Wagners Holding Company Limited (ASX:WGN)
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Apr 28, 2026, 4:10 PM AEST
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Earnings Call: H2 2023

Aug 21, 2023

Sam Wells
Investor Relations Manager, NWR Communications

Good morning, everyone, welcome to the Wagners FY2023 results webinar. My name is Sam Wells from NWR Communications, and joining me from the company today is Managing Director, Cameron Coleman, Chief Financial Officer, Fergus Hume, as well as Denis Wagner, Co-founder and Chairman of the Board. Following a brief summary of the update released to the ASX after market yesterday, we will have some time for Q&A with the management team. There'll be a choice of two options. First, research analysts will be able to raise your hand via Zoom should you wish to ask a verbal question of the management team, or we will take written questions via the Q&A function at the bottom of your Zoom screen. We will endeavor to get to all questions asked, and thank you. Over to you, Cameron.

Cameron Coleman
Managing Director, Wagners Holding Company

Thank you, Sam, and good morning everyone, and welcome to our full year results release for FY2023. The second half of FY2023 was a significant improvement on the first half. Demand for construction materials and services strengthened as market conditions improved. The group's revenue for FY2023, at AUD 477 million, is a 41% increase on the prior year. Revenue growth has predominantly come from our cement, precast, and our bulk haulage businesses. The group EBIT result of AUD 17 million was slightly ahead of expectations for the full year. The first half was significantly impacted by the challenging market conditions experienced industry-wide, which had a negative impact on our margins. However, we have experienced considerably better margins and results in the second half as market conditions have improved.

In particular, the improvements have been delivered from improved volumes across a number of business areas, particularly cement, steel, and bulk haulage, where a number of new projects commenced. We saw a full 6 months production on the Sydney Metro Precast Tunnel Segment project. Price rises in our cement and concrete businesses made a solid contribution. In addition to this, our cost control measures implemented across all areas of business provided some upside. The EBIT result was impacted by increased losses in our CFT USA business, and operating costs also increased in our construction materials and services business during the year as a result of increased employee numbers to service the Sydney Metro project and higher R&M, fuel, and subcontractor costs.

While FY2023 was a challenging year for the business, it's been encouraging to see signs of improvement, particularly late in the second half, which did deliver improved margins. Looking at each of the segment performance now on slide 4, and starting with the construction materials and services segment, in which all businesses other than quarries delivered revenue growth throughout the year, achieving a 41% increase in revenue compared to FY2022. In cement, volumes continued to improve with a 25% increase. Increased clinker and shipping costs did impact the business, particularly in the first half. However, we've been able to achieve price increases during the period, in part offsetting the impact of these costs. The concrete business has remained difficult throughout the year. However, we have seen improvement in market conditions in the second half.

A disciplined approach to both pricing and cost control measures has delivered improved performance throughout the second half. These strict pricing policies implemented did have an impact on volume, though, during the period, as we simply weren't prepared to meet competitive market conditions for the sake of achieving volumes. However, with the improvement in market pricing in the last quarter of FY2023, we've achieved over a 20% increase in the average sale price compared to the average sale price last year. We've continued to deliver precast concrete tunnel segments for the Sydney Metro Tunnel project. While there were delays with the commencement of the project impacting the first half results, the project was in full production for the second half of FY2023, which contributed circa AUD 55 million in revenue for the second half.

We are now halfway through the project, with completion expected in the last half of FY2024. Our transport projects in Queensland and the Northern Territory delivered a strong result with a 43% increase in revenue on the prior year. Wet weather, higher than anticipated R&M costs, and the industry-wide driver shortage issue all impacted our performance. The recruitment of drivers is a key focus for the business, with a number of initiatives underway to ensure that the sustained full utilization of the company's assets is achieved, that should drive even improved performance in FY2024. The contract crushing and quarries business was unable to replicate the strong performance from the prior year. This was due to the completion of a large, long-term crushing project, which has not been replaced.

coupled with a reduction in sales from our Northwest Queensland quarry operations, where previous periods we supplied materials for flood recovery works that were not replicated in FY2023. As a result, the contract quarries and crushing revenue finished 10% lower than the prior year. While our business development team were active in pursuing other project opportunities, the timing of these projects has not resulted in any additional EBIT contribution in FY2023. Our steel business experienced a 29% increase in revenue compared to the prior period, as a result of the commissioning of our steel processing plant in Brisbane. Looking now at CFT on Slide 5, which, as you can see, delivered a disappointing result from a margin perspective. Revenue did increase by over 41% across the Australia and the US.

