Thank you and welcome, everybody. I'd first like to start on the performance highlights on page nine. You can see from that page that we had a revenue of NZD 948 million, which is we were just over NZD 100 million less revenue than last year due to the challenging market. Highlights in the year were that we generated cash flow of NZD 105 million, reduced our debt to NZD 232 million, whilst improving our gross margin percentage by 0.3% and we believe a credible result in gross dollar profit per ton at NZD 15.18 per ton, which was a decline of 4% in a very difficult environment. Can we go to the next slide, please? In this next slide, I want to talk specifically about some of the key elements that we focus on.
The company as a whole has absolutely maintained a critical focus on high service levels with very high delivery performance, and we grew our non-aluminum customer base by 6% over the past two years. This generated the strong cash flow I talked about earlier, and we enabled the company to make a return on capital employed pre-tax of 12.8% despite an extremely challenging environment. We believe this is the rate at the bottom of the trough for the company. We reduced our debt to NZD 232 million, and that is an ongoing program that we see debt reducing over time. Next slide, please. We've got a proven track record of M&A, and since listing, we've acquired stainless steel engineering and aluminum. All of those three companies were companies that were struggling, that required a lot of restructuring and improvement, range rationalisation, new IT systems, and a lot of changes.
We're pleased to announce that we've bought a new business, Roofing Industries. This business is unlike the other acquisitions we've made in the sense that it's got an extremely good IT system and is a very well-run company and makes an extremely good return. Later in this presentation, I'll hand to Gavin Street, and Gavin will go through in detail about this exciting opportunity. Next slide, please. Operating backdrop, slide 13. Key elements about our performance: Australia, very challenging environment with high interest rates, a lot of uncertainty, particularly due to the election, and we also had the challenges within Victoria. We see tons per day weakening during that period, but we're seeing an improvement generally in Australia now. In New Zealand, a very, very weak environment, particularly Auckland. The high interest rates and the transmission to lower interest rates has been slow. Business confidence has been low.
Consumer confidence has been low. Seeing some small improvement in the rural outlook, but the overall economy looks like it's going to start again soon, but hasn't yet transpired to improvements of any great degree. We've seen some improvement in pricing in certain segments from low levels recently, and we've also seen a general comment that the underlying middle product prices have generally been flat to weaker in FY 2025. Overall, the backdrop in the past year has been a very challenging environment, particularly with the concerns around Trump's tariffs and the administration of the Whyalla S teelworks. Effectively, all elements of the environment have been challenging. Next page, please. In terms of our group financial performance, we had a 6.4% reduction in volume with a 5.7% year-on-year decline in steel and an 8% decline in metals. There's a 4.8% decrease in overall revenue per ton due to pricing internationally.
In terms of active accounts, active accounts were down slightly, but this needs to be taken in the context that in aluminum we eliminated a number of product types and groups, including the Wintec product range, which obviously reduced our customer base. The actual number of active customers that are non-aluminum grew 2% year-on-year in the second half of FY25 alone in what was a very difficult environment. Our gross margin improved, as I indicated earlier, by 0.3% to 34.2%. This contrasts strongly with other participants in our industry. Our overall gross margin per ton fell by 4%, reflecting a weaker market overall. I reemphasize our return on capital employed above cost of capital at the bottom of the cycle at 12.2% pre-tax. Next slide, please.
In terms of operating expenditure, a key element of our company culture and philosophy is to maintain our team so they're absolutely able to perform their roles. In a high inflationary environment, we ensured that our people were remunerated appropriately, and we had the right people and the right resources to maintain high service levels. That did increase our costs in people costs to 5.1%. We worked very hard to reduce costs elsewhere and did a reasonable job of that. We did, however, have increased rent costs, but overall, we reduced our costs by over NZD 1 million. Next slide, please. In terms of cash flow and CapEx, as we indicated earlier, we generated NZD 105 million of operating cash flows. We reduced our inventory in line with a declining market in the first half year by NZD 16 million.
