Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the Smart Parking Limited FY 2021 Results Conference Call. Thank you for joining us. Today, we have Paul Gillespie, CEO, and Richard Ludbrook, CFO, with us. The format of the call will be that Paul and Richard will take you through the presentation pack that we'll share on the screen, which we've also released to ASX, and then we'll be pleased to open up the line for questions. Thank you again for joining us. On that, I'll hand over to Paul.
Excellent. Thank you, Michael. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining me for Smart Parking's FY 2021 full year results briefing. I'm here in the U.K., and I'm joined by our Group CFO, Richard Ludbrook, who's currently in lockdown in Auckland, like many people on the call today, I'm sure. Today, we'll take you through the pack we've released to the ASX, then we'll open the lines for some questions. Before I start, I'd like to highlight some key points, starting on slide three, please. While so many of you in Australia are in lockdown, markets in the U.K. have been opening up for some weeks as COVID restrictions continue to be eased and vaccination rates rise. I've been back in the U.K. since late June. I can see the growth in activity and confidence on a daily basis.
This is evident from our performance as we've rebounded well and have delivered a strong Q4. We made NZD 2.2 million of adjusted EBITDA for the year. Of this, NZD 1.57 million was in Q4. While the 354% growth is flattered by a COVID-impacted PCP, despite this, Q4 EBITDA performance was up NZD 1.3 million on Q4 FY 2019 in a pre-COVID world. PBN issuance was up 278% in Q4. For us, the recovery is well underway. The second point I'd like to make, the deliberate decisions we took during the pandemic to ensure we came out of this as a stronger, more efficient company are now paying off. We took advantage of our market-leading technology, specialist expertise, and strong balance sheet to drive accelerated growth and greater returns. You can see this right across SPZ. We've increased our number of sites under management to 619 in the year.
That's up 25%. We are regularly winning new customers in both operating divisions. We've used the time to clear up legacy issues like the VAT dispute, where we got a NZD 2.9 million cash refund from HMRC. We've made a terrific acquisition in Enterprise Parking, which we announced in August, and we bought back NZD 1.1 million of shares at an average price of NZD 0.17 to enhance earnings. We remain well capitalized with NZD 9.7 million of cash on hand today to fund our growth strategy. Put simply, we stayed focused, we've kept our heads down and got the job done, and I'm proud of the way the Smart Parking team overcame adversity and delivered great outcomes for our clients. Added to this and taking further advantage of the opportunities the pandemic presented, we are significantly expanding our addressable market opportunities.
I'll talk more about our expansions in New Zealand and some states of Australia later, but I'll say up front that these markets are attractive and a great fit for SPZ. In short, we can leverage our infrastructure in Melbourne and build on our existing sales presence on the ground in New Zealand. We are and will continue to disrupt legacy industry structures that provide site owners with inefficient and inadequate answers. We have some new disclosures in the pack that focus on this new growth strategy that we'll discuss later in some detail. The final point I'd like to make. Our target of 1,000 sites under management by 2023 is firmly on track. It probably seemed to many to be an aspirational wish at best when we first published this, but as we speak today, we already have 720 sites under management.
We've added 101 sites since June 30. 2/3, roughly, of these came from the Enterprise acquisition, and the remainder are organic. We can organically add 118 net new sites in FY 2022 and FY 2023. I'm pleased to report we've started FY 2022 strongly and reaffirm our 1,000 site goal. I'll now hand over to Richard to take you through some of the financials in some more detail. Richard?
Thanks, Paul. I'll start with slide six, where we will see the group adjusted EBITDA profit, excluding one-off items of NZD 2.2 million, was up from an EBITDA loss of NZD 0.9 million in FY 2020. Despite months of government restrictions, total revenue of NZD 20.7 for FY 2021 was down only 4% on FY 2020. The business experienced a strong recovery in Q4 as COVID-19 restrictions eased. Revenue of NZD 7.2 million in Q4 was the highest quarter in three years.
This, along with cost saving initiatives, led to Q4 EBITDA of NZD 1.6 million. This compared to a NZD 1.3 million EBITDA loss in Q4 FY 2020, which was heavily impacted by COVID-19. Overheads were down 20%. More detail on the cost reductions is included on slide 10. The company settled its long-running VAT dispute with HMRC, resulting in a one-off net benefit of NZD 6.4 million in FY 2021.