The margins were impacted by expenses in commissioning machines and finalizing pole specifications for our utility poles. Whilst this work is now complete, these costs are not anticipated to continue moving forward. In Australia, our CFT crossarm sales remained consistent during the period. Demand for our composite utility poles from electricity networks continued to increase, with contracts secured with a number of customers following the delivery of our first 1,000 poles for Essential Energy in New South Wales earlier this year. While sales have been strong, delivery of projects in our Australian custom build business has been challenging. A disciplined approach to pricing has resulted in an improvement in margins in the last quarter. This higher margin performance is expected to continue.

In the US, the long commissioning process of the facility and the lagging sales cycles have meant that we were unable to reach the level of sales required, resulting in an EBIT loss of AUD 2.4 million for the business. We continued to invest in business development activities throughout the period, which we are hopeful will deliver improved results in FY2024 compared to last year. In our EFC business, you will see there was an EBIT loss of AUD 4 million, a slightly higher loss than the prior year. We did reduce the investment into EFC in the second half, following a review of the operations, with the traction in sales not progressing as we had hoped. As a result, we significantly reduced ongoing operating costs in the business through reduced headcount in both Australia and the UK.

Our UK manufacturing facility in Romford is now operational. Our focus is on utilization of our existing assets. While nothing has changed in terms of our confidence in the technology to deliver significant savings in carbon emissions in the built environment, the political and market landscape are yet to attribute or promote the value this technology provides the environment. This has directly resulted in much longer delay than we had hoped in the market uptake or demand for the product. For this reason, the operation of the business must reflect the current market demand for the product, which at this time is limited, notwithstanding its environmental and performance benefits. We will continue to assess our investment in EFC in the long term, structure, and ongoing funding requirements for the business. I'll now hand over to Fergus to take you through the balance sheet and cash flow.

Fergus Hume
CFO, Wagners Holding Company

Thanks, Cam. Looking firstly at slide seven, as Cam mentioned, we've seen an increase in revenues but a reduction in the reported EBIT. You can see on that slide that the half yearly splits on the graph showing the improvement in the second half of FY2023, that Cam has already explained. We look now at the segment results on slide eight, you can also see the improvements in second half performance for both the CMS segment and the CFT business, excluding the USA operations. We move to the balance sheet and talking about working capital. Our working capital has increased in FY2023, mainly due to the increased receivables as a result of the higher sales. It should be noted that over AUD 13 million in cash was received on the third of July that related to receivables that were due on the thirtieth of June.

This would have obviously reduced the working capital position and our net debt. Partially offsetting the increase in receivables was a reduction in inventory, as the company actively managed the inventory to reduce the holdings post the COVID supply chain issues experienced earlier. Looking at our net debt, our net debt has increased, mainly to fund the increased working capital requirements. As I previously mentioned, the late debtor receipt of AUD 13 million negatively impacted this net debt position at the 30th of June 2023. Our new banking facilities have been agreed, and we are in the process of finalizing the documentation with our existing financiers. With an expiry date of July 2026, these facilities will have both increased facility limits on both term debt and working capital debt on similar pricing and covenant terms to what we currently have.

When we look at the cash flow, our FY2023 cash flow from operations was an improvement on FY22. Both FY22 and FY2023 cash flows were impacted by the increased working capital, reflecting the increased receivables. The capital expenditure in FY2023 has reduced when compared to FY22, in an effort to improve the cash position. A major focus was put on capital expenditure in the second half of FY2023. The main areas of spend in CapEx for FY2023 were AUD 7.8 million on quarry plant upgrades, AUD 1.1 million on steel processing plant upgrades at Northgate in Brisbane. Mainly pole processing plant upgrades and improvements in CFT Australia of around AUD 1.6 million. AUD 1.1 million on our facilities and manufacturing capacity in the USA, and AUD 1 million on finalizing the EFC manufacturing capacity in the UK. I'll now pass back to Cameron to give us a strategy update and the outlook.

Cameron Coleman
Managing Director, Wagners Holding Company

In our half-year results, I mentioned that an urgent strategic review would be undertaken. While this remains in progress, the review has to date resulted in the following actions being taken. There's a general review of all costs across the business to identify and implement appropriate saving initiatives, including a review of all overheads across the business with appropriate reductions implemented. In concrete, a review of all raw material costs was undertaken, with savings identified, and we have continued to increase our average selling price. We've also achieved reduced delivery costs with improved utilization of our concrete agitator fleet. In CFT, we commenced a CFT optimization project to realize planned productivity targets and undertook a forensic study from end-to-end production processes to improve margins.