In the second half year, further reduction of NZD 11 million, primarily focused on optimizing and ensuring our stock was 100% right. We also spent NZD 17 million on plant equipment and other key elements to maintain our competitive advantage in terms of newness of product and quality and ensuring that our equipment and capability were maintained. Next slide, please. Balance sheet and metrics. The chart on the right-hand side, upper chart, you see the constant decline in net debt. This reflects our balanced approach to balance sheet management with an ongoing focus on reducing debt. We've reduced our debt to NZD 232 million. It spiked in December 2022 when we acquired aluminum, which was completely debt-funded, and we've continually reduced our debt level since. Highlight is that we're paying a dividend of NZD 3.5.
This represents a 44% payout ratio, which is at the lower end of our range, but reflects the fact that it is a difficult environment and we keep being conservative with our cash. The final dividend will be 100% franked and 100% imputed. I'd now like to hand over to Gavin Street, our Chief Commercial Officer, who is also going to become our new CEO and Managing Director on the 1st of January, and he'll go through the Roofing Industries acquisition, which he's been actively involved in.
Thanks, Rhys, and thanks, everyone, for joining the call. For us, it's exciting to announce that we plan to acquire 100% of the equity in Roofing Industries with wholly owned branch companies, which will account for NZD 88 million, with a total enterprise value of NZD 99 million. For us, we're excited to welcome the Roofing Industries team to Vulcan. The transaction will be fully funded through an accelerated renounceable entitlement offer to our shareholders. We expect earnings per share to be accretive, which includes the impact of equity raise and assuming no synergies in this transaction. The acquisition rationale is very strong for us. It's the extension of our current product offering, and we've been looking at this Roofing Industries industry for over 10 years now and very excited to be able to enter into the marketplace.
The segment is near the bottom in New Zealand economic cycle, which we think is an advantage. As we continue to grow over the next couple of years, that puts us in a really strong position, and we really are encouraged by the service focus and the culture alignment with Roofing Industries and Vulcan. We expect the completion to be in the second quarter of FY 2026. If we move to the next slide on slide 20, it's really clear for us that this is a very attractive new vertical for us.
We've gone through an extensive DD process, which has allowed us to get some really deep understanding of the business, and it's really clear to us that the customer service focus of the Roofing Industries team and also the alignment of the company culture is really strong, and it's become a very attractive valuation for us as we continue to go through this DD process and finalisation. If we move to the next slide onto page 21, we give an overview of the Roofing Industries, and this is really a diverse customer base, which is a mix of both residential, commercial, and in the rural markets. It is a nationwide operator, which has over 15 locations, and as I mentioned before, a very strong customer-focused culture with all of the truck fleet owned and operated by employees, which is pretty much the same model we have here at Vulcan.
From a full-year basis, FY 2025, total sales are circa NZD 160 million, with EBITDA around about NZD 21 million. That assumes 100% ownership in those numbers, and you can see that the build-up over the last three years has continued to grow as new branches have been coming on board and continuing to increase their sales and revenue capability. If we move to the next slide onto page 22, this gives a very overview of the kind of products that Roofing Industries offer, which includes residential roofing, commercial roofing, rainwater solutions, residential and commercial cladding, as well as fencing solutions. From the data and analysis we've been able to see, we see approximately 55% of the business sits in the residential roofing, which includes a mixture of both new business or new builds, as well as an R&R market, which we believe is also very attractive.
If we move to the next slide on page 23, this actually goes through the locations, and there's 15 locations in total, 10 in the North Island, you can see, and five in the South Islands. With over 250 employees with a local owner-operator mindset, close to the customer, high focus on customer service and delivering the promise and the value. If we move to the next slide onto page 24, this gives an overview of what we see as the Roofing Industries business, and we believe the market is circa NZD 800 million. You can see that there are two domestic operators in suppliers through New Zealand Steel and PCC relationships we have with both of those suppliers, and we see there's four national operators that we will be competing against.
Based on the numbers, you can actually see that Roofing Industries has a very strong market position here in New Zealand. It's a position where they're running for the last 26 years, deep industry experience, understanding, and very close customer relationships, and we see the total number of contractors in the marketplace, circa 650. If we move to the next slide on page 25, we look at the rationale, and this, I think Rhys mentioned this at the start, this is the leading presence in New Zealand steel roofing. This is a company that is very well run, very well operated, and has high-quality assets and locations. It's a chance for us to really get into the market, which we see at near bottom of the New Zealand economic cycle with improvements into the future.
We also have some strong cross-sell opportunities across Vulcan and the Roofing Industries, and we're looking forward to working closely together. It's a very well-run business, and the mindset around the owner-operator we think is highly valuable, particularly in those regional locations where they're becoming an important part of the local economy. For us, from a financial perspective, we see this as earnings per share accretive. Just to reinforce again, we've assumed no synergies, but obviously we'll be looking at how we actually do the integration and drive some of those benefits into the business in the coming years. If we move next to the strategy in 2026, on page 26, we really continue to look at the integration strategy.
Our focus will be on continuing to drive the business and shareholder value, and as the economy continues to improve, we want to make sure we work that cycle on the way up, capitalize on any cross-selling opportunities, and continue to work with the business to support on where we can provide some product operations or other support between Vulcan and Roofing Industries. If we then go to page 28, we'll go through the priorities for FY 2026 and 2027, and here it's, you know, we want to make sure we continue to focus on our customer service, and that really is the core of what we are at Vulcan, but also in Roofing Industries, about how we continue to drive our financial prudence, but also to continue to drive our sales and our profitability in the current economic environment.
We want to capitalize on the economic upswing, which we see is coming in both Australia and New Zealand. We'll expand the Roofing Industries capability and explore opportunities into the future. We'll continue to add people and bench strength to our team, and we'll also look at future opportunities into hybrid and grow our presence in that capability across the last two years. We've done 16 in total, and we have a number in the pipeline that we plan to roll out in the next couple of years. If we then look at our outlook on page 29, the comments around New Zealand's recovery are starting to build into our segments, and we're seeing that some of our customer segments are starting to show early improvement with sentiment and some of the activity and volumes.
Although expected to remain subdued throughout the first half FY 2026, we are expecting some sort of recovery and momentum to start to strengthen into the second half FY 2026 onto FY 2027. From an Australian perspective, we are also seeing a very similar profile where we are starting to see some gradual improvement throughout the start of FY 2026, which we're expected to continue to grow into FY 2026 and 2027. Queensland volume has been steady, and also we've got the impact of the Olympics, which is starting there in the next couple of years, and we expect to see that economy or that market continue to grow and continue to get some strong growth capability. We will provide a trading update at our annual meeting, which is scheduled in October in 2025. If we just open to the equity raising, there's a couple of points as we go through on slide 31.
Our plan is to raise AUD 87 million or NZD 96 million in an entitlement offer, and this is effectively being announced today. The offer price is AUD 5.95, which is a 9% or 9.8% discount on the term, which we looked at, which is listed below. If we go down into the use of the proceeds on page 32, you'll see that our intention is from the entitlement offer the NZD 96 million really, NZD 88 million is acquired, is put aside for acquisition, NZD 3 million for cash, and estimated transaction costs of NZD 5 million, which accounts for the NZD 96 million. You can see there our expectation is that our debt cover or our leverage ratio, we've calculated based on our 12-month earnings to 30 June, is approximately sitting at 2.75. Down from the 3.44 that we reported in our annual report as of 30 June 2025.
Without further ado, I'll actually open up to any Q&A.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speaker phone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from the line of Harry Saunders with E&P. Please go ahead with your question.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Firstly, could you just talk a bit more through the expected Roofing Industries EBITDA in FY 2026 to get to the EPS accretion you're expecting in 2026? Just to be clear, that accretion is not assuming a full year contribution, and there may be any sort of eventual synergies you could get from that, please.
Okay. First of all, what we're assuming is that there are no synergies, and I'll go through those shortly. We're also assuming even at a scenario where the earnings dropped by 50%, because remember this is a March year-end company, which is a very, we believe, a conservative view, we would still be earnings accretive. That's the background of our calculation. If you want any more detail of that, I could certainly ask Kar Yue to give more specifics about that, but that's how it's been calculated. Secondly, in terms of synergies, there's a number of synergies. Obviously, there's a large procurement component of Coloursteel. It's currently purchasing off two suppliers. We'll certainly access that opportunity. We also have an ultra-clad aluminum product. This will be a very good vehicle for that.
This product group also lends itself to a purlin manufacturing application, which we're not in, which gives a potential upside there. There's a cross-selling opportunity of selling other steel products, particularly in commercial buildings, structural steel and the like, alongside your roofing and cladding options. There's quite a few options there. Of course, there's obviously scale benefits in terms of administration overhead and the way in which we run the business. We believe there's quite a few synergies, but we're deliberately not valuing those so that people have a clear understanding this stands alone accretive on its own two feet at the bottom of the cycle, and therefore, we believe there's a significant upside. The last thing I should mention is a couple of the units are relatively recently started in the last 18 months, so they're just below break-even or close to break-even.
They have a run rate forward, which will improve further as well. Last point, only three or four years ago, five years ago, there were 10 or 11 branches. A number of those branches are actually coming to full fruition, so their run rate later will be higher. Whereas all our earnings data we've provided you as an average while some of those units have been growing. Hopefully, that answers your question fully.
That's really helpful. Thank you. Maybe just the opportunity here, given you know, you flagged an NZD 800 million addressable market versus their revenue of NZD 162 million. Maybe could you just talk through the expected growth rates you're sort of planning for in the coming years for the business, please?
Very difficult to do that, but what I would say, the addressable market includes all roofing, so we're just doing the steel roofing. In actual fact, the addressable market's probably bigger than that. We certainly see some growth opportunities, but we can't give specific numbers on that at this point.
Okay. Thank you. Just lastly, can you talk through the competitive pressures you're seeing in New Zealand and Australia? Maybe what you'd need to see change for those to subside, and also what you would need to see for the GP per ton to lift in steel and metal.
Okay. Very specifically, I'll start with Australia first of all. You've had obviously the changes in Whyalla, and I don't think there's any secret of them for builders selling Whyalla product for cash just to keep the place going. That's now changed significantly. What we're seeing there is improved behavior in Australia, and it's just a straight-out process. I'll get Gavin to comment further on that in a moment. Within New Zealand, our gross profit per ton has been maintained extremely well. If you look at the numbers of our listed peers, you'll see that their gross profit per ton, one in particular, is down 24%. You can appreciate that some of these listed players need to look in the mirror to understand why they've got an issue. We believe that that is totally unsustainable.
Their losses indicate that, so we'd be very surprised if there isn't an improvement in that area very soon because it clearly can't carry on like that. Gavin, maybe you talk about the Whyalla Australian steel situation, which is a different circumstance, but a very similar economic driver is at play.
Yeah. Basically, from our perspective, we've seen the pricing becoming a bit more rational in Australia over the last couple of months. We have seen some announcements in the last couple of weeks with InfraBuild running distribution capability throughout Australia, and they've announced some closure of branches over the next couple of months, basically all down the East Coast, so Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, and Newcastle. What that means is that we're seeing one less competitor basically will actually exit the market over the next couple of months, which would naturally give some opportunity. They've done a consolidation of their existing InfraBuild sites into their brand of Steelforce. We believe that will open up some opportunity, and obviously with Whyalla , there's continued to be a challenge around the supply and supply activity.
Again, with that going to administration in February of this year, production has been starting to commence, and that's been obviously removed from the Gupta enterprise as well. Overall, the market in Australia we think is really starting to start to moderate, and we're hopefully going to start to see some improvement in that over the next 12 and 18 months. We haven't seen at this stage any activity into Brisbane or the Olympic Games. For those, we'd obviously know that 2032 is when the Games are due, and there's a lot of work that is expected to flow from that state over the next couple of years. At this stage, no activity has been done yet, so that's another opportunity we think to pick up.
On the back of that, we are expecting with the rates starting to come down, consumer sentiment starting to improve, and we are also expecting the construction and housing market to start to kick as well.
In summary, we believe we're at a turning point. We think it's possibly just crossed the line and uptick has started in Australia. We believe in New Zealand we're at that point right now, and we're seeing it in rural, but we're really waiting for Auckland in particular to start moving. Hopefully, the OCR rates and I think it's really business confidence, as soon as that returns fractionally, I think we're going to start seeing some real progress in New Zealand as well.
Okay, that's really helpful. Thank you. I'll pass it on.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Owen Birrell with RBC. Please go ahead with your question.
Yeah. Morning, guys. Two questions from me. The first one is just on the EBITDA for the new Roofing Industries acquisition, mentioning that it's 50% lower. Just wondering if you can give us a sense, you know, based on your due diligence, how much of that reduction in the earnings is macro versus the nuances of their own operating model? The second question is just around how you're going to report that division going forward. Is it going to be a separate division outside of steel and metals, or is it going to be amalgamated within the steel business or the metals business, just noting that you mentioned some of the synergies across both?
Okay. Owen, first of all, just to highlight to everybody, we're obviously doing an equity raise, so we're very cautious and conservative in our outlook for earnings for obvious reasons for the new acquisition. What we've seen is, one, there's no synergy benefits in that modeling when in actual fact we've just outlined a whole lot of synergies. We haven't valued those, but clearly there will be some. Separately, we have deliberately said at a 50% decline in EBITDA, we'd still be earnings accretive. That is a very conservative estimate. That is not a forecast of what we're going to get. I just want to make that clear. That's a bear case outcome. That's at a run rate from March to that's a nine-month period, June to March. I just want to be clear about that. Separately, they've got new branches opening. They're running well.
Really, it comes down to the view on the residential and commercial building turning point. We think it's slightly lagged from our other parts of our business. We think it's at the trough now or just about to hit the trough, and it'll improve further. We've got a very short period till March, and then that's the certain forecast period. We would anticipate as interest rates come off, home building improves, that it'll improve further. I'm just making that clear, Owen, so you understand our logic.
Just on that, I know you don't want to put out forward-looking forecasts, but you have mentioned that the business sold more than 20,000 tonnes of product in FY 2025. I just want to get a sense as to, I know you can't sort of put out forecasts, but how reduced is that volume as you're expecting going into 2026? Is it just the absolute volumes that's leading the earnings down, or is it something else in there?
There is a bit of pricing pressure, which I referenced earlier, particularly with some listed players, very poor behavior. I wouldn't want to make more comments than that. In terms of exploring, it is a new vertical. We haven't decided yet which unit we'll put it in and where we're going to place that. We'll discuss it at a later date. No doubt when we catch up, we'll have some thoughts from you. Thanks, Owen.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Grant Swanepoel with Jarden. Please go ahead with your question.
Good morning, Vulcan team. Just on the acquisition, you're trading five-year EBITDA of NZD 22 million per year for 2016. It implies very low cyclicality in this business. Is that correct related to the Vulcan core business?
Look, I would say, Grant, and I'll invite Kar Yue to comment as well because he's done modelling very thoroughly. I think what you're seeing there is the fact that in the last five or six years, they've opened up a number of branches, Grant. When they open a branch, they effectively lose money, and then the run rate of that branch picks up and increases the revenue further. Our average on that timeframe is actually quite conservative because it takes into account all those startup costs and improvement programs. The actual run rate trend is probably a lot higher, and that's why I've highlighted the fact that there's a couple of branches that have only just opened up in the last little period. I'll invite Kar Yue just to make a few comments because he's done the specific modelling, so I don't want to misrepresent him in any way.
Thank you, Rhys and Gavin. Good morning, everyone. When it comes to Roofing Industries, the way to think about the cyclicality, Grant, is to think about the concept of same-store sale as if it was a retail type operation. At maturity, you can assume that it will end up having the same nature of cyclicality like most building material companies. Obviously, the people, the audience are well aware of what building material cycle looks like in the trough. In the context of the trajectory of self-homegrown initiatives, if you go back perhaps in early 2000 and 2001, Roofing Industries by all accounts had about 10 or 11 operating locations in New Zealand. In the last four or five years, they have expanded that now to 15. There's an element, as Rhys mentioned, of self-generated growth.
Thanks. Just a bit more detail on that division, the new division.
You said you've got quite a big exposure to housing. NZ Housing has had a real pullback while this business doesn't appear to. Is there a lot of replacement roofs that this business is exposed to as opposed to just new builds?
Sure. I'm happy to provide an element of what we understand the business, our learnings while we've researched the industry for over 10 years. We continue to learn and learned off our colleagues at Roofing Industries during this process, who have been really, all the team members have been really quite helpful and welcoming from our perspective. I would say if you think about those numbers, as Gavin mentioned earlier on, more than half, we think, based on our first comb through of the data, more than half of it is exposed to the residential market. Within that residential market, again, perhaps half of that half, i.e. 25% of the overall volume, is exposed to the base layer of replacement and repairs.
That's good to hear. Less cyclicality. My final question just on the New Zealand market. Now that volumes have seemed to have found a bottom and stabilised, have you seen price competition stabilising as well?
A quick comment on that, Grant, and that's why I highlighted some of the public companies' results. You know that you've no doubt reported on them. You can see very quickly that they, even when the volumes return, some of them aren't even going to break even unless their margins improve. We've had the difficulty of having people that are panicking. It has yet to really see any improvement from them. It's stabilized, we believe, and we have not, we've maintained our share and maintained our margins at appropriate levels. The observation I'd make is when it comes down to it, when you're under pressure, businesses are hand-to-mouth. You actually need to have really good service and product availability. If you can't provide that, it doesn't matter what price you've got. If you can't have the product and you can't deliver it on time, you're wasting your efforts.
My sense is that the penny's starting to drop, Grant, but you'd probably have more of an insight into that than me because you would talk to those people specifically. You can see from their numbers they need to pull the levers in all directions to get to an acceptable return on capital.
Your message heard loud and clear. Thanks, Rhys, and thanks for answering this question.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Will Wilson with UBS. Please go ahead.
Hey, Rhys. Hey, Kar Yue. Just a quick one on the Roofing Industries. I see that you've given NZD 162 million in the Industries, NZD 800 million per annum. That sort of implies I've got 20% market share. Has that been consistent over the past few years? I'm just curious about the opportunity there for, I guess, market share gains or growth outside of just the normal cyclical elements within it.
Yeah, happy to comment. Good morning. If we look at the numbers in terms of the trend, clearly going from about 10 or 11 branches from four or five years ago to now 15 demonstrates an element of market share gain as they expanded their footprint. The other element is within the existing business in the locations where they've been operating, the branch shareholder operator partners have been really quite strong in that space as well. Because of the, I guess, the initiative that they've continued to embark on, I've seen them actually grow from the day they started the operation. This business was started back in 1999 from zero and has actually grown to NZD 162 million and in the last five years continued to grow their footprint and continue to engage in new opportunities to serve new segments within markets such as cladding. They're very, very creative people.
Just a quick comment that most roofing companies also sell purlins. They're not even in purlins. Their geographic expansion has been one area of growth, but also their customer service level and quality of performance has enabled them to grow by region. It's obviously a very, very well-run business. We see this very equivalent to Vulcan attitude, mindset, the way they conduct themselves. We think it's an exceptional fit, and that's why we were very pleased to acquire the business.
Okay. That's helpful. Culturally sounds quite similar. In terms of the four national operators, what would be the kind of share combined of them all? I'm just trying to get an idea for, is there any fragmentation? What would be the share, I guess, of the four national operators?
It's a slightly challenging one for us to respond to. We know for sure the other entity who has a national footprint does file their accounts with Company Office, but the rest of it, I would refrain from commenting because we don't really have a solid number to share with you.
Okay. That's all good. Just trading through July and August, maybe you've touched on this already, but one of your peers spoke quite positively about the first few months of the new financial year. Is that how you're seeing things play out on the grounds?
Okay. We've got different segments in different countries. I'll just briefly talk about New Zealand, and then I'll get Gavin to talk to Australia. What we're seeing in a general market sense is that the rural segments are definitely picking up in New Zealand. Some of the engineering and project-based environments are picking up, and we're certainly seeing a lot of inquiry levels. The actual volume transacted, though, is still weak, and it's not a material improvement yet. We're obviously very concerned both at a company level and at a personal level about Auckland really not firing yet. There's been a lot of media commentary recently about that, and I think that's one of the big drivers of our industry for Auckland to pick up, and that really comes down to business and consumer confidence.
Your guess is as good as mine on that, but my sense is that that's going to start picking up soon. I'm optimistic about it, but it hasn't arrived today. I'll go to Gavin because he's got some really good detail on the Australian environment and the outlook there.
Yeah. I think we're starting to see some gradual improvement in the Victorian economy in particular. Victorian was our hardest-hit market, and in the last couple of months, we've really started to see some gradual improvement. Some of our customers, particularly in some of the mining industries, were a little bit uncertain during the tariff announcements a couple of months ago. That seems to be moderating now, and a bit more maintenance spending is starting to come back on board, which has impacted particularly our engineering steel, the engineering part of our business. We're seeing basically the northern states. In Brisbane, we're seeing some reasonably solid activities. We closed that FY 2025, starting to see some improvement. As I mentioned in the call, we still haven't seen any activity come out of Brisbane. I mentioned the InfraBuild impact as well.
Some of the closing branches that we're seeing throughout the East Coast will flow throughout the next couple of months and impact the market there. Pricing, I think, has become a little bit more rational. We're still seeing the odd behavior in the marketplace, but I think compared to what it was six months ago, I think it's becoming a little bit more rational.
Our argument would probably be if you summarised all that, we're at a turning point. This quarter's probably the turning point.
All right. That's really helpful. Thanks for the color, guys. Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Rohan Koreman-Smit from Forsyth Barr. Please go ahead with your question.
Morning, guys. Apologies if some of these have already been asked and answered. I'll try to keep it brief. Kar Yue, would you be able to give some sort of kind of current same-store sales growth for the Roofing Industries footprint and also maybe kind of, you know, what the stabilized footprint you see is for the New Zealand market and maybe a kind of model for expansion? You know, is it more JVs or fully owned stores?
Early phase of our understanding, Rohan, on the business. Those are the things that as we dive into the details of it post-completion. Completion date is obviously 30th of September. I wouldn't want to comment on the run rate, so to speak, at present. The other thing that you mentioned around opportunities for further growth, we will consult with the expert in that business once we take ownership and collaboratively a combination of taking guidance from them where they think the opportunities are, as well as us potentially introducing some ideas of where those opportunities are as well. We will, over the coming months, discuss and communicate this more to the market once we get to know the business better.
Thanks. This is just a bit of a different acquisition than the last one. This is a good business. It has good operating systems. It seems to make good margins and has taken good share over recent years. Can you maybe discuss that in the context of your previous acquisitions and kind of why this one is as good an acquisition as the last ones, given it seems it has less kind of direct upside from effectively fixing it, which you've done successfully in the past? Also, maybe discuss its position. You've kind of talked, had some R&R. Is there a more premium type section of the market that it plays in? How does it differentiate itself from the other players in the market which are having a tougher time on face value?
Okay. Just the last point on that, some players are doing well, some aren't. That's a different issue. I think that one of the key points about Roofing Industries, and I'll get Gavin to comment as well, is that you've got these local branch leaders, JV partners, who completely and utterly understand their local market and provide outstanding service. That comes down to people's commitment. It comes down to people's knowledge and understanding. It means having the right facilities. It means having the right support and IT and information. It involves teamwork. It involves an absolute intensity and competition focus to be the best. Those components are rare. When we look at a business and we discover those, we think this is absolutely outstanding. It's analogous to the journey Gavin's been on in his career, very similar. Those sorts of people and those sorts of cultures are rare.
That's one of the key components, and I think I've described some of the competitive advantages this business has. To start businesses from scratch, calling on clients where you don't know a soul and you've got to do cold calling is not the DNA of the vast majority of companies. It has the DNA like Vulcan of no matter what, it calls to arms and delivers. Those sorts of attributes are very unique, and we're privileged to be involved with Roofing Industries. That gives us an insight into what that business can do. If you look historically at Vulcan, back 10, 15 years ago, we were turning over NZD 200 million or NZD 300 million, and we've grown dramatically. We see this business as a benchmark or beachhead to grow further in this industry. I'll hand over to Gavin now because he can observe as well.
He's come from absolute best practice distribution organizations, and he can also talk about the opportunity in Australia and the fact we've got a highly able organization that can be leveraged further afield. I wouldn't see it as an isolation, Rowan. That's the bigger picture. I'll hand over to Gavin.
Thanks, Rhys. Look, I think from the work we've done and the due diligence we've done over the last couple of weeks, there's a couple of key points. One is this is a very well-run business. It's a very high-quality branch network. As Rhys mentioned, the culture and the alignment and the focus on delivering the customer value proposition is extremely high, which matches perfectly to our culture and our capability and what we want to drive. We've had the opportunity to spend some time with the senior teams and understand where they're at and where they want to grow the business. I think as we continue to work on that over the next couple of months and years, I think that gives us an opportunity both to accelerate into New Zealand, but also potentially to bring that into Australia.
The attractiveness of looking at the Australian residential and R&R market is something that we would consider a significant opportunity. Not sure of the timing, not sure when we would do that, but I think you would see that by getting a business that is at the top of its game, it provides us the opportunity to continue to consolidate and expand that into other marketplaces for the future.
Yeah. Any follow-up question, Rohan?
Yeah, last one. Sorry. This is, I guess, in the more construction-focused industry. Is that kind of where you see good opportunity because you've been, I guess, effectively trying to stay away from those more cyclical parts in recent years? I'm just wondering, do you see that as attractive due to the cycle or the industry that this particular business is in?
I think what we're really acquiring is the outperformer in a large segment. The building industry is definitely challenging, but what we believe is we're building up a portfolio of different businesses in different cyclical elements, and we're now better exposed or more exposed to residential and commercial construction. Within the wider context of the growth aspirations of the company, because we'll continue to grow, it's going to be an element of cyclicality that we'll have to include. I think it's a positive overall because at different times of the cycle, it's very positive. If you look at the wider element, look at the Australian population growth forecast, New Zealand population growth forecast, in time, that's going to be quite a good environment. Maybe I'll get Gavin to talk to this because he's very familiar with the area.
I think it's not only the fact that we're able to manage multiple cyclicals within our customer base, but I think you also look at the exposure to R&R here as an important facet. Non-discretionary type repairs and work is something that I've seen in other industries which actually operate really well. Obviously, the exposure to commercial as well can sometimes offset some of the challenges you might see in the new build aspect as well. I think there's some great opportunities. I think there's opportunities as we see the market starting to turn over the next couple of years. If you look at the outlook, it's its ability to get into a new segment, but also get into a segment that is really focused around continuing to both new builds and R&R as well.
Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand the call back to Mr. Jones for closing remarks.
I'd just like to thank everybody for listening in on annual results and asking some challenging questions on Roofing Industries, and we look forward to reporting back in the next six months with news on our progress there. Thank you.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect your line.