Slide seven shows the group had free cash flow of NZD 1.1 million, up from - NZD 0.3 million in FY 2020. The group incurred NZD 2 million of capital investment related primarily to the deployment of camera technology in the U.K., which will contribute to future earnings growth. With the expected rollout in the U.K. and new markets covered later in the presentation, CapEx is expected to increase to near NZD 3 million in FY 2022.
Included in the other recurring items is the NZD 2.9 million VAT refund from HMRC. The company drew down a U.K. Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan for NZD 2.7 million in September 2020, and subsequent to balance date, the company acquired Enterprise Parking Solutions for NZD 1.5 million out of cash reserves, which Paul will speak to in due course. Moving to slide eight, revenue in the parking management division decreased 6% to NZD 16.3 million. COVID-19 continued to cause volatility in results.
However, despite some COVID-19 restrictions, the division had a strong finish to the year, with Parking Breach Notices in Q4 up 278% against Q4 FY 2020 and up 14% against Q4 FY 2019. This, along with the recovery, is expected to drive revenue and earnings growth in FY 2022. EBITDA of NZD 4.2 million was up 36% compared to FY 2020, with operating leverage driving margin expansion. The EBITDA margin increased 800 basis points to 26%. We remain optimistic about the outlook for this division, given the lack of U.K. restrictions and high vaccination rates. We've also expanded into new markets in New Zealand and Australia, which Paul will speak to later in the deck.
Slide 9 shows technology revenue of NZD 6.9 million was up 3%, and installations included the City of Marion, Wyndham City Council, Queen Victoria Market, and Ormiston Town Centre in New Zealand. The adjusted EBITDA profit of NZD 0.3 million improved from a loss of NZD 1.8 million in FY 2020, a pleasing result in spite of ongoing disruption from government lockdowns. The company has firm orders for new installations of NZD 3.3 million.
This includes Gatwick Airport, although the timing of recognition for this is uncertain given the evolving situation. The company continues to invest significant resources in R&D. Costs in this division were steady at NZD 1 million, and it's worth noting that most R&D costs are treated as an expense through the P&L. Slide 10 shows the breakdown of the 20% reduction in costs.
Staff costs, comprising 72% of total overheads, were down following the 24% reduction in the group's headcount in the last 12 months. The services headcount reduced by 23%, and the technology and R&D headcount was down 33% combined. Other costs, including travel and motor vehicle costs, were down as a result of lower activity and due to the restrictions in place.
FY 2022 will see an increase in overheads as activity levels increase, but revenue will grow faster than the growth in overheads. Slide 11 shows the group maintains a strong balance sheet and is well-placed to fund growth strategies. The group had NZD 10.7 million in cash, and this includes the NZD 2.9 million from HMRC as part of the VAT settlement. The Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan for NZD 2.7 million was drawn down in September 2020. The term of the loan is four years and was interest-free for the first year.
Principal and interest repayments commence in September. Finally, the company commenced a share buyback during the year, acquiring 6.1 million shares at an average price of NZD 0.173. I'll now hand back to Paul to discuss the recent acquisition.
Thank you, Richard. Okay, as on slide 12, so as I mentioned at the start, excuse me, we deliberately decided to take advantage of the opportunities that the pandemic presented to accelerate our growth and enhance earnings for shareholders. As highlighted at the half year report, we said we'd spend up to NZD 5 million to buy back shares or invest in other growth initiatives. Alongside the buyback, we also looked at a number of complementary and accretive acquisitions. We spent NZD 1.5 million of our growth capital on Enterprise Parking Solutions. It's a high-quality business and a great accelerant for us. We paid circa 1x- 1.3x EBITDA for a growing, profitable, cash flow positive business that offers additional cost synergies. It's immediately earnings accretive. The business had revenues of NZD 540,000, excuse me, for the three months ending July 2021.
It's been growing nicely, and the management have done a good job and they're also helping us with the transition. Sites under management has grown from five to 68 in three years, and these sites perform well with many at or above the SPZ average performance benchmarks. Integration of the Enterprise estate is well underway, and we will continue to evaluate other acquisition opportunities to complement our organic growth. We are selective and disciplined, but we are delighted with this first acquisition. Moving forward, slides 14, 15, and 16 are updates to the pandemic tracker, site installations, and key metrics that we track daily in the business and update the market with regularly. However, I'd like to focus on slide 17 for now, please.
Along with the sustained growth in the U.K., I see these slides as the next growth chapter for Smart Parking and the international expansion of our services division. In New Zealand, we've started to build an estate of sites under management and operate in a similar fashion to here in the U.K. We've quietly signed and installed 10 sites since we started in February. We wanted to show the market some results before we made a song and dance about what we're going to do.
Our team on the ground are making great progress in a market full of opportunity. New Zealand reminds me of the U.K. marketplace pre-2012, before regulators outlawed the use of clamping and towing on private land. Current service providers offer site owners with inefficient and inadequate solutions, tow trucks, little to no remote technology, leading to multiple lost revenue opportunities.
The U.K., we've gained accreditation that allows us to access keeper details, which then means we can install ANPR camera technology and digitally record car entry, exit, efficiently process the data, and work out quickly how many cars contravene the car park conditions of use. The same as the U.K. process. As with the U.K., we provide a compelling CapEx-free value proposition for landowners. This zero CapEx solution is appealing to Kiwi customers, and they're delighted with the performance offered by our solutions that are solving the parking abuse problems they have. Whilst it's early days and we have a small sample of sites, we are seeing a three-month payback on the CapEx invested to date, which is proving the model and pushing us forward to win more business. We have a clear go-to-market plan to build scale.
We're starting in Auckland and have already established a presence in Wellington. As you can see on this map, there are multiple other metropolitan centers we can target and will do so as we grow. At this moment in time, we don't precisely know the total addressable market due to lack of available research, but I can say there are hundreds of potential sites that we could manage over time. I'm excited about this growth opportunity, and I look forward to reporting on further progress in the future. Turning to page 18. Australia is another new market we can expand our services offering into. It's another example of us using the time during the pandemic productively. The strategy is simple. We can leverage our base in Melbourne with our technology and expertise and provide site owners far more value. It's a legacy industry with inefficient solutions.
We can provide consistent best-of-breed compliance and regulatory standards. At this point, we have access to keeper details in Queensland only. The regulatory environment in W.A., South Australia, and the Northern Territory will also allow us to operate there in the future. The first sites are underway in Brisbane and Gold Coast. I'm pleased to report they're performing well. As with New Zealand, it's early days. There's lots of room for profitable growth. Looking now to technology on slide 19. As with the services business, we've used our time during the pandemic to deliver new products, win business, and carefully manage our costs. In particular, we focus on existing customer contracts, ensuring we gain the extensions we require. We have also expanded the contract by selling new solutions that will enhance the customer's experience and drive higher margins for SPZ.
Key contract extensions in Wellington, Moonee Valley, and Hamilton have been a great success and secures the customers for years to come. Added to this, we bridged the gap between our technology and services business by pitching and supplying existing technology customers with ANPR solutions that will allow them to manage their off-street council parking more efficiently. I expect to update shareholders further on this project later in the year. Slide 20. As mentioned a moment ago, we're always looking to leverage our technology and R&D capability across the group, not just in our technology business. This is evident here, where we're working with an existing services customer, in this case, KFC, to leverage our ANPR and sensor technology to facilitate a seamless customer ordering and pickup system or click and collect. We're working closely with KFC, and we'll be deploying the first site for evaluation in 1H FY 2021.
Following a successful evaluation period, there will then be a project to roll the system out. This is an exciting development project that I believe has the ability to be transformational for our technology business. I turn to page 21 and make some concluding remarks. As we're demonstrating, Smart Parking is a growth company in growth mode. You can see that from growth in Q4 of FY 2021. The new financial year has started strongly. Our markets are recovering, and our competitive position has improved. The value of our offer is compelling both in the U.K. and our new APAC markets. We're actively adding new sites, building the pipeline, and signing new clients. We're leveraging our technology, expertise, and balance sheet to accelerate growth and enhance returns for shareholders. We expect FY 2022 to be a solid year of growth.