In CFT USA, we have upgraded our marketing and sales focus to identify sales opportunities and build pipeline, recognizing the relatively long sales cycles. In EFC, we have significantly reduced our operational costs and paused all future capital investment while focusing on generating profitable revenue from our existing assets. As Fergus mentioned, all CapEx projects were scrutinized with a focus on reducing the capital spend. Any CapEx expense became focused on delivering projects that eliminated operational risk to the business and growth projects that exceeded the required hurdle rates. We are confident that a number of these actions taken have improved the performance over the second half, contributing to the overall full-year result. This strategic review remains in progress, and we will look to formalize a more formal framework across the business. We will provide further updates on this review in due course.

Notwithstanding this review, we are confident that our strategy remains sound, which focuses on driving revenue growth and increased returns. We intend to do this by growing and consolidating our core vertically integrated construction materials and services business in Australia. We remain committed to our strategy to achieve this through the expansion of our concrete plant and quarry networks in Southeast Queensland, subject to the prevailing market conditions. Growing our CFT business through product development, a focused marketing and sales strategy, and the expansion of our manufacturing facilities, domestically and internationally, to support the market growth. We will continue to pursue major projects, whether that is domestically or internationally, utilizing the existing expertise and experience in our construction materials and services business. Moving on to the outlook slide on, number 15.

If we look at the first half of FY2024, we expect the market conditions experienced in the second half, and more particularly the last quarter of FY2023, to continue. Cement volumes have started off strong for the year and are expected to remain consistent throughout FY2024. Some of the clinker and shipping cost increases experienced in FY2023, particularly in the first half, are expected to soften in FY2024, coupled with a forecasted increase in volumes. This should deliver improved results in FY2024. We anticipate growth in concrete volumes to add value to our EBIT on the back of increased margins we experienced over the last quarter of FY2023. We remain committed to our concrete plant expansion strategy, with two greenfield sites under development, providing a critical channel to market for our vertically integrated supply chain.

Precast segment production will continue for the Sydney Metro, Metro project from our Brisbane precast business in this first half. However, the project will complete in the second half. The business will pursue other opportunities to follow on from the Sydney Metro project. We have a dedicated business development team working on this. The long-term contracts we have with our current customer base will continue to deliver full utilization of our bulk transport assets throughout FY2024. A number of projects that commenced during FY2023 will make a full year contribution in FY2024, which should deliver improved performance on last year's result. There's a strong pipeline of contract crushing opportunities identified. The business remains focused on securing a number of these opportunities to replace the long-term, high-margin project that was completed in FY2023.

We have one large crushing project already underway, and the timing of the award of other projects is key to the business delivering improved performance in FY2024. Given the significant capital upgrades at our Wellcamp and Castlerock quarries, improved margins are expected as the production capacity and efficiencies are realized. Moving on to CFT. In Australia, the focus for FY2024 is achieving improved margins from the cross-arm product range, given the full utilization of our new automation line, meeting the increased market demand for composite utility poles, and to continue with the disciplined approach to pricing in the custom-build area, delivering improved profitability. In the US, we expect to see increased sales as a result of the current marketing and sales campaign underway. To date, the focus in the US has been on custom-built projects or pedestrian infrastructure.

The planned additional production line will provide the business with the ability to service new markets in addition to the custom build area. For example, the supply of utility poles into the electricity networks in the US This will provide enormous opportunity for this business, which has not yet had any traction in these markets, like the Australian business currently, currently does. Moving on to slide 16. There is no doubt the last 12 months have been tough. While we've achieved significant growth in terms of revenue across the group, we haven't delivered on our profit expectations. The first six months of FY2023 were particularly disappointing for us. However, we have seen traction over the last six months, and particularly the last quarter, that provides a positive outlook for FY2024.

We expect the improved market conditions to continue, which will deliver improved margins across the Southeast Queensland Construction Materials business. We also expect volumes to continue to grow, our bulk haulage business also remains well-positioned to deliver improvement results on the prior period. The performance of both our CFT businesses in Australia and the US must improve. We expect the focused campaign on sales and marketing to deliver a strong sales pipeline. We are also confident CFT custom build projects are now being priced and delivered at appropriate margins, which has plagued this business over recent years. We are well positioned to capitalize on opportunities across the construction materials and services sector, an industry that is demand for composite products.

We have worked throughout a really challenging period, we've had to make a number of difficult but necessary changes to ensure the long-term future and success of the business, and we acknowledge there is more to be done. However, we are generally excited about the next 12 months. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the formal part of the presentation, and as Sam mentioned, Fergus, Denis, and myself are happy to take any questions. Sam, I'll hand back to you to facilitate that process.

