Transurban Group (ASX:TCL)

Investor Day 2021

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May 3, 2021

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for the Transurban 2021 Investor Day. And this morning, we're coming to you live from Sydney. My name is Scott Charlton, and I'm the CEO of Transurban. Now before we start today, I would like to acknowledge the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, the traditional custodians of this land, and pay my respects to the elders past, present, and emerging. Now we've made the decision to hold this event virtually this year, obviously due to the circumstance we find ourselves in. And while we're disappointed not to be seeing everyone face to face, It does mean that we can engage with you today no matter where you're located. And I hope that wherever that is and you're watching this, that you're safe and well. Now on the agenda today, we expect that today's Investor Day webcast will run for around 2 hours, finishing up around 11:45. And we scheduled a short break for you to stretch your legs midway. And given that we are running this event live today, these times could be subject to a bit of variability. Now I'm going to start today's proceedings with some reflections on our strategy and our investment proposition. We'll then kick off with a series of presentations and sessions from our Executive Committee. We'll be running 2 live Q and A sessions during today's event, with the first to commence around 10:20 and the second session to commence at approximately 11.20. And I'm really looking forward to our last session today, during which I'll be joined by Tom Petrosky, market analyst at CommSec, which is Australia's largest online stockbroking firm. And I hope that you enjoy hearing Tom put some challenging questions to me about Transurban as Tom and I have had many discussions over the years. Now on to some housekeeping matters. If you do have a question, you may type your questions at any time on your web browser via the Ask a Question button on your screen. The executive committee will answer as many of these questions as possible during the course of the Q and A, and of course, Investor Relations can always follow-up afterwards if we can't get to your question. Also, some analysts will actually be joining us by moderated teleconference and asking us live questions in much the same way as our standard results conference call. Now today's agenda has been shaped in response to 4 key questions that you have put to us in the recent months. And essentially they are, what is the scale of our actual growth pipeline? What are the major themes that are influencing its evolution of this pipeline. 2nd, how will we fund that growth and what are the other key priorities of our capital management strategy? And what is our best view of the current mobility trends that will impact both our short-, medium- and long term traffic forecasts, including things like working from home, which has been much discussion about lately. And finally, what are the key environmental and social and government issues for Transurban? And how are we managing them to create long term sustainable value for the company. And today, we'll try to do our best to answer those questions. With that now, I'd like to draw your attention to Slide 5 and the executive committee that you'll hear from today. There are several new faces It is pictured here following the restructure of our leadership operating model in the last year in 2020. And so today is the first time that Pierce Coffey, Michelle Jabko, Simon Moorfield and Hugh Wiebe will present at a Transurban Investor Day, having all joined the executive committee within the last 12 months. And we've made these changes to support our resilience as a business as well as to help grow, position and facilitate our ambitions. And I'm extremely excited about and privileged to lead this talented team that has come together to drive the company through what I think is the next chapter of our evolution and continued growth. Now in addition to hearing from each member of the executive committee during the webcast today, You can also head to the Investor Day hub, which is a microsite we have online on our website, where you'll find a video series of executive insights from each of the committee, And they're actually running a competition, so please go there and we'll see who can get the most views. Moving to Slide 7 and the long term strategy that the executive team continues to deliver against. It hasn't changed, and we've been very consistent to provide transport solutions that offer real and lasting benefits to the cities and communities where we operate. And interesting and through a long process over the last 12 months, It's given us that unique opportunity to test our strategy. And along with the quality of our asset base, we both believe they have been proved resilient. Now moving to Slide 8 and some comments on Transurban's investment proposition. Again, consistent and hasn't changed. We currently are operating 21 assets in 5 markets with an average concession life of just short of 29 years. We continue to manage this average concession life as an important measure to the long term sustainability of the company, And we've grown this through deals and strategic acquisitions over the last 10 years. And looking forward, we have Strong confidence that the core fundamentals of our assets will support continued traffic growth, and we expect that growth to be supplemented by the opportunity pipeline, again, which is significant and growing, and we'll talk much about that today. Our capital strategy is a key plank of this investment proposition. And later in the morning, Our new CFO, Michelle Jabko, will discuss this along with Tom McKay, Transurban's Group Treasurer. As always, we're focused on maintaining financial strength and flexibility so the business can meet this growth ambitions as well as and we know extremely important to Uniti holders continuing to grow our distributions. Now moving to slide 9, in the last 6 months, you may have heard me say that the growth pipeline again is as big as I've ever team. Again, several themes that are providing a tailwind for the kind of infrastructure projects that we like to participate in that fit our strategy. And infrastructure is going to be a key pillar of this economic recovery, and we can already see that. In the U. S, the Secretary of Transport, Peter Butachek, It's pushing a strong infrastructure agenda. And in Australia, for example, the New South Wales government has committed over $100,000,000,000 to the infrastructure pipeline for just 4 years to drive employment growth and economic activity. The government's going to need alternative funding solutions for this infrastructure given record levels of debt, but further they're going to need help in supporting delivering the pipeline. And governments in our core markets are increasingly favoring a development partner approach to manage risk and help maximize the value. We obviously see this as a key opportunity for Transurban given our success in engaging with governments early to leverage our experience and unique capabilities and create value for money for our clients. Now later in the morning, Pierce Coffey, our President of North America, We'll talk to that experience on the Maryland Express Lanes, which is an excellent example of our early partnering approach. Let's move now to have a look at Slide 10, where you can see a focus list of some of the opportunities in our markets. Now pleasingly, a number of these opportunities on the list relate to assets we already operate, including the M7 stage widening, The M7, M12 interchange, the Gateway and Logan motorways will both need widening and the Capital Beltway Accord, which is a fancy name of saying express lanes going from Virginia into the Maryland side of the border. And the pipeline continues to be nicely balanced between what our large scale potential greenfield opportunities and asset enhancement opportunities while our cash grows to support that investment. Now this morning, you'll also hear from Michelle Huie, our Group Executive of New South Wales, on the status of the WestConnex transaction, again as well as from Pierce on Maryland Express Lanes projects and give you some more insight into how we're managing those. So in summary, there is plenty of opportunity for us to pursue in our core markets, and the macro trends we believe are in our favor. And it's likely this list of projects will continue to grow given government priorities and a continued recovery coming out of COVID restrictions and where our assets sit in the networks that we have. Now with that, I'd like to hand over to Henry Byrne and Sue Johnson, our Group Executives For Victoria and Queensland, Henry and Sue. Thanks, Scott. Sue and I are going to talk you through some of the themes that have been driving traffic volumes across our networks, And we're also going to delve into mobility trends, which we know are front of mind for many of our investors. We'll take a closer look at the Queensland market, which I manage, To show you how some of these trends are evolving, and we'll look at the recovery trends and how changing customer habits are playing out on the roads. Now you'll probably all be familiar with the chart that we can show up here now. It captures the impact of COVID-nineteen on our business. And what you can see Is that average daily traffic across our networks fell from 2,300,000 trips in February of 2020, down to lows of 1,100,000 in April. Yes, there's a recovery back to $2,300,000 in March this year. And as you can see, that's been aided by the opening of new assets in Sydney. Those are obviously just the top line numbers of our portfolio, and the impacts were varied across the different markets. But there are a couple of takeaways from this traffic disruption, which is obviously the most significant in the history of our business. The first is that geographic diversification has proved valuable, and that's given the varying levels of disruption across each of our markets. The second is that .which should across each of our markets. The second is that urban transport networks have proven resilience, and that's tied particularly to commercial traffic, like freight and large vehicles, which continue to operate through the shutdowns, reinforcing this idea that our networks really are critical to the cities that they operate in. The chart on the right shows there are many reasons why people continue to return to our roads, And this is data from a survey that we've done for several years. It tells us why people use our roads, which has stayed remarkably consistent, and that's even in the wake of the pandemic. It's this variety of why people are travelling on our roads that underpins the growth in our traffic, even as many people have adjusted their routines and habits in response to the pandemic. So we'll revisit this theme in a minute. But first, Sue will talk you through how it's impacted Brisbane. Sue? Thanks, Henry. We've chosen to drill down on Brisbane this morning, given the clear recovery trend we've seen. For those of you who don't know a huge amount about Brisbane or Transurban's presence there, here's a quick refresher. Transurban entered the market in 20 team with the acquisition of the state owned Queensland Motorways, which owned the city's 5 major toll roads. We follow that up With the acquisition of Airport Link M7 in 2016 and several major road upgrades since then, including The Logan Enhancement Project, which was completed in August 2019. Brisbane today has a population of 2,300,000 people And it's growing quickly. We have the highest interstate and intrastate migration in all of Australia. And the population is expected to reach more than 5,000,000 people by 2,040. Most COVID restrictions in Brisbane had ended by May 2020. And since then, we've seen progressive recovery across the network. The main restriction that applied to Queenslanders through the second half of twenty twenty was the border closures. These closures were most impactful on traffic to traffic on Airport Link M7, obviously a key route to the airport. And to a lesser extent, the Gateway Motorway, which also services airport related traffic. But we've seen Fast recovery and excluding the contribution of Airport Link M7, in February this year, traffic was up 6% on last year. So what does the return what does this growth, return to growth in Brisbane, tell us about customer behavior? It's our view, which is supported by data, that traffic in our core Australian markets is reverting to trend. We've undoubtedly made some big changes to the ways we all work, shop and move around our cities since the onset of COVID-nineteen. But the data suggests that our markets aren't going to fundamentally change long term. Let's focus on the working from home trend And look at Brisbane as a case study. The data tells us that the perceived impact of this change on traffic volumes might be exaggerated. If you look at the bottom chart on the slide, this shows the congestion profile in Brisbane across all roads. And in 2021, it is actually higher than it was in 2019. While many of us may have greater workplace flexibility More than we did pre COVID-nineteen, our surveys tell us that most people still expect to do most of their work in the workplace. We've also seen a preference for people driving their own cars rather than catching public transport, and this is quite pronounced in Brisbane. Looking at our latest urban mobility trend report from February, those surveyed were 22% less likely to catch public transport And 10% more likely to drive a car post pandemic. The strong growth in car sales and car ownership data Suggest that this trend may stick to a certain extent. While the recovery in traffic is obviously a good thing for our business and the economy, We do see our roads facing increasing pressure as peak hour traffic returns. Part of our role as a critical infrastructure provider is to advocate for policy and change to improve the overall network. As you can see from the congestion chart on the right, There's plenty of opportunity to shift traffic out of peak periods into times where we have more capacity. With more flexible work arrangements becoming the norm, We can use the network more effectively to cut travel times and improve efficiency. Thanks, Sue. When we look at the broader mobility trends, there are several things we're focused on. Specifically, there are 4 broad themes relating .to technology and policy that we see emerging in our markets. These are connected and automated vehicles, or cabs as they're commonly known, 0 Emission Vehicles, or ZEVs, including mainly electric and hydrogen vehicles and