We will add 180 net new sites this year and a further 180 net new sites in FY 2023. We're on track to deliver the 1,000 sites by June 2023. While recovery in the U.K. is undoubtedly a tailwind, it is a disciplined execution of our growth strategy that will deliver long-term growth and returns for shareholders. That concludes the presentation and the slides. Thank you very much for listening. If you have questions now, we can open up the lines for some Q&A. Richard?
If you just take yourself off mute, feel free to ask a question.
Hello. Can you hear me okay?
Yep, go ahead.
Hello, I've unmuted myself. Can you hear me?
We can hear you, yeah. Go ahead, John. No. Sorry, not working. Any other questions we may have?
Paul, I might start off the Q&A. A question for Richard. Richard, could you talk us through the payback periods on the CapEx in New Zealand and Australian markets, please?
Sure thing, Michael. We're currently issuing 300 breaches per site in New Zealand and Australia, and that compares with 80 in the U.K. There's a significantly better yield on the New Zealand sites. It is early days and behavior may change, but certainly they've been fantastic so far. 300 tickets will generate approximately NZD 10,000 worth of revenue per month, at a 77% EBITDA margin. You earn approximately NZD 8,000 on each new site that we install, and we're getting a payback of just under three months.
Thank you.
Any other questions we may have?
You've done such a brilliant job, Paul. Maybe one of you answered everyone's questions.
Yeah. I know it's late in the day. Come on, boss.
No. Okay.
I agree, he's done such a great job. I'm happy. Well done to him and the board.
John, I believe you were trying to ask a question. You could use the chat function on the Zoom if you like and ask it. You could type your question if you like. Okay. Well, if there are no other questions, I guess we could sit here and look at the screen for a bit longer if you like, but keen to answer some questions if anyone has them.
Paul, just one thing you said, keeper. I don't know if everyone understands what you mean by that.
The keeper details?
Yeah.
Okay. All right. If I start at the beginning. The U.K. is a relatively unique operating environment whereby we can obviously install number plate recognition cameras on off-street car parks in private land. If people or if cars overstay or contravene the parking conditions, we can then access the DVLA database, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency database, pay GBP 2.50 to get the keeper details, and then send them a Parking Breach Notice in the post. Finding other regulatory markets where you can access those details is quite challenging. We've been looking for some time, and we've applied in the past, in New Zealand and obviously not been successful. When we applied again, late last year, we were successful.
There's been a few changes to the regulatory environment, which means that we can operate in the same way in New Zealand as we do in the U.K. and access those keeper details remotely.
Let me think. There's one way to locate that, the owner of the car.
Yeah. The keeper is the owner of the car, or the registered keeper.
Australia.
Same, U.K., Australia. The interesting thing there, Chris, is you sort of highlight, obviously in Queensland, slightly different environment. The way we access those details is different to what we do in the U.K. and New Zealand. The fact is, we're able to get them. We're able to operate in the same fashion in Queensland today. That's a big step forward for us, and we're actively looking for other environments or other territories where we can operate in the same fashion, because it's a great business, and we understand it very well, and it's a profitable company, a profitable market.
I'm trying to get this question in, Paul.
Here we go. How were we able to buy into Enterprise so cheaply? Well, basically I met with the company founder and CEO several times. We discussed his sites, and he put forward a number. We felt it was great value, so we accepted it. We went for it. It's really what it came down to. The founder wants to do other things with his life. A bit about him, he's quite a young chap. Hasn't been at it very long. His background isn't in technology or parking. His background was in banking, actually. He used to work for UBS. Got involved quite by chance through a colleague of his working in private equity, who suggested parking management to be lucrative, and he's done well from it.
He's going off to do other things with his life and wants to realize the value from his efforts. I think on one hand, it may seem cheap to us, and we believe it was a great value deal for us and I think there's a lot of organic growth to come from the sites that he already has, the customers that we've obviously acquired. It's obviously on us to make sure that we deliver a good service to those customers and they're happy with Smart Parking. The work we've done in the last two weeks, we've been pretty busy meeting these customers. I met some myself last week, and they're all very excited by the transition. They're happy with the service they were getting, and they're happy with what we're proposing. I see us growing that estate.
No, we're very pleased with it, and I think all parties were happy with the outcome. I think there might be another question. Greg Hoffman, you've got your hand up? Oh, Greg's asking a question: Could you comment on the corporate landscape in terms of SPZ being an acquirer or potential acquiree as the previous approach? Obviously, in terms of being an acquirer, we've shown our hand, and we've looked at a number of these smaller acquisitions like Enterprise. I think we said some time ago, the U.K. parking market is quite fragmented, and there are a good number of companies that are of a similar size, some larger, some smaller, to Enterprise, that represent potential growth vehicles for us. We'll continue to look at those. As I said during the presentation, we are selective.
We're not just going to go out and buy the first thing we see. We want things to be the right fit. Enterprise was absolutely the right fit for us. We could work well with the founder. It was a business that was clean, tidy. Diligence was straightforward and easy. All those kind of things all lined up and ticked the boxes. We don't want to be looking at things that have too many challenges. For us, yes, we'll continue to look at those. Would we be acquired? Look, we had an approach some years ago, which was interesting at the time. Of course, we're in a different world today, aren't we, in terms of COVID and there's other things.
There's a new parking bill that's going through Parliament at the moment, which has the potential to change things, change the operating environment somewhat, which we're monitoring closely and we see as a positive in a lot of ways, because it brings in more regulation for these smaller companies who can't operate in that way. I see more opportunity for us going forward with the parking bill as well. Yeah, for us, we want to build this company, make it successful. Of course, if you do a good job, then you might attract attention. Who knows in the future. There's nothing on the cards right now. I've got another one here. That's from Lawrence: What is your appetite for more similar deals? As I mentioned a moment ago, the appetite is there for the right one.
It's very easy to get carried away and look at everything and think we're just going to run the world. For me, let's look at the right deals at the right time and make sure that they fit our strategy. Like I said, Enterprise ticked all those boxes. It was a great company, going in the right direction, good people behind it, and clean and easy to execute. Do we have any other questions? You can use the chat function if you like. Here we go. John's asking a question. Do you have an earnings forecast? We don't give guidance on these calls. No, we won't be forecasting the earnings, I'm afraid, John.
You can certainly see how Q4 performed, and I guess subject to there being no further restrictions, clearly you'd expect a very strong performance in FY 2022.
Exit run rate going into FY 2022 is strong, and we're pleased with where we're at. Of course, we're busy integrating Enterprise, certainly here in the U.K. That's a good-sized project for the team right now, and is going well. I'm pleased to see that the pipeline is looking strong and pleased to see the energy is there with the team. Clearly in New Zealand it's a challenge right now. We've locked down for another week in New Zealand. That's obviously going to present some challenges, but nothing that's insurmountable that we can't get through. We've done it before on a much larger scale. I'm excited by what New Zealand can throw at us in terms of new projects and new business, as well as Queensland.
It's very early days, what we've seen early is encouraging, exciting, and we have a team who are working incredibly hard to deliver upon their objectives. No, we see FY 2022 starting well. I guess unless there's any other questions, I'll move to some closing remarks, if that's okay. Unless there are any other questions, any coming through on the chat? No. I guess just to reiterate the closing points I made during the presentation. As I said a moment ago, we are demonstrating that we are a growth company and we're in growth mode, and you can see that from our Q4 performance in FY 2021. As I mentioned a moment ago, we've started strongly. The exit run rate going into FY 2022 for us is exciting. We have some new markets, some great tailwinds behind us. From that perspective, we feel we're in a great position.
The reason for that is our value of our offer is compelling in both the U.K. and our APAC markets. We're actively adding new sites, clearly building the pipeline and signing new clients, and we're leveraging our technology and expertise and our balance sheet to accelerate our growth and enhance returns. We do expect FY 2022 to be a strong year, a solid year. We are focused on adding those 120 net new sites for this year, as well as in FY 2023, to achieve our 1,000 site target by June 2023. The recovery here in the U.K. is a tailwind. Of course, as I mentioned a moment ago, and I won't apologize for repeating, it is the disciplined execution of our growth strategy that will deliver long-term returns for our shareholders. I guess with that concludes the call.
Unless there are any other questions people have, I'm very happy to close the meeting there. Rich and I will be meeting some shareholders today and tomorrow and the next day. If people do want to have a one-to-one meeting, please let us know and we'll be happy to accommodate where we can. Thank you very much for your time, and look forward to speaking to you all again soon. Thank you.