Sam Wells
Investor Relations Manager, NWR Communications

Great. Thank you, Cameron, thanks, Fergus and Denis. As a reminder, research analysts can ask questions by raising your hand on Zoom, while the rest of the audience can submit written questions via the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen. We do have some pre-submitted questions before I open up the line. Firstly, just on CMS, the strength of the core business continues. From the segment results, charts in the slide deck, it looks like the business has inflected. Can you just elaborate on how much it was driven by the strength, specifically in Q4?

Cameron Coleman
Managing Director, Wagners Holding Company

I'll jump into that one, Sam. In Q4, we had a larger contribution from the bulk haulage business as we started off two more projects in Central Queensland. Our cement volumes and selling price both improved. We saw a real uptick in cement volumes throughout Q4, and we were able to increase selling prices through that period. We saw, as I called out in the presentation, a major uptick in concrete average selling prices, particularly in the last quarter. Pleasingly, our margins in our CFT Australia-New Zealand business improved significantly across that quarter. They're probably, they're probably the key areas that we took significant benefit from in that last quarter.

Sam Wells
Investor Relations Manager, NWR Communications

Okay, great. Thank you. On CFT Australia, you've highlighted the strength of cross-arms and utility poles. Can you just take a step back and remind the audience, you know, how long you've been operating in this vertical, including the potential size of the opportunity?

Cameron Coleman
Managing Director, Wagners Holding Company

Yeah, Sam, I guess from the cross-arm perspective, it's quite a mature market for us. We've been supplying cross-arms now for about 15 years, and we sell cross-arms not only around Australia, but into New Zealand and other, and other areas. I guess the real opportunity and the real excitement for the CFT business is the recent ability to manufacture these poles. We've only been selling poles now for about 6 months. You know, the pole market is something that's, that's really exciting to us, and it's a real add-on to our cross arms. You know, as we, as we increase our capability, we've, we've built the machines now, we've proven the technology works, and we now have a reasonably solid forward order book for poles. As, as I said, we've only really been selling poles now for 6 months.

Sam Wells
Investor Relations Manager, NWR Communications

Okay, great. Thank you. Just on CFT USA, now that you're through the business establishment costs that you mentioned, and commissioning of the US machines, what are your expectations for CFT as a whole, in FY2024, given that you were on the verge of segment profitability, for this FY2023 result?

Cameron Coleman
Managing Director, Wagners Holding Company

I'll hand over to Denis on that one, Sam. Denis has recently been over there and can speak to that.

Denis Wagner
Co-founder and Chairman, Wagners Holding Company

Sam, the situation is with our, with our US facilities, we've got a cost base that will service a much larger, you know, revenue stream. You know, we've, we've gone to the expense of setting the facility up, putting people in place. That's both in the manufacturing facility and out in the field. You know, we're starting to see the revenue come through. With the US business, composite business, it's, it's largely a custom-built business. What we're finding, the revenue is a bit sort of lumpy, and we've been working on a number of projects for quite a long time, that we're now starting to see come to fruition. We would like to see, you know, a much improved performance, and I'm, I'm confident we will see a much improved performance out of the US business this year. I think we've got the facility in place, we've got the skill set there, and we've got the team in place to do it. We're looking for a fairly positive outcome for FY2024 compared to FY2023.

Sam Wells
Investor Relations Manager, NWR Communications

Okay, great. Thank you. The next question we have coming through is from Liam, Liam Schofield at Morgans. Liam, your line should be unmuted. Please go ahead.

Liam Schofield
Equity Research Analyst, Morgans

Morning, guys. Can you hear me there?

Cameron Coleman
Managing Director, Wagners Holding Company

Yeah, Liam, we can hear you.

Liam Schofield
Equity Research Analyst, Morgans

Perfect. Just firstly on the concrete business, as you progressed through Q4, how did that, sort of specific division perform, and was it approaching breakeven?

Cameron Coleman
Managing Director, Wagners Holding Company

Yes. performed, probably performed a little better than we had expected in Q4 and absolutely approaching breakeven. you know, it was probably one of the areas of the business that improved a little better than we had anticipated.

Liam Schofield
Equity Research Analyst, Morgans

Yeah. Okay. Just I think whilst you sort of touched on it there, is CFT, you know, in the US, are you sort of expecting that, given your kind of tender pipeline at the moment, could that wash its face in 2024?

Denis Wagner
Co-founder and Chairman, Wagners Holding Company

Liam, it, it certainly could wash its face. I'm a bit reluctant to sit here and, and, you know, give a guarantee on that, but that's certainly what we're aiming for. You know, there is a strong pipeline. There is a large market, but, you know, the thing that we need to be mindful of, we're a new player in that market and, you know, we expect some fairly good market penetration, but it is one of those things where we'll just, you know, see what success we can achieve, both in, in getting our product awareness out there and then delivering on, on any work that we take on.

