for your continued interest in Smartgroup, and your support. Thanks, guys.