then Mobility as a Service, which We'll give people an integrated platform offering real time choices about how they move about the transport network. And then finally, road user charging as a redesign of the rate funding model. We spoke in some detail about these themes at our Investor Day in 2019, and things have continued to evolve since then. The timeframes for significant development in each of these areas is something that we are concentrating on, and there have been some shifts around those. For instance, in 2019, we talked about the general consensus being that cabs would reach mass adoption by 2,040. Since then, there's certainly been a shift around those timeframes. This is evident across vehicle manufacturers, technology companies, and governments, all of whom have acknowledged The challenges that lie ahead before cabs play a central role in our transport networks, the impact to travel and mobility arising from capable of handling all possible scenarios is expected to see those impacts arrive later than we previously anticipated. Likewise, developments around specific offerings related to mobility as a service, or MAZ, have been slower than we were anticipating a couple of years ago. For instance, the development of platforms offering integrated solutions across different modes hasn't progressed as fast as expected. But that's not to say some elements of mobility as a service aren't moving fast, though, with single mode services such as car share, ride hail and And even on demand delivery continuing to gain momentum in Australia and, indeed, more broadly around the world. So while cabs are progressing slower and Mobility as a Service progress has been Aird, a gradual but certain transition to low- and zero emission vehicles is definitely underway. The environmental and social benefits from reducing vehicle emissions are Clear, with the transition charting a path to a more sustainable transport network. Getting there will take time, though, particularly in Australia, which represents a Small market for manufacturers and where policy settings have proven divisive. We're looking to work with partners to promote the uptake of electric vehicles in the Australian market. The divisiveness of policy in this space is largely a result of the balancing act required to encourage and promote A transition to low and 0 emission vehicles, while mitigating the erosion of road funding through fuel excise in the long term. The decline in road funding is leading governments to evaluate and redefine their road funding models moving forward, with road user charging seen as the likely successor by many. We've recognized this inevitability for some time and have worked with partners in industry and government through a series of studies and pilots to better understand what's needed in this complex policy area. Beyond this, Transurban's experience and capability in tolling and customer engagement has significant parallels to the needs and objectives of road user charging based funding models. These parallels in Transurban's experience in road user charging to date leaves the business well positioned to contribute to how road user charging schemes could be most effectively designed and implemented in our markets. Ultimately, We expect road user charging and the other trends that I've touched on here will bring significant benefits in the form of safer, more sustainable, Integrated and automated networks, and this is going to continue to support volumes on our roads over the longer term through the life of our concessions. Now for some perspective from North America, I'll throw to Pierce Coffey. Thank you very much, Henry. 80%. I'm happy to report that our research showed that 80% of people in the Greater Washington area plan to use toll roads and express lanes Just as often, if not more than they did prior to COVID. In a year that has been among the most challenging in a generation, Our business in North America remains well positioned for growth, thanks to our 15 years of experience and success in the Greater Washington area. Since 2006, Transurban has continued to invest in local expertise and partnerships. We have built lasting foundational connections with government And we have found meaningful ways to support the needs of our communities, all while driving the long term economic vitality of the corridors we serve. The result, 175 local employees supporting a network in 2 markets that began with 23 kilometers of roadway And we'll soon be more than 110 kilometers, including network extensions underway in Virginia, and we expect more growth to come. North America serves more than 3,000,000 customers and 7 in 10 Express Lanes drivers are satisfied with their We also provide value to our partners beyond concrete and steel. We leverage our technology to provide government with the data they need To shape funding and transport policies. This year, the Maryland Department of Transportation selected a Transurban led consortium As the preferred developer for the American Legion Bridge I-two seventy to I-seventy relief plan. This project would add 60 kilometers of new express lanes And address one of the region's worst choke points, the American Legion Bridge, which links Virginia to Maryland. We were pleased to see Maryland adopt a pre development agreement approach to the procurement. This partnership structure provides opportunities For early stakeholder alignment through the design process as well as improved risk allocation. All of this Helps put the project on the best path to success. Our proposal to Maryland highlights Transurban's strong local track record with pre development agreements. The primary example of this, delivering 85 kilometers of express lanes in Virginia, all on time and on budget. During the proposal process, we engaged with more than 80 local stakeholders from community groups to local businesses. We demonstrated a thoughtful approach to reducing impacts as well as our long term commitments to environmental stewardship, public transport And community engagement. We are finalizing both the project plan and the development agreement as the partnership selection Advances to Maryland governing bodies for approvals. Set to be one of the largest P3s in the U. S, this project is complex. There is much work ahead to design a project in partnership with Maryland and its communities that will deliver new travel choices, lasting congestion relief And economic growth. Now turning to the outlook for recovery in North America. Ongoing COVID designed to keep our communities safe continue to impact traffic and revenue. However, we are starting to see traffic volumes improving with the traffic run rate Increasing through the Q3 of FY21. In the Greater Washington area, restrictions are gradually lifting with the phased rollout of vaccines, And most schools have returned to in person learning. As in a typical year, we are starting to see an uptick in seasonal travel Along the ninety five-three ninety five corridor as the U. S. Approaches the summer. Revenue has also exceeded pre COVID levels on a few recent Fridays along south Around 95. While restrictions will continue to impact traffic, data shows that the Greater Washington Area's economy is recovering. According to Oxford Economics, Washington has regained 49% of its lost jobs and the region is expected to see 2.7% job growth And 6.7 percent GDP growth in 2021. The national outlook also suggests steady demand for highway travel With record vehicle sales and e commerce trending upward. Looking to Montreal, A25 traffic in March 2021 Was down only 3.2% compared to March 2019 and heavy vehicle traffic is increasing. Now looking beyond pandemic related traffic recovery, the American Society of Civil Engineers recently gave U. S. Roads a grade of D And our 2021 infrastructure report card with a $780,000,000,000 backlog in road and bridge investment. Put simply, American roads need help and Transurban stands ready. As I'm sure you've all seen, the Biden administration has released a $2,000,000,000,000 federal infrastructure package currently being debated on Capitol Hill. Transurban continues to engage policymakers on how public private partnerships can fund modern, sustainable and multimodal transportation solutions as demonstrated by our Virginia Express Lanes. While Washington continues to debate, states are taking the lead, putting tools like P3s, gas tax increases and user fees to work. This is promising news for Transurban as these efforts align with our key strengths. In the Greater Washington area, We are preparing to launch a road user charging pilot through a U. S. DOT grant. This study will be a part of the largest trial on the East Coast And the first to incorporate tolling, congestion and cordon pricing. While U. S. Policy is focused on sustainable funding, Policymakers in Quebec have focused on sustainable transport. A record level of infrastructure funding has recently been announced And the Ministry of Transport is extending its pilot program that fully subsidizes tolls for registered electric vehicles. With year over year increases in the program, A25 now sees 7% of its traffic from electric vehicles. Looking ahead, Transurban remains focused on our commitments to government partners and the economic vitality of our North American markets. I'm now pleased to hand it over to Simon Morefield, who will discuss our customer and technology priorities. Thanks, Pierce. Our customers and communities are at the heart of our business. That is why we're committed to listening to them, understanding their needs and preferences and enhancing value. By enhancing our technology offerings, Our customers will help deliver business growth now and into the future. At Transurban, more than 95% of our customer interactions are via digital channels. It's our customers' channel of choice. We're continuously investing in and improving these digital services. Many of our improvements and changes we make are from direct feedback from our customers through our research or voice of customer programs. An example of where customer research has led to improve service design is around our account relationship. While most customers prefer a traditional account based relationship with us, Others are looking for a commitment free trip by trip alternative, and our GPS enabled Link Go delivers just this. It's a unique app in the market. It hit 3,000,000 trips in March this year. Our U. S.-based GoTOL app It's providing a similar opportunity in North America. In its 1st 12 months, we've had 17,000 customers using the app in Washington, D. C. And with the expansion into other U. S. States, it's providing significant potential to grow our customer base. Our focus on our customers and the commitment to be alert and responsive to their needs was also demonstrated During our response to COVID-nineteen, in 2020, we provided support to individuals, families, small business customers and through programs like LinkedAssist. And our COVID-nineteen toll credit program, which we will cover in more detail later. Our commitment and support in 2020 also extended to our commercial customers who account for around 20% of our trips on our roads. Collectively, These customers show more resilience to the impacts of COVID-nineteen given how roads are used to transport essential goods and services. However, impacts varied across different industry groups. Freight and logistics performed well, with lockdowns encouraging more people to shop online. Fleet management was significantly impacted by COVID-nineteen with corporate car operating lease contracts making up the majority of their business. When people started working from home, this clearly reduced car lease usage, and toll volumes were about were down around 40% to 50%. Construction and engineering were exempt from restrictions, and in most markets, performance remained relatively consistent throughout. Mobility and rental providers were hardest hit with restrictions on domestic and international travel. Toll volumes were down by 90% at the peak Of restrictions, particularly for the rental agencies. There was minimal impact to utilities as they are an essential service. And finally, commercial focused services were also hit hard with the closure of shopping centers, offices and public spaces. Looking to the future. Real growth will be supported by exceptional experiences we deliver At every point of our customers' journey, there are 3 priorities that underpin this delivery. We've already discussed the focus on customers and our customer research. It is what drives us to create value that builds advocacy and gives us the license to evolve what we do. And in response to a number of customer requests, We've implemented a real time tracking switch on Link Go, which give customers the control on how and when they use the GPS location services within the app. Secondly, customer trust is built through delivering consistent, safe and reliable service, both on and off the road. We invest in cybersecurity for our roadside and corporate systems and in privacy, to protect customer sensitive information. And even though our customers don't see these elements, they're absolutely fundamental to seamless end to end experience with Transurban. It's also important that customers have trust in our world class roadside technology that keeps our customers moving and running safely and smoothly. Our world class control systems Allow us to respond quickly and in real time to issues, keeping our assets safe and minimizing disruption on 2 drivers. And finally, we're doing all of this while remaining future driven so that we can scale and evolve what we do beyond traditional toll roads. We are building an advanced analytics capability within Transurban that will help us explore the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning within our technology systems. As an example, we're currently exploring the adoption of a machine learning model on a core process like number plate recognition, Allowing more automation, greater accuracy, requiring less manual intervention from our team members. Machine learning has The potential to transform our asset management and maintenance processes, potentially reducing life cycle costs, save energy, ultimately keeping assets safe and open. And now I'd like to welcome Jess O'Brien, Transurban's General Manager for Corporate Affairs and Investor Relations, and some of my fellow executive committee members to discuss some of the key actions Transurban is taking to meet our environmental, social and governance ambitions. Thanks, Simon, and hello everyone. I'm really looking forward to this next segment where we're going to do a bit of a deep dive into how Transurban manages ESG. But first, if we take a little bit of a look backwards, 2006 was when Transurban first released a sustainability report, And in that report, we spoke about corporate social responsibility, or CSR, as a strategy for how we balance the needs of all of our stakeholders To achieve a sustainable business. If we fast forward 15 years, the language may have evolved, but the sentiment is still very much the same. So today, to join me in the discussion on how Transurban is working towards ESG and making progress in this area, I've got 4 of our executive committee members. Michelle Jabko, our new CFO, whose room it also includes social license Andrew Head, our Chief Executive of WestConnex Suzette Kaur, our Group Executive of People and Culture and Simon Moorfield, welcome back, Our Group Executive of Customer and Technology. So welcome, everyone. Michelle, let's start with you. We all know that trust is something that's Very hard to earn and very easy to lose. I'm interested in your perspective on how Transurban has been able to build trust. Thanks, Jess. And you're absolutely right with your comments. I'm new to the role, and I know firsthand, I've seen in other industries, Just how important it is to have the trust of the community, trust of your customers and how easy it is Toulouse, if you're not listening, when I think about the way Transurban approaches it, it's very much about, look, do what we say we're going to do, Really make sure we provide value to our customers and the communities in which we operate and really be seen to be making our decisions fairly. The other thing I've noticed and sort of observed in my short time here is Transurban is a very data driven organization. And the way we approach trust is the same as the way we make all other decisions. We look at the data, we listen to our Stakeholders, whether that's customers, communities, investors, we look to independent studies and Survey, so we use 1 consistently to measure ourselves on sort of the sentiment of the general public. We look at the CCI report in terms of our investors and all of those show a very consistent increase and really good outcomes. So that was very pleasing. I've also noticed that Transurban takes a very programmatic approach to this. And so a few examples would be, We do quite a lot of work with the communities in terms of not just having good experience for customers that use our road, but to take congestion Off other roads, and I'm sure Andrew will touch on that as well. We do work with vulnerable customers. You heard from Pierce earlier about The opportunity in North America, and how important it was to show we were adding to the community in that. So trust is really fundamental To what we do to our social license, it's also not something you can just rest on. You can't just say you've done, you've got to keep building it. And I've noticed that Transurban takes that really, really seriously. And Michelle, to continue that theme, in your role as CFO, how do you think about ESG issues? And why Should our investors be interested in this area? Yeah, it's very linked to what I was just saying. I think for us it's just core to our business model. Social license is really part of our purpose, our strategy. And as CFO, there are many good reasons I think why it's Really important for our investors. So for example, it opens us up to new opportunities. I spoke about North America A minute ago, it reduces our cost of capital because it de risks the business, really helps us Create a more sustainable longer term business and it keeps our employees very engaged with us. So, you know, of course doing the right thing is very important for any large company, but for us I think it's even more critical as part of, you know, a really, really core part of our business model. Thanks, Michelle. You've spoken to some of the strategic reasons that we should be considering ESG matters. But Andrew, I think this is a nice place to bring you formally into the Station where we can talk about some of the local benefits of having social license to operate focus. In your role as CEO of WestConnex, Can you talk about some of the benefits for the community and why it's important to consider social license? Absolutely. So Back in 2018, when we were doing the assessment about whether we wanted to be involved in WestConnex, one of the things that we thought very deeply about was How we were going to engage with the community and develop a relationship with those stakeholders over the life of the concession, which in this case lasted until 2,060. We felt that Changing the tone and being much more empathetic with all the stakeholders involved was really important for resetting. And We thought about these projects as very large projects, mega projects that needed very detailed and almost Micro engagement. So the bigger the issue, the bigger the problem, the simpler the solution. And it often boiled down to actually getting around a table With a resident and talking through what was going to happen in their local community and how it was going to impact them. So micro engagement for mega project. We use all the traditional tools that you would expect, the general media, but we've enhanced that with social media, with street meetings, All those micro engagement and tailored messages are being delivered to the right people at the right time and being available 20 fourseven. So these things are not rocket science, but they require real shoe leather and effort. And we are starting to see the signs That effort has turned around sentiment. So in the course of the last 12 months, the sentiment with the people that we survey, and we survey over 2,000 people every year, Both in the local community and who travel through the community and seen a 20% uplift. So things are getting better. The relationship with the community is enhanced And we're proud to be part of the community there at Weskernex. Thanks, Andrew. And I think one of the themes that I've taken from what you've been talking about is the importance of doing What you say you're going to do. And that's actually a really important aspect of our employee engagement as well. Suzette, can you talk about That in the context of diversity and how it's really important to ensure that words and actions are aligned so that we can achieve real diversity. Thanks, Jess. And look, I suppose it gets to the core of diversity, is it's broader than, say, gender diversity or specific nature. For us, Our approach has been to think of it as a belonging piece and for all of our employees, no matter what their background or their skill set, To feel that they belong when they work at Transurban. And as leaders, we've been really conscious about drawing out those diverse perspectives so that we can really harness that For our business. When it does when we do look at outcomes that we've achieved, though, we're pretty pleased with where particularly the focus over the last decade on gender. We've got Nexco now that we have fifty-fifty gender balance, which is terrific. 3 of our 4 market heads Women and more broadly, we're nearly just there at the 40% level of female participation in our direct workforce, so, you know, Which is something we really strive for, and that's been a really focused effort because predominantly our workforce is engineers, technologists, Finance, so we have to be really clear that those workforces are typically male dominated, so what is it that we're going to do to attract That gender, equal workforce at Transurban. And we've done that quite systematically in terms of The way that we attract talent, whether that's our hiring practices, the way we retain people with our development and promotions, And then really focused on flexibility for our workforce, and that's stood us in good stead. But it's one of those things we have to keep paying attention to. We measure it and you see some of the statistics that we've got from our recent employee survey and they're strong but we just have to keep that focus. Thanks, Suzette. And I know I'm personally a key beneficiary of flexibility, so I appreciate Transurban's offer here. But we all know that it's not just about gender diversity, it's Cultural diversity as well. So could you talk about some of our efforts in this space? Yes, thanks, Jess, and it's absolutely spot on. Cultural diversity is incredibly key for us. We do have a culturally diverse workforce. Over a third of our people are non Caucasian. And that's really important that we make each one of those people Feel that they can contribute everything that they possibly can at Transurban. And very similar to the practices that we've actually used in gender diversity, we've applied those This is in terms of flexibility and talent into the cultural space. And we've also tried to be very aware of what's going on in the External environment so that we can really be prepared as an organization and reflect what's going on with our customers now and our communities. Last year, following the Black Lives Matter protests in the U. S, our team really responded to really think about From an equity and inclusion perspective, what it was that we needed to do. And that work now is well underway in that market. And again, We measure it. We want to see what, you know, that we're on track with what we're doing. And in our last survey, 87% of our people So that Transurban truly values that broader diversity, so that's a great outcome. But again, we have work to do, and we will keep that focus. So we're really clear that having a diversity of our people that's representative of the customers and communities we serve will drive superior security holder returns. Thanks, Suzette. So now let's switch to another one of our major stakeholder groups, customer. Simon, I'm interested if you can talk about how you build trust In the customer space. Yes, sure. So I think there are 3 key areas that we need to focus on to build and sustain trust. The first is just getting the basics right consistently all the time. We have a team in the customer technology area that works 20 fourseven to continuously improve and drive exceptional experiences for our customers. The second area is about listening to our customers. And we have a voice of customer program at Transurban. And just like every other key business decision we make here, it's going to be based on data. And For our 9,000,000 customers, we have 250,000 points of feedback each year. And based on that, we take actions and respond accordingly. The 3rd area we have is around providing transparency and choice. I think that's really important to build trust. A great example of how all of this can come together is we have a service on our website That's a trip compare, and that allows customers to enter their trip. They can see things like alternative travel choices, whether they're using our roads or not, Fuel emission savings or comparisons. And it's a great example of how transparency and choice is really provided to our customers. That service was created off the back of feedback through our voice of customer survey, so and continuously proved based on feedback from customers. Thanks, Simon. I love the Trip Compare tool. And I recommend if anyone hasn't had the opportunity to try it out, jump on the website and take a look. Simon, I'm interested, though, in how we look after the customers that are experiencing vulnerability. Can you talk about some of our efforts in this space? Yes, sure. So Transurban's commitment to the community, I really think, came to the fore during COVID-nineteen. We already had a hardship program called LinkedAssist. But during the pandemic, we recognized that we needed to really amp this up for customers. We created a toll credit program. We were able to serve 40,000 customers, and we Provided credits for $10,000,000 to those customers. We focused on 3 key areas, the first being Those who had lost their jobs or facing significantly reduced hours during the pandemic. Importantly, we helped, the frontline workers who were keeping us safe and healthy during the pandemic And also small businesses who were also heavily impacted by just the sheer lockdown during the pandemic. The other area that we helped were our key commercial customers, and we were able to provide extended payment terms Where necessary, up to 3 months in some cases. Just lastly, I'd just like to point out that we recognize the financial impacts of the pandemic will Sustained probably beyond this year. And we've extended the LinkedAssist program to LinkedAssist 360. And that helps The absolute most vulnerable customers in our community beyond tolls in areas such as financial matters or even legal support. What was interesting through the engagement scores is that our employees rated ourselves really highly on how we responded to our customers, and we're really Proud of how we responded to our customers during that period. Thanks, Simon. And I know it's so true in our area. Our team was really excited to be able to talk To family and friends about our toll credit program. We might switch now back to WestConnex. It's Australia's biggest road project and a huge employer, But it also plays a really important part in the local community. Andrew, can you talk about some of the ways in which WestConnex has provided benefits to the local community? WestConnex has been a huge employment driver for the City of Sydney. In particular, people who live in Western Sydney, younger generation in particular, Have been able to develop skills and expertise on the way through the delivery of the project. Local businesses have also benefited with long term Contracts that have given them certainty over a 4 or 5 year period as these projects are being built. That's really made a positive contribution to the economy And to the human capital in that region. In addition to that, there's been an enormous amount of investment in community assets. So as the construction completes And those construction facilities are returned as land. We can put in parks, create community facilities. There are sculptural installations that have gone in that children are congregating around in the New South Wales education system and talking about Public art and its contribution to space and to cities, there are going to be 18 hectares of parks When WestConnex is all said and done, right across the inner west, there are 23 kilometers of cycleways. And the cycleways piece is really nice because it ties in With what we're all about at Transurban, an integrated transport solution that rail, road, Pedestrian, cycleways all work together to solve the mobility problem. And one of the things that people tend to forget is that We're fixing up places that were pretty ordinary in the old days. So the St. Peter's interchange, for instance, was a dump. And now it's a spectacular interchange. It's got public art. It's got walkways. It's a material uplift in the fabric of the city. It's a really inspiring thing to be part of. Our people get great engagement out of it, great purpose and great pride. And finally, it can't be an ESG discussion without the environment. So, Michelle, I'm interested. Climate change action, it's so topical at the moment in North America and in Australia. And we've even seen research coming out of Edelman recently, And we've even seen research coming out of Edelman recently that says that Australians are actually more concerned about climate change action And they are about catching COVID. So with this in mind, can you talk to some of Transurban's efforts in this area and in particular customer emissions? Yes. Thanks, Jess. And it really is an important topic. I mean, Andrew's touched on our communities and the role we play. And clearly, it's a very Big area of focus in the communities in which we operate, and it is with our investors as well. Again, I'm new into the role and I've been Spending time over the last few weeks trying to get a better understanding of what Transurban has been doing, and I know we've got some information in the slides. Just to start a little bit with the history, just from and I'm sure everyone here knows it, but Transurban Has had carbon reduction targets since 2013, was one of the very early, I think one of the first ASX20 adopters of The Science Based Targets initiative and we've had we've made a commitment to be net 0 by 2,050 And the glide path to that is all detailed on the slides. And that's very much about how we reduce our own footprint And also the work we do with our suppliers. Naturally there are some challenges here too. There are some products that are used in our roads like concrete, steel That do use fossil fuels in their production and we're a very active and committed participant with industry groups and government In terms of working through how to decarbonize these products, the Scope 3 doesn't include Customer emissions in the definition, but this is an area that we're very focused on. We don't have all the answers On it, but it is something we're working through. There are a few examples, I think, of things we've already been doing here. One is the way in which we design our roads, really good example with NorthConnex where it was designed in a way to be flatter, sort of have flatter gradients, It'd be a straighter road to reduce emissions and my understanding is that customers that use the road on average Use 30% less fuel and generate 30% less emissions than the alternative routes. We also work with partners in this space. We're working with a partner at the moment on a device that helps customers understand their behaviour and actually Prompts them to use more efficient to drive more efficiently. So that's actually been really interesting and has quite good Resonance with the customers that are using it. So there is a lot going on In the space and really important I'm sure will be continue to be a big topic from here. And electric vehicles are obviously an important part of that too, aren't they Michelle? Yeah, Absolutely. I mean, clearly it helps our customers reduce their footprint and generate less emissions, but it helps us 2, in that, for example, the ventilation we have, it helps us do that in a more efficient way. So there become it's almost like a virtual circle. It becomes beneficial all around. And it looks like finally we're starting to see an increase in the usage of electric vehicles in Australia as well, which is really pleasing. Thank you to all of our panelists. That was a great discussion and some really interesting topics were covered. So we're now going to continue this conversation with our first ex Thanks, Jess, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to welcome back some of the executives you've heard from thus far this morning for this question and answer session. Joining me, we have Henry Byrne, Suzette Corr, Andrew Head, Sue Johnson and Simon Warfield, welcome back, everyone. As Scott mentioned before, we'll be taking questions in 2 ways this morning. Firstly, if you're watching at home or from the office, You may type your questions at any time via the Ask a Question button on your screen. Secondly, we have some of the analysts joining us by moderated teleconference. We'll try and get through as many questions as we have Time for in the 20 minutes we have with this group, remembering that we have a second Q and A session with the remainder of the Executive Committee At the end of the Investor Day webcast, which should be around 11:20 am. So let's get into it. We've had a question come in via the webcast, Which I think is probably for you, Henry. On workday travel patterns, how do you spread peak demand without congestion pricing? Yes. Thanks, Tess. Look, the premise sitting behind the question is right. We don't currently have price available to us or pricing available to us to Start to shape demand on the network and that longer term is something that we expect will be a real opportunity for not just our business, but really the broader sort of use of these road networks. But near term, there is still an opportunity that's come out of COVID given that people have fundamentally shifted some of the ways that they work and travel. And that is moving to more flexible arrangements and moving to different periods of the day when they're using these networks. What we think The opportunity is in front of us right now. It's really around grabbing hold of that, driving some awareness around some of the benefits that people can get from shifting those Travel habits. And then over time that will embed hopefully as a more habitual thing for road users. So to give you an example on CityLink for what that actually means in practice, Currently, if people were to shift their departure from home by just 1 hour, so say move from an 8 am to 5 pm window to 9 am, 6 pm. That's worth about 22 minutes a day. And that gives you a sense of just the magnitude of savings that people might be able to harness. So look, really, it is about education at this point. It's about driving those messages into our substantial customer base, working with partners to get the message out there. Great. Thanks, Henry. And we've had another question come in via the webcast. Sue, this one's for you. We've seen 6% growth in Brisbane traffic, excluding Airport Link M7. How much of this would you contribute to modal shift from public transport? And could this revert once COVID's behind us? Yes. Thanks, Tess. I think there's a couple of things to consider. So first of all, we called out Brisbane as a case study because Brisbane really operates as A bit COVID normal, actually. And so when we look at modal shift, public transport in particular, there is actually that's bounced back quite heavily. So Public transport usage is at about 70% to 80% currently. So that's not, I think, the main megatrend to consider when you're looking at traffic. And as we do at Transurban, we actually look at a multitude of factors when we're looking at traffic performance. And definitely a call out for Brisbane It's Logan Enhancement Project, so or the Logan Motorway. So if you look at our traffic numbers, certainly over the last year or 18 months, that's been a standout from a Performance perspective, and really that's linked to freight and the resilience of freight. And we've seen that across the group, more broadly. And so certainly, I think that's a factor to consider when you're looking at what traffic will be going forward. Freight is strong. And then equally with construction, we do see light commercial Also, it's performing very well. So we look at a multitude of factors. I think, as I say, the case study for us, Brisbane, Public transport is actually has high usage, so I don't think that's the key trend, and we do anticipate traffic performing really well going forward. Sure. Thanks, Sue. Now, we've had a question come in over the phone, so we'll go first to Rob Koh from Morgan Stanley. Go ahead, Rob. So I can't hear Rob. We might go back to the online questions while we get Rob back on the phone. Andrew, perhaps you can help us out with this one. What's the remaining capital work to be delivered on WestConnex? Well, the lion's share of the capital work to go for WestConnex and under WestConnex's management relates to the M4, M5 Link. Part of that is funded by the state, so they have about $400 odd 1,000,000 to go. The residual sits with Sydney Transport Partners and the State of New South Wales in their 49% ownership, and that's just over 500,000,000. So yes, we're kind of talking about 900,000,000 to go. The excavation is going really well. We're starting to roll off road headers moving into mechanical and electrical, and we're On target to be open in the early part of 2023. Fantastic. Thanks. We'll try again with Rob Koh from Morgan Stanley. Rob, do we have you? It doesn't seem like it. All right. We'll continue on with the web questions while we try and get that happening. Sue, maybe we can go back to you and talk about, some of the development opportunities in Brisbane. It seems like there's quite a burning interest in that. Yeah, I think the ingredients are really strong for development opportunities in Southeast Queensland. So there's probably 3 factors that I consider when we're talking about growth Opportunities there. So first of all is what we all have in all of our capital cities, which is economic stimulus and where is that going to come from. So Unite and Recover is the Queensland Government's recovery program, and that's centered around infrastructure as in most of our capital cities and countries around the world. The second is, we've talked about it earlier, the population. So looking for that significant population growth, that equals congestion. Certainly, we've got some public transport Solutions coming into the network, which we appreciate the whole ecosystem needs to work well, but definitely congestion is coming. And then the third factor, which we're hoping there's a positive announcement in July, at the earliest, but hopefully that will come off, Is SEQ 2,032, which is an Olympic bid. And so certainly with that as well, puts a line in the sand or a deadline for certain Solutions to be put in play as far as road infrastructure is concerned. So the ingredients are there, and we are looking to see what we can do to help again that Southeast Queensland, function and run to its most efficient. Fantastic. Thanks. General question come in, via the webcast, so perhaps our market heads would like to all contribute some thoughts here. Does Transurban believe the slow rollout of the Seen in Australia will impact traffic volumes and recovery on its roads. I can jump in with an initial thought, and I'll caveat this by saying that I'm no better placed to opine on the rollout of the vaccine than anyone else. But look, we are like many businesses Tied to economic activity, looking at the vaccine is one element that could potentially spur a recovery. And I think longer term, the nexus between that and Particularly travel. Air travel is one of the factors we're looking at, so not just domestic but international travel, the ability to reopen borders. That's certainly going to drive some marginal benefits onto our network. And we see that down in it's onto our network. And we see that down in Victoria, where if you look at the distinction between the Southern Link and the Western Link corridors, with the Western Link corridor obviously Servicing airport, that is significantly below where Southern Link is currently at, which is sort of almost returned to normal effectively. So Once we get the travel happening, that's obviously going to lead to an uplift across all of our networks, and the vaccine is one small component in helping get that happen. Yes, I might add to that and then pass to Sue. The WestConnex context is influenced by probably bigger things. So I should just mention New South Wales government and the federal government were very good and kept our construction projects open. That was a huge benefit And I'm sure the other big projects across the Transurban Group, having to demobilize those things would have been most unfortunate. We have managed to avoid that. The consequence is that you continue to get trucks carrying spoil out of those sites, and we saw Economic activity rebound in New South Wales and particularly on the WestConnex assets through the latter part of last year and have continued to see that trend. So Vaccine rollout is important, but it's not the only consideration, which is very similar to what Henry said. Yes, I would just reiterate. So certainly in all of our markets, We have assets that are linked to airport traffic. So, absolutely, that impacts our business. I do think also when we see lockdowns, We can't deny the fact that obviously that has an impact as well. Again, what we've seen though is quick bounce back, which particularly here in Australia. So That is fortunate for our business, but I think for all of us across Australia and certainly for our business in the U. S, which we've been very conscious of Throughout this really challenging time, I think vaccination is obviously something we would all like both for Transurban, but I think for the broader community as well. Yes, absolutely. Well, let's change tack. Simon, one for you. What are your expectations around growth in customer numbers Maybe in Australia and North America. And what do you think are going to be some of the factors that drive that growth? Yes, thanks. So this year, annualized Growth we're seeing, I think it's 7% in Australia. And in New South Wales, I think it's up to 10% with the rollout of the new roads there. I think we'll see, as we continue to build out the connections in New South Wales, continued customer growth. And then so that's on the infrastructure side. And then we also have a digital sort of Travel services, I guess you can call it, with our Link Go and our GoToll app in North America. We have 17,000 customers on now. I think the latest number 21,000 customers in North America on GoToll. And as we roll out to the future states, we expect continued growth. I think Florida this Month was our largest growth actually for GoTOL, which is great. Yes, that's exciting. All right. And one for you now, Suzette. This is around the recent developments on respect at work in Australian workplaces. The question is, has that impacted Transurban and the way that you manage Our workforce. Thanks, Tess. Look, I think, firstly, it's important to say that we don't tolerate any form of harassment At Transurban, so whether that's gender based, sexual or racial or cultural, and we have Policies and practices in place to support that. The Australian Human Rights Commission report Respect at Work Really, honed in on how prevalent these issues are in workplaces and how inequality can actually drive them. And what we do at Transurban is to make sure that we look at where inequality could exist in terms of leadership, and we really focus on developing that inclusive leadership and down to practices like looking at And down to practices like looking at our income to pay equity and making sure that we're really clear on that as well and really testing that. So, in terms of impact on our workforce, I think what it does is strengthen our resolve, and that's a good thing, because this is a really important issue. Thanks, Suzette. So I believe we're, we've sorted out our technical issue. So 3rd time lucky, Rob Koh from Morgan Stanley, do we have you on the phone? Hi, Tess. Can you hear me? Can hear you, yes. You can. Okay, great. So this question may have been covered, but I just wonder with the Excellent diversity performance. I wonder if you could ask Ms. Corr if there's any data on gender pay gap that you'd be happy to share with us. That would be my first query. Thank you, Rob. Look, we our goal is always to have a less than 1% gender pay gap, and we Test that annually, and we address any issues that we have so that we can clearly state that it is less than 1%. I think, Sujit, we've had that for a long time now. It's been a big focus for the company and you've been achieving those results for quite a while. Yes. And Rob, did you have a follow on question? Yes. Thanks for that answer. That's great. Just a question perhaps to Mr. Moorfield On just an update on technology, if you could just comment on where we're at with not just license plate recognition, but perhaps even identification of Driver and counting occupants in a car, where that technology is at, please? Yes. Sure, Rob. So in North America, our fare travel program, We've implemented that in North America, and that's up and going in one of our roads there. And so it's continuing to roll out, and it's quite successful to date. Fantastic. Thanks for the question, Rob. We'll move on now to another question on the phone From Ian Miles at Macquarie Bank. Ian, do we have you? Yes. Good morning, guys. Quick one on mobility firstly. If you think about those patterns, how did Monday and Friday look versus a Wednesday, Tuesday and the likes? I can jump in with some initial thoughts on that. Obviously, Iain, I think what you're alluding to there is The thematic that a lot of us are kind of contemplating around how will people return to the office. And we are all seeing that Prevalence towards midweek working patterns, I think in most of our workplaces, and that's certainly something that we've seen at Transurban. Longer term, it's not clear that that's going to be the way things play out. If you go to the mobility data that we've Gathered through the survey that we've done and published, it shows that there is a very broad based intent for people to return to the office en mass, And that's sort of approaching 90%. And then the ways in which they access flexibility is something that I think is still taking shape. And so Whilst you'd say we're still seeing we're seeing some preliminary trends emerge, I'm not sure that we'd be convinced that they're the ones that are going to persist into the longer term. Certainly for Brisbane, we actually have our traffic record record traffic days are often on a Friday. And so perhaps That's around the geography and the like of heading up and down the coast, etcetera. But certainly, our traffic days our peak traffic days or highest occur on a Friday. So I think, again, when we talk through some of these assumptions, I think, are actually being exaggerated, particularly when we talk about impacts on our traffic. Thanks, Ian. Did you have another question? Yes, sure. Just on the IT We hear lots about IT. How much is the cost base been moving over the last 2 to 3 years? And I guess, What's driving that increasing costs associated with it? I guess that's preemptive. Thanks, Rob. Ian, sorry. Look, there's been single digit percentage growth Over the last couple of years, and the primary driver of that has been the rollout of our infrastructure. It's Largely what we call project to operations cost. As we've completing NorthConnex and WestConnex, the costs there are commensurate with the rollout of that infrastructure. So that's really what the key drivers are on increasing costs to match that. But our overall cost as a percentage of trips is actually coming down. Would you also say we've had a obviously, we focus on cybersecurity more than ever. So like most as in most companies, we're continuing to invest in that space. I don't think there's a significant shift in cost, but definitely it's an investment that we're making is really in that cybersecurity world as well. Thanks, guys. Another question on the phone, Suraj Napani from Citigroup. Suraj, could you ask a question? I think Ian probably had a follow-up question. I might let him finish his question. That's okay, Suraj. I think we're going to run out of time. So please jump in. Okay. All good. Two quick ones for me. Just on road user charging, I think there's a fair bit of focus on that it seems. Can I just check What sort of benefit does Transurban expect from road user charging? The road user charging is certainly gaining momentum, which is a relatively recent development in the sense that if you went back 18 months to 2 years on this conversation, there was a fairly pessimistic view on the likelihood of seeing any broad based reform in this space. We are seeing developments, particularly in North America. There are a number of states who are very actively moving into this space either through pilots or Legislatively mandated regimes that are looking to implement in the near term. In Australia, you've just seen an electric vehicle charge introduced into Victoria, which Obviously, it's a precursor to a broader road user charge over time potentially. The benefits are probably twofold when we look at it. And the caveat to what I'm about to say is that the detail of how you might go to access these benefits will be dependent upon the type of regimes that Governments pursue and they will pursue different regimes according to different demands that are driven in their own markets. But principally, the two areas where you see benefits are, Firstly, around funding. So we are inexorably moving towards a funding challenge here where we all know that Fuel XR system is coming off As vehicles move to ever greater efficiency and ultimately into that lower zero emission vehicle fleets that we see taking Sort of hold of the networks out over the next 10 to 15 years. The second benefit probably lies in the premise of the first question that we answered on this panel, which goes to the idea that Pricing signals ultimately will present an opportunity to drive and shape demand on our networks. And when you look at the shape of the demands, and there are a number of charts that we put into the Presentation today, you'll see that there are significant periods of latent demand on these networks that we're not currently accessing. Pricing signals will give us an ability to potentially Shift some of the demand into those periods and get much better capacity utilization out of the networks. That's something that it isn't just A challenge for Transurban. It will be an opportunity, I guess, for governments at large in terms of how they shape demands on the networks. Thanks, Henry. And we've got time just for one more question, I'm afraid. So we'll go to Richard Jones from JPMorgan. Richard, go ahead. Hi. Just wondering if you've got any CapEx guidance for Gateway and Logan Way Motorways And whether you can discuss return expectations from these expansion projects? Yes, it's probably a little early to give any of those details. What What we're doing is monitoring and looking at what congestion will be on those key roads, key motorways, I guess, of Southeast Queensland. So Particularly, Gateway being on the trade coast is seen as pretty important and pretty central. And we are seeing traffic demands, and our forecasts are telling us that We will be looking for enhancements in the future. So doing the work as we speak to work out what that looks like and what will benefit everybody in Southeast Queensland. So just a little bit early on that one. Thanks, Sue, and thank you, everyone, who submitted questions and dialed in on the phone. I hope you found it an interesting conversation, and we will try and pick up as many of those as we can in the second session. We're now going to break for 5 minutes, so grab a coffee, And we'll see you back online around 10:45 for a discussion with our CFO, Michelle Jabko, and Group Treasurer, Tom McKay. Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome back. My name is Michelle Jabko. I'm the Transurban CFO, and I'm here with Tom McKay, our Group Treasurer. And, Tom, we've been spending quite a bit of time together working through the balance Chetan, our capital strategy. I'd have to say my observation coming in is that the team's done an enormous job and a fantastic job, Not only in protecting us through last year, through a period of pretty significant uncertainty, for everyone, But also in helping and continuing to set the balance sheet up for growth given the number of opportunities we have ahead of us. But maybe, Tom, if we start with talking about just how did you manage it through COVID? COVID, yeah. Well, thanks, Michelle. And, your itinerary last year was a really interesting year from a COVID perspective. I guess as we went into COVID, so early in the year, I guess we were fortunate in that we're in a very strong financial position. The balance sheet was strong and our liquidity position was strong. Said that, we did obviously focus very quickly on a couple of critical areas. One of them obviously was liquidity. So whilst we felt we had enough liquidity, we actually went to market and raised an additional $1,500,000,000 Really just to cover the future that was uncertain at that point in time. I guess what was pleasing for the balance of last year was as markets normalized, We were able to go back to our normal long term funding plans, which is a good thing. The other area that we really did focus on was the management of our key stakeholders, and that wasn't just Credit providers, there's also the rating agencies. And there, we're really keen to avoid any knee jerk reactions from anyone, you know, as a result of what was going on with COVID. Yeah. The other thing I hadn't appreciated on the outside as much as I have as we've been working through it is the granularity of the work you did at an asset level. It was really that work that enabled us to pay distributions, and recognizing, you know, of course, the distributions were lower than they had been, But we were able to pay distributions during during that time and do so in a way That we didn't have to raise equity or anything like that? Yes, that's right. So it's a key part of that COVID analysis. We really did a deep dive into each individual asset. And clearly, we are looking for any assets that were sort of forecasting any financial stress or any covenant pressures. There were a couple that we were more concerned about, which we actually took some preemptive action to make sure that pressure was relieved. But in the end, actually, we were very pleased that none of the assets had really suffered that stress and got through it pretty well. What actually that actually meant, though, was those individual assets then were in a position to continue to pay distributions, which then ultimately, as you said, enabled us as the group to pay distributions to our security holders. Yeah. Yeah. So perhaps then I might change and actually ask you a couple of questions. And as you mentioned earlier, we have been, over the last month or so, supporting other balance sheets and funding strategy and the like. I think I was interested to hear some of your thoughts around capital management. Yeah, sure. And I mean, I always start with a strong balance sheet Because I think a strong balance sheet gives you flexibility not only in periods like last year but flexibility to support your growth. And I think it's a real, strategic advantage, Actually, to have a strong balance sheet. And again, as we've been doing the work, I recognize some of the work you've done in terms of Taking the long term view you've taken on the balance sheet, which really does set us up. And a few there are many examples, but Just one is the structure of the balance sheet in the US. We effectively got 30 year debt over there, And it's structured in a way that makes it quite manageable to work through as well. So, that's just one example. And then, so once you start with a strong balance sheet, I think it really is about how do you get the right balance between supporting growth in the business And also recognizing our investors want returns on the way through, so paying distributions. And the good thing about Transurban is we've got a portfolio of assets that we've got quite a number that are highly cash generative. We've got others that are Ramping up and coming on, and then we've got a pipeline of future opportunities. So that means we should be able to do both. And then all of that is underpinned by having access broad access to markets, whether that's At the asset level, in terms of some of the work we do with our partners, and I know Hugh and Michelle will talk about that in a moment, All the work your team's done, Tom, in terms of just the diversification of our funding. So I think we've got a really, really good place To start from and to work from, in terms of our balance sheet. Yeah, no, as you said, it's certainly been an interesting and busy time for us as the business has grown quite dramatically. And I guess from a funding perspective, the focus from us with that has been not only that the funding's been done efficiently but also in a sustainable way that's ensuring our funding platforms And we're sustainable. And as you said, I know it's early days for you, but I was interested in your views as to how you would go about actually funding growth. Yeah. I mean, firstly, and Scott spoke about the fact we've got a pretty broad pipeline of opportunity or potential opportunities, and We've got some information in the slides on that. Going back to what we were talking about before, about having a strong balance sheet and that giving you flexibility, We did the Chesapeake transaction, which closed a bit over a month ago, and that means we've got $2,000,000,000 effectively sitting on the balance sheet to help us fund growth. You also spoke at the half year, Tom, about the expectation that we'll have capital releases over the next Few years of around $2,000,000,000 as well. So when you look at that relative to our opportunity pipeline, we start from a pretty strong position in terms of being able to fund the growth. Great. Look, one final question for me, and really just picking up on a kind of macro theme around the forecast of inflation and where interest rates are going, And particularly given your recent background and your professional history, very interested in your views on, I guess, our exposure to interest rates. Yeah. And clearly, this is something I've been quite focused on and you and I have been spending quite a lot of time talking through. When you look at the data, I think we're in a really, really good spot. Firstly, 98% of our book is hedged. And then if you look at the maturities we've got coming over the next few years, actually, most of them are above our average cost of funds, and you can see on the slides we put out today, most of them are around 5%. And then you've been pretty active in the market recently, Tom, and of the refinancing we need to do this year, we've done we've already done about 300,000,000 of it at an average of 3%. So we're in a I think we've got quite a good approach to how we manage that and sort of helps protect It does, and gives us consistency going forward. The other thing for us is you can't just look at the funding cost. There are some natural hedges in the business as well, and inflation gives us a bit of a natural hedge too. Well, great. Well, thank you for sharing those insights, and it's great to have you on board. Thanks, Tom. It's really great working with you, and thank you, everyone. I think now we're handing over to Hugh and Michelle, who'll talk to our partnerships and projects. Thanks very much, Michelle. I'd like to take a brief moment to acknowledge the work that we do every day to ensure our people And our customers go home safely. It's our most important work, and we're focused on providing a healthy and safe environment for our employees, contractors, Customers and, of course, the community. Our approach to managing health and safety is proactive and collaborative, Empowering our employees and working closely with our contractors and communities to keep people safe from harm. And we're actually really proud of our results in relation to safety, both for our people and contractors in the year to date. So firstly, for our employees, We've had no major injuries for the first half of financial year twenty twenty-twenty twenty one. Our contractor, RIFA, is among some of the lowest in the industry, but But of course, the work is never done in this area, and we continually work with our contractors and our teams to ensure we're striving to continuously improve in this area, particularly as we approach the half year ends when some level of complacency can creep into behaviors on-site. And I'm I'm particularly proud of our road safety measures and our commitment to making our roads safer for our customers. Recent findings By the research from Transurban's Road Safety Centre at New Era include that the design of motorcycle fuel tanks and the sitting position of the rider It's likely to lead to serious pelvic injuries, and we're looking at some protective equipment that could help alleviate this in the future. We've also importantly found that booster seats with a seat belt It can be just as effective as harnessed forward facing car seats in protecting children in the event of a crash. And we've also found that an older car seat that we expect the government will implement in the future. Moving now to the next slide. Our collaborative approach can also be seen in our work with our Equity JV Partners. Because we work so closely with them and have relationships that are expected to last for the very long term, We are highly selective in who we choose to partner with. We have a really clear set of criteria that we apply to each partnership decision that we make. So So firstly, they must have the desire and financial capacity to join us in pursuing some of the substantial growth opportunities that we are faced with. They must also share our values and commitment to ESG, which you heard the panel talk about before. Secondly, we aim to align with partners We will support our desire to manage the day to day operations of our assets. Of course, they're not just along for the free ride. They contribute value. But we are the operators. Thirdly, we want partners where we can value the experience they bring from significant investments in other global infrastructure businesses. So over the years, these decisions have meant that our successful partnerships meaningfully contribute to the success and growth of the Transurban business And provide returns for our co investors. To highlight this alignment that we share with our key partners, we're going to now show a short message from one of our longest Acting Partners, Nick Kemp, on behalf of Oz Super. Australian Super Trust that Transurban will deliver on its projects for two reasons. One is we've already seen it. So we've been partnering with Transurban for 5 or 6 years now. And over that journey, we've delivered almost $5,000,000,000 worth of new projects. Those projects are up in Queensland, they're Calm and most successful results. We actually also see the capability and the skills of the people that are delivering it. And that's probably what impresses the most is the fact that That group of people, the skills, their background and experience and their ability to deliver these projects are absolutely phenomenal and better than almost anyone else The team is without doubt the number one toll road team in the world, and their ability to not only run and manage Toll Roads not only to integrate and work with communities and key stakeholders, but also their ability to deliver these projects is really, really amazing. And that capability is something that we recognize and that we value value. Thanks so much to Nick for that message. It's really great to hear him reinforce our feelings on the relationship. We look forward to continuing to work with Nick and the team at Oz Super In the years to come. Moving on to an update on one of our major projects. And obviously, here, given the title, we're talking about the Westgate Tunnel Project. So firstly, there's certainly no shortage of major construction activity underway, with significant progress in 2 key areas of the project. In regards to the tunneling itself, 2 spoil disposal sites now have both EPA and planning approvals in place, And the D and C contractors' tender process is continuing in this area. Importantly, in parallel, we're continuing to progress commercial discussions with the D and C contractor and the Victorian Government. While we work towards tunneling commencing as soon as possible, we are continuing to put every effort towards resolving the challenges associated with the management of excavated materials from the tunnel boring machines. I was recently out on-site to witness this progress myself, And I'm excited to have the opportunity to share this with you virtually now. The Westgate Tunnel is more than just a tunnel project. And in fact, there's a huge amount of work going on across 2 of the 3 parts of the project while the parties work towards finalizing plans to commence tunneling. In fact, over 22,000,000 hours of work have been undertaken on the project so far. When it opens to traffic, the West Gate Tunnel project will transform how Melburnians move around their city. Anyone who's recently traveled along the West Gate Freeway We'll have seen the tremendous changes as a result of our 3 month summer construction blitz. On the Westgate Freeway, there's Significant construction work underway at the tunnel portals. Excavation is in fact almost complete at the southern outbound portal. Right now, I'm standing on 1 of 2 new pedestrian bridges that we've installed. And behind me, you can actually see some of the installation of over 1,000 noise panels that we've implemented for the benefit of our communities surrounding the road. I'm standing here next to the Maribyrnong River in Footscray. Over my left shoulder is the northern portal of the tunnels, which will ultimately connect to an elevated structure Over the river linking to CityLink. At the tunnel portal, there's wall building activities around the tunnel boring machines. And in the river, you can see the structural foundations of the elevated road are now complete. I'm standing here next to Footscray Road. Over my left shoulder, you'll be able to see some columns that are going to be used to support the ultimate elevated road structure. Over my right shoulder is a super impressive launching gantry, which will be used to construct the elevated road itself. Further afield, more than 20,000 precast concrete elements have been produced locally at Benalla precast facility, with very large pieces like crossheads Regularly being transported by truck through our construction sites. We will continue to make sure this vital infrastructure link is provided for Melbourne To help reduce the reliance on the West Gate Bridge and support traffic using connected motorways such as the Monash Freeway, Tullamarine Freeway And CityLink. So as you can see, there's plenty of work and progress happening on the project. On that note, I'll hand you over to Michelle Huie, Group Executive for New South Wales, to give an update on the WestConnex sale process. Thanks so much, Hugh. When complete, WestConnex will be a 33 kilometer Traffic light free motorway network with connections for future projects linking the Northshore and the northern beaches, Sydney Airport and the southern suburbs. It is Australia's largest road infrastructure project and a central component of both Sydney's transport network and Transurban's asset portfolio. Transurban and its partners acquired a 51% stake in WestConnex back in 2018. And since that time, Transurban, as operator, has worked hard to apply our wealth of experience to the operation of the WestConnex assets. We have fully integrated the assets into our Transurban centralized customer and corporate systems, bringing efficiencies and cost savings And giving us access to the data and insights that allow us to bring value to our customers across our various assets and markets. We've also been working closely with our partners and the state to deliver the remaining components of WestConnex. There's still critical work to be completed on the M4, M5 Linked Tunnels project, which is due to be finished and open to traffic in FY 'twenty three. Tunnelling is now over 90% complete, with only 2 kilometers of tunnel and ramps left to excavate. The focus on-site has now shifted to paving and mechanical and electrical fit out activities. The project is well in hand to deliver significant value to our customers, communities and our shareholders. We're excited to have played a key role in bringing such a central piece of infrastructure to customers and communities in Sydney And look forward to continuing to deliver increasing value as the remaining assets within the WestConnex networks are complete. As many of you will be aware, the New South Wales state government has announced plans to sell its remaining 49% stake in WestConnex. The stake will be divided into 2 equal tranches of 24.5%, with the decision on the sale of each tranche being made independently. Both stages are now expected to be run as a competitive process in parallel with Sydney Transport Partners' Right of First offer. Sydney Transport Partners is intending to submit offers for both tranches. And as you would expect, we have been preparing for this process for some time And we'll remain disciplined in our approach. I can also confirm that the ACCC has advised That they will not oppose STP's acquisition of the remaining interest in WestConnex in the case that we are successful. We're expecting the process to conclude in the Q3 of this year. However, I would point out that the process is being run by the New South Wales state government And remain subject to change. I will now hand you over to Scott, who will be joined by Tom Petrovski to discuss the Transurban investment proposition. Thanks so much, Michelle. My name is Tom Petrovski. I'm a market analyst at Commsec, where for several years now, Scott Charlton and I have been catching up on a regular basis To discuss the progress of Transurban. So it really is a great pleasure on a day like today, the Transurban Investor Day, to be able to speak to the CEO. Scott, it's always a pleasure. Thanks, Tom. Good to see you. So I suppose one of the things that stands out today, it's a rare opportunity in the calendar to be able to speak directly To your investors, what's the sort of thing that you want to communicate most closely, the vision and the way this leadership group is going to deliver on that over the next 10 Yes. Well, I think we've got a huge sense of optimism and a big opportunity set sitting out in front of us. I think, again, what you have to plan for is Not where you are today, but where you want to be. And I think what we've done over the last period of time is enhance our executive team. So we brought in some extremely good talent. Obviously, we've got extremely good talent and bringing those together outside looking new thinking, additional diversity and additional skill sets. I think we were really positioned strongly to take advantage of what we see as the largest opportunity set we've seen in a long time for the company going forward and should take us hopefully for another decade. One of the opportunities that Transurban has captured very effectively in recent decades is the urbanization theme, big Cities getting bigger. You've played an integral part in that landscape. Sure. At this This point in the story, though, it's a matter of trying to identify other growth drivers. How are you thinking in those terms at present? Yes. And we still think if you look at Cities and the markets that we're in, we still think urbanization is going to continue. Clearly, with COVID, there's an interruption in maybe some migration or other immigration or other issues, but Those long term trends are going to continue, and these are strong economic areas that we're in, the cities that we operate, and that's one of our key fundamentals. But there's a whole group of interesting fundamentals again happening, so urbanization, mobility as a service, Connected autonomous vehicles are 0 emission vehicles, polycentric cities. So all these things are really interesting dynamics. They all interreact They're going to come at different times, and some of them might have been pushed back a little bit like cabs. Some of them brought forward like electric vehicles. But what they all mean to us is that Transport is going to become cheaper, and that means more kilometers driven, but also an integrated transport world. So how do we take advantage of that And play a bigger role in that with our data, with our technology set, with our partners, and how do we prepare for that future. But it all looks pretty bright for the transport sector in the cities that we operate. So it is a very exciting time for an industry. It hasn't changed much for 100 years. We have a lot of interest in what we do and the partners that we work with. I mean, it's an encouraging position to be in to have those Drivers be as vital as they are. But the obvious question is, where are the new markets for an organization like Transurban? Yes. So if you look at the big opportunities that we have immediately in front of us, so the other 49% of WestConnex with our partners this year, a massive opportunity, one of the great assets in the world, currently the operator, which is great for us and will remain disciplined, but something obviously we'd be keen to see if we can Create the value that the government needs in that process. The M7, M12 widening process, we're bidding PPP or have won the largest PPP ever in Maryland in our U. S. Business. We've got 2 extensions and extensions happening. Again, the opportunity set immediately is there. Then long term, if you look at some of the opportunities at Western Harbour Crossing in New South Wales, The Olympics in Queensland, I mean, these cities are not going to stop, and they're going to need partners. And as long as we continue to be a good partner, not only with our government, but with our customers and the community, We think we could take advantage of that and add value not only to our communities but also to the security holders of Transurban. So again, The opportunity set is the biggest I've ever seen it. One of the opportunities is certainly the ability to collect data for Transurban. And what It is pretty obvious is that you've been able to track numbers to the extent where you probably could have mapped out the turning point in the pandemic in economic terms in Australia. How do the latest traffic numbers stack up when you're thinking in those terms? Yes. No, it was a really interesting period and watching China go through First and then how our numbers tracked in Europe and using that data and that insight to try and manage what we did. But the last numbers that we've seen is All credit to the governments and what they've been able to do. So we see now Sydney and we see Brisbane at pre COVID levels and traffic and actually growing. In Sydney, we've got traffic now that's 22% above where we were pre COVID, but 2 new big assets coming online, but they're actually outperforming our pre COVID forecast. So I think that just shows the recovery can occur very sharply with the restrictions lifted and the stimulus that's being applied And the effort the government's gone to make sure there's a rebound, and the same in Brisbane. We're seeing traffic above pre COVID levels at a 3.3% growth. Now, we do see Victoria. They've had a bit of a rougher time, and our traffic for the last quarter was down around 20%. Just in the last month, we've seen traffic rebound to around the mid teens down from pre COVID levels, but year on year it's almost 10% growth. So again, the rebound comes back pretty quick when all the restrictions are lifted, And it shows resilience, I think, of our assets and our strategy. There's a well worn expression in politics where they say, never let a crisis go to waste. But There's a truth to it. There are so many lessons to have been learned for corporates, in particular, in the last 12 months. What stands out for Transurban? Yes, it was a really interesting and tough time for all of us. And again, I think this is, as I said to other investors, my 7th crisis To have lived through, so a lot of gray in my beard and my hair. So, but everyone's every opportunity or every crisis is So the really interesting thing is we were conscious effort to look at what Transurban needed to do and what we needed to do for our stakeholders. So a lot of different corporates Dealing with tourism, dealing with health crisis or whatever, but what should we do? And we focus on a few things. One is Our capital structure was very robust. We didn't breach any covenants. We were really well prepared with liquidity, and we were still paying distributions. Even though the depth of the crisis, we were paying distributions, which we were really proud of. And as part of that, we knew that the recovery would occur, whether it was a year, 2 years, 3 years, and we thought it was important to be prepared for that. So we retained all our In fact, we hired staff to be prepared for this economic recovery that we thought infrastructure would play a role in that. But we knew also that we're going to be a lot of affected customers. So, we set up a LEAP to assist program. We've given over $10,000,000 to the vulnerable and the frontline personnel who had obviously severe difficulties during this crisis. So we were very focused on each of our stakeholder groups, very targeted as opposed to sort of a blanket approach. What we then did was reviewed all of that toward the end of last year and said, Well, how did the models hold up? And we thought, Very well. The strategy, the operating model It held up really well, resilient, the right geographies, the diversity of our client base, and really pleased with that. And in fact, there's a New South Wales tolling inquiry coming up, And we're really pleased to present our value proposition, which, again, we think presents very well, and I'm always happy to demonstrate the value we bring not only to our customers But to the communities where we operate. So yes, it played out pretty well, and don't want to go through it again, but It's we're happy with how the model performed. Fingers crossed. Scott, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. Thanks for your time. Thanks, Tom. And now it's over to Tess Palmette for the Q and A session. Thanks, Tom. Welcome to our final session of the morning, which is a question and answer session with members of our executive committee. Joining me on stage is Scott Charlton, Michelle Huie, Hugh Weebie and Michelle Jabko. And joining us live from Tysons, Virginia is Pierce Coffey. Welcome, everyone. I'll remind you again that we're taking questions 2 ways this morning. If you're watching at home or at the office, you may type your question at Anytime via the Ask a Question button on your screen. And for our analysts on the phone, you can press star and 1 on your telephone keypad. Now let's get straight into the questions because we have quite a few. Starting with you, Michelle, how do you define a strong balance sheet? What metrics do you look at? Is it asset or group level more important? Thanks, Tess. Really good question. At the end of the day, I think it's important to look at both. Probably there's a short term and a longer term aspect to the answer here. So nearer term, would look at Things like our FFO to debt, our gearing and our liquidity ensuring all of that's strong. Longer term, it's about goes back to what we were Talking about earlier, it's about how do we balance distributions for our investors and the ability to invest in growth And also the tenor of our of the balance sheet as well, recognizing the long term nature of the business. So it's a range of metrics, Again, group and asset level. Great. Thank you. And now for Michelle Huie. We've had a question in via the webcast. What is Transurban's strategic rationale for acquiring the remaining 49% of WestConnex? Thank you, Tess. I think a lot of our investors and analysts We already know the asset very well. The strategic rationale are multifold, starting with essentially the fundamentals of the asset. It provides a huge relief to a very congested city. And so the success of the and the growth of the traffic on WestConnex It's built on the fundamentals and the economics of Sydney itself, connecting the east, the central and the west side of the city. On the pricing side, we have the ability to escalate the tolls at a level that is above CPI for The majority of the duration of the concession to 2,040, and it provides us with a level of assurance and a level of growth prospect for the revenue side. And then beyond the asset itself, thinking about it as a part and a core part of the Transurban portfolio, given its long dated nature To 2,060, it does make a big difference to the weighted concession life of the portfolio going forward. Great. Thanks, Michelle. Pierce, we've had a few questions come in for you. Let's start with this one. From a top down perspective, the opportunities in the USA look How does Transurban ensure that it's pursuing opportunities for which it can provide unique value and earn attractive returns? Thanks, Tess. As you've seen us do in all of our projects, we'll take that same disciplined approach to looking at Whether or not Transurban should pursue a project, whether we've got the value add to the government, if it meets our objectives and if it's going to work for our investment criteria. In Virginia alone, we're looking at $1,500,000,000 worth of projects that we're working on with our partner here in Virginia. And as you heard earlier, we've recently been selected as the preferred developer For Maryland, Phase 1 being USD 3,000,000,000 to 4,000,000,000. So we've got a lot of work here right in the Greater Washington area where we'll continue to be committed to our government partners And deliver with our key strengths and leverage our local footprint. Great. And here's a follow on. Does Transurban believe that the current political position of governments in the United States will support continued expansion of toll roads? We have seen toll roads and P3s be supported by both sides of the aisle here in the United States. So we absolutely think There'll be a suite of tools that governments will need to use to tackle the big infrastructure challenges we have here in the United States, whether that be user fees, Toll roads, congestion pricing, so definitely think that there's a future for toll roads in the United States. Great. Moving on back to Australia, and we've got a question asking if there's any update on the Westgate Tunnel project, spoil sites, Cost estimates or timing. So Hugh, did you want to have a go at that one? Thanks, Tess. Yes, I'll have a go at that. So firstly, as you heard in my video, It's a massive city changing project that we remain absolutely committed to and really confident in our position on. That being said, there's really 3 key areas that are occurring at the moment. One, there is still major progress on 2 of the 3 construction zones. So we are doing a lot of work outside the tunneling zone. Secondly, and specific to the question, Two sites have now been given EPA and planning approval to take contaminated soil in the future. So there is a path now for commencing tunneling. But the third aspect is also vital, which is the commercial engagement with both the Victorian government and the D and C contractor. So we're really working hard at that. As I said, we remain confident in our position, We're absolutely committed to delivering the project. Thanks, Hugh. We'll go to some questions over the phone now, and the first one comes from Ian Miles at Quarry, Ian, go ahead. All right. We'll go straight on to Richard Jones from JPMorgan. Richard, do we have you? You do. Sorry, the Questions actually just been answered, so thank you. That's no problem. All right. Rob Koh from Morgan Stanley. Rob, ask a question. Hi, Tess. Can you hear me okay? Yes, we can. Okay, great. I guess this might be a question for Ms. Japko, but I'm keen to hear all perspectives. If I think about the range of outcomes, both upside and downside Pre COVID, would we be right in thinking going forward that there's actually more upsides, more growth, but also and more innovation like Quarter and pricing as well as, I guess more downsides now that we know what COVID looked like. And what does that do to the funding, long term plans? Yes. Do you want me to start, Tess? Yes. I mean, the way I look at it, and I've come in from the outside, is the balance sheet held up really well through the test, And it was tested, like many businesses, and actually held up really well. And Tom spoke about that earlier in terms of all the things we're Able to do. So I'm I've sort of and as I've sort of been working with Tom and working through the business And looking sort of deeply at the structure of the balance sheet, I've probably been more pleasantly surprised on the upside than the other way around. But clearly, that's something we continue to work on and make sure the balance sheet's set up for the future. So I'll probably take your question and think as I look at it, there's probably more upside than there is downside, just when I think about the opportunity set that's in front of us And the way we're positioned going into that. Yes. I just might add to that. So there's the balance sheet side of it rather like you're talking about. But then the other side of that It is what Henry talked about in the mobility trends. So I think again, and I know that from a market perspective, it can tend to be short term focused. We're very long term focused. So we're investing for 50, 60 years and our traffic team and our forecasting team, I think is one of the best in the world. And again, they'll talk about Scott. We're oscillating around a line and we've been through whether it's SARS or GFC or different sort of events. But Long term, the trends that are underpinning where we are in our markets, they're still there. To some extent, Rob, we talked about some of those trends have accelerated and around potential for road user charging, ZEVs, other things. So I think that probably is bringing some of those positive trends and those tailwinds forward. But again, we're talking about forecasting over multiple decades, not looking at what happens in a short term. And you can see how quickly the recovery Occurs anomalous in any of these situations when we come out the other side. Thanks, both. So let's try again with Ian Miles from Macquarie. Ian, go ahead with your question. Yes. Sorry, guys. I was mute. It's a little bit. Just on the $2,000,000,000 of Capital leases, can you maybe restate that for post the sale of the U. S. Assets? Is it still relevant Can you be $2,000,000,000 or has it come down in number? No, it's still the same number. So I think we were mindful of that at the half. Yes, that's right. And Michelle, I think there's going to be some opportunity for paying out some of those capital releases this year? Potentially, yes. So we're working quite hard. Subject to market conditions, it's possible we could get about $250,000,000 done this calendar year. Just to clarify, not paying it out, but bringing it back into the balance sheet. Yes, exactly. We still the distribution is still from the directors forecast to be free cash flow without capital releases. But That capital will be available to do this myriad of opportunities we have in front of us. Great. And Ian, did you have another question? Yes. Just jumping across to the Westgate Tunnel, how long does it take from the beginning of the tunnel bores for a tunnel to get complete? What's the original timeline? Let me take that one, Ian. It's about an 18 month tunneling process. So that Obviously requires the site to be activated and for the commercial resolution, but about 18 months from the commencement of the TBMs. All right. Thanks, Hugh. Let's, jump back on to some of the questions that we've received online and another one for you, Michelle. What are your views on credit ratings across the assets? Will you seek to maintain existing levels? Look, I think I sort of go back and say the first question you want to ask us is do we think we've got the right balance sheet and I do. I mean the credit rating is an important part of that And I think it's it goes to both the cost and availability of financing, and I think it served us Well, but again, at any point in time, we'll always look at we'll look at the balance sheet. We'll stress test it and say, do we think we've got the right balance sheet for the current world? Great. Michelle, another question for you. What are your plans with the Northern Beaches over the next decade? [SPEAKER UNIDENTIFIED COMPANY REPRESENTATIVE:] Well, the Northern Beaches is a project that the government is delivering. And so that question really To be answered by the government, but recognizing Transurban has a key role to play in the Sydney network, we would be very keen to support the government And whatever they decide to do, but certainly the dialogues that we've had with them, we'll see a few other infrastructure Projects taking priority in the immediate term and with us having longer term conversations with them as to how we can support The long term infrastructure agenda. Hugh, what are the pros and cons of introducing partners into your assets? What have you learned from older agreements Like the Eastern distributor and M5 to improve the agreements that you're signing today. Thanks, Tess. And of course, I've only been part of the latest Graeme, but I'll ask answer on behalf of the history of the company as well and maybe defer to Scott and Michelle for some more comments. We learn every time we do a deal And we seek to improve the MSAs in particular with our partners, but some of those key characteristics haven't changed. So the long term investment horizon, ability to partner deeply with Transurban as the operator and the ability to follow money and actually engage on future opportunities in market are all really vital for us. And when we get those right, it's actually a really seamless relationship. And you don't go back to the MSAs and look at clause 16. You actually rely on the partnership and the relationships, Which were formed over a really long term. But at a practical level, there are incremental improvements every time we sign a new agreement with Transurban Chesapeake being the latest example where we brought in 3 new investors. So it has to be the right value at the right time, but looking at those opportunities all the time. Scott? Well, thanks, Joe. He hasn't been here very long, but he Pretty much got it. So, I think that the main thing as he was saying is if you look at some of the assets we picked up partners and acquisitions, All the things we're doing now is working with partners to either do acquisitions or developments. And those partners are very much aligned. And you saw Nick Kim from Aussie Super and they've been a great partner. So we have a select group of partners and we're very much long term aligned. They bring unique capital and other aspects to us and their global perspective and they respect what we bring to the table. So I think what we've learned is the relationships are the most important part. As you said, we don't rely on the investor agreements and our transactions because today, because we've been so well aligned and we hope to remain that way. This is a bit more of a general question, Scott and Michelle, perhaps to you. Wondering if you could discuss current assumptions on the long term cost of funding And inflation to ensure project returns stay at or above our cost of capital in a potential rising interest rate environment. Want me to start? Sure. Yes. I mean, again, I think it goes back to what Scott was saying in terms of the traffic forecasting. We take a very long term view, and I've been going back through The various assumptions that have been used in the number of projects we've done and their long term views around traffic, inflation And financing costs. So I'm actually quite comfortable when I look at it. There's quite a bit of buffer actually in the assumptions we've got To give us comfort around our around the long term value of those assets. Yes, I think that's right. And I think we've explained Many times and for those who are new to Transurban, the story is that we always look at the long term averages. So what we can lock in, in the short term when we make an acquisition or we do a development, obviously we will. But long term, we know interest rates have to rise. We know inflation will increase. And we know that things will change. So we never assume when I hear a paradigm shift People say it's going to be this way forever, then that's when you're usually at the bottom of the market or the top of the market. So we always assume long term that things will go back to the longer term averages. So to Michelle's point, we have that buffer built in. But you also have to remember, I think we've got So things working on both sides of the equation. Inflation rises, our revenue rises. So yes, interest rates rise, but we through the great work that the team have done have long term debt locked in place. So we do have things that counter the rising inflation or rising interest rates. And so we think between those forces working and then how we forecast that long term to make our returns that we're very comfortable with our investment propositions. Great. Thank you. Another one for you, Scott. You mentioned that you've made a number of changes to the executive team over the last 12 months. How much of this Is with management transition and succession planning in mind? It's the most thing is about what is the right thing for Transurban to position it to take advantage of the opportunities we see. And I think as I said earlier in Tom, it's about what is the team that we need to take place to move forward for the next decade and take advantage of all the opportunities. So that's the most important thing. Clearly, whether it's my position longer term or any of the executives' positions longer term, we're looking at the talent within the organization, outside the organization, what do we need to be successful. And that's really what we're concentrating on. The succession planning either short term, long term will take care of its So the most important thing is to get the talent and capability and I'm really, really proud of how everyone's presented today and it's It's been great to have the team together and we're going to take advantage of the opportunities. So to be successful, that's the most important thing and create value for all our stakeholders. The rest of it will take care of itself over time. Thank you. Pierce, we've had another question in come online for you. It refers to a trial where electric vehicles were being offered toll free travel. Which market was this in? How does Transurban get compensated for this? And how are you measuring or identifying the actual electric vehicles versus petrol cars? Thanks, Tess. This is a program in Montreal on the A25. We partner with the Quebec government. This is a pilot program that they started in 2016 and at the time we had 0.9% of our traffic coming from electric vehicles. Fast forward to today and it's about 7% of our traffic. It's a really successful pilot program that Quebec has launched and they're actually looking to extend that program, which is fantastic for us. We get reimbursed the tools for those trips And we have the added benefits of having more electric vehicles on our facility. From an actual operation standpoint, you need to register with us to be a part of the program. And that's how we can tell that it's You taking that trip and make sure that you get a toll free trip, and then we work with the government to be reimbursed for those tolls on the A25. Thank you, Pierce. Hugh, another one for you. You spoke about contractor and investor partners, but what is your focus on technology suppliers going forward And their importance and value to Transurban. Along with all our other partners, they're absolutely vital for what we're doing day to day. Particularly speaking, Simon tends to own those relationships more. But we're really conscious that as we're developing projects and delivering projects, have to integrate the physical infrastructure and the technology infrastructure. So when my team comes in and works with Simon's team and the market team is on ensuring that integration makes it the best Use case for our users, for our customers at the end of the day. But on the specifics, it's definitely something that Simon is carrying forward along with the markets teams. Sure. I might just add to that. And I think one of the things that I'm really proud about Transurban and what the technology team and what everyone's done here is, obviously, embrace technology. We're a fast follower. We're not a leader. We're just not in that space to spend that kind of money, but we're a fast follower. But one of the things is buying being agile, the amount of data we manage, The kind of things that we do is we do for our size and what we do attract a lot of attention from the big technology players, which is great. So we're one of Amazon Web's biggest service providers here in Australia. We work with all the big technology providers and all across It's a different space all the way from the big data providers down to the intelligent transport system. So, we are a very important client to them in testing their products and proving out what they have to do. So we do get the opportunity to look at things first sometimes or quickly so that because we can be agile and work with them to prove some different cases. So It is quite exciting. And again, the technology area is one of our biggest teams in Transurban, and we've seen where we move through these digital platforms and a really important part of of what we'll do over the next decade. Thank you both. So we're rapidly running out of time. We might go back to the phones for One last question from Rob Koh from Morgan Stanley. Rob, go ahead. Hi, Tess. I'm sorry this is the last question, but I was hoping you could give us an update on the cash tax situation across the group. We got to take another question for this. That cannot be the last question, Rob. I don't know if Michelle, you want to answer, but we're not doing the last question on tax. I don't think there's much I don't think there's much update from the first half actually, Rob. Okay. Yes. I think 2025. Yes. Thanks, Rob. Yes. Take another question. We're going to take another question. We're not going to ending on tax. All right. How about we go for Pierce, back to you and back to Montreal because we probably Not everyone will be aware of what we're doing in that market. Is there any update on future development opportunities there? So Tess, we're always looking at how we can partner with our government clients to see how we might be able to enhance regional or network mobility. And that's no different, especially now with many governments turning to infrastructure to help with economic recovery from COVID. We've learned a lot about local transport, Socioeconomic and geopolitical issues in Montreal since expanding our presence there, including our growing network of local partnerships. We're looking at opportunities in the vicinity of our current network and operations. And notably, the province has recently announced record infrastructure investment And looking at how to advance those projects through a combination of local, federal and private investment. So we're continuing to look forward to work with our partners in Montreal to advance our network there. Great. Thanks, Pierce. So thank you very much to all our executives and for those who've asked questions across both of the sessions this morning. It's great to make it interactive, even though we're meeting in this virtual way. So, now I'll hand back to Scott for some closing comments. Great. And thanks, Tess. So in summary, and hopefully you can see it come through today, I'm very excited about Transurban's next chapter of growth. I think as we all are and the Board is, We've come through what has been obviously an incredibly and challenging 2020, but we are stronger as a company for what we've done and we've refreshed the leadership that you've heard from today, and I think they've done a tremendous job. We're very confident of accessing funding for what is a very large pipeline of opportunities in our core markets and some of the ones we've actually discussed today and there's quite a few that we haven't discussed today as we work with governments behind the scenes. And we believe that macro trends will add further projects to those that have been identified and that we're working on. Also, you would hear us Talk about our commitment to ESG and creating value for all of our stakeholders. And we believe that this is a competitive advantage for us and positioning for these new projects and something that Transurban excels at. And looking further into the future, we see lots of opportunities for Transurban with the state of mobility and some of the issues that were on the ESG panel around what we see in future technology. I would also like to acknowledge Tess and Jess and the whole team for putting together and this today, which has been a fabulous day, And particularly all the Transurban employees for your contribution to our success and all the hard work through a very difficult time last year. And to the rest of you out there who is watching, thank you for spending the morning with us and for your interest in Transurban. And I hope you have a good day.

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