Liam Schofield
Equity Research Analyst, Morgans

Got you. Perhaps just one final question, if I may there, Sam. Just on the refinancing, can you just sort of comment on the margins? Do those materially change from what the previous facility was, or were the terms fairly comparable?

Fergus Hume
CFO, Wagners Holding Company

Terms are very comparable, Liam. We actually had a slight reduction on some of the facilities and a small increase on some of the line fees, like 5 points. Not nothing that was going to create any sort of major impact. Nothing, nothing compared to what happened with the underlying BBSY last year.

Liam Schofield
Equity Research Analyst, Morgans

Got you. Perfect. I'll leave it there, Sam.

Sam Wells
Investor Relations Manager, NWR Communications

Okay, thanks, Liam. A couple of submitted questions coming through on EFC. Understand the strategic review is still ongoing. Can you give us a sense of how you're thinking about EBIT or EBITDA targets, or profitability in general as it relates to FY 2024?

Denis Wagner
Co-founder and Chairman, Wagners Holding Company

I'll take that, Sam. You know, as Cameron sort of previously mentioned, nothing has really changed in our confidence in the product. The reality of it is, you know, our EFC technology for zero cement concrete is really, in our belief, the only technology in the world that's actually been proved commercially. We've done some fairly large projects both here in Australia and in the UK, and we've had some challenges with some of those projects. It's a new product into the market, and getting that market acceptance, you know, is not for the faint-hearted. As Cameron sort of also mentioned, we've really had a look at our cost base, and if we look at the UK, you know, the intention is we've got a facility, we can produce the product-...

We've now got a number of customers that have expressed sort of strong interest in it, but we are going to curb our costs to meet market demand. You know, if the market doesn't take it up, we're going to sort of scale it back until such time as the market is prepared to, you know, take the product on and actually sort of use them. Similar thing in Australia, you know, we've scaled back our cost base again, until we can put more product into the market. We know that there is a couple of projects coming up. What that's going to mean to the bottom line at this stage, still really remains to be seen. You know, there is, in some respects, some sort of really positive outlook. We're still committing funds to R&D, and again, you know, as we progress over the next few months, we're going to assess sort of, you know, how much R&D we're going to put into that business and product development we're going to put into that business until we get a much clearer picture of the take-up in the market.

Sam Wells
Investor Relations Manager, NWR Communications

Okay, great. Thank you. That's, that's helpful, Denis. Just on FY2024, a question coming through around forward order book. Can you just elaborate on the comments made on that slide?

Cameron Coleman
Managing Director, Wagners Holding Company

Yeah, look, I guess, I guess if you look at the business, the precast factory is fully utilized through until halfway through the second half. You know, it's at maximum capacity. Our bulk haulage forward order book is excellent. I don't think it's ever been better in the history, in our history, and that's expected to deliver strong results. We've got a 100% utilization of every truck. We, we don't have a spare truck to deploy anywhere. Our contract crushing business has just kicked off one large project that's underway now, and there are numerous opportunities out there throughout the year for that business. It won't take much to get that business back to full utilization.

Our cement sales forecast is expected to continue in line with concrete, with our concrete plant growth. As I mentioned, the last quarter saw some very solid cement sales, and that's continued on to the start of this year, so we don't expect that to change too much at all. Then, I, I guess our forward order book in our Australian, New Zealand Composite Fibre business is also very solid on the back of that strong revenue performance last year. With our, with our focus on high margin work in that area, we see much better, much better results coming through. We look forward to that continuing all year.

Sam Wells
Investor Relations Manager, NWR Communications

Okay. Thanks, Cameron. A couple of, a couple of questions coming through on dividends. How long do you think until dividends might be back on the agenda?

Denis Wagner
Co-founder and Chairman, Wagners Holding Company

Sam, I'll take that one. You know, I, I guess what we're seeing is that, you know, the business has really turned a corner. As far as dividends into the future go, we will assess that situation towards the end of the first half, FY2024, this half that we're in. If things are going well, we would like to resume, dividend payments, but, you know, it is a balance between capital spend, debt, dividends. We're confident, you know, the results are sort of heading in the right direction. The reality of it is, we've just come through a really sort of tough year, and as Cameron sort of alluded to, we're not really proud of our results, but we are confident the worst is over, and we are seeing things improve. Hopefully, that will flow into the payment of dividends going forward.

Sam Wells
Investor Relations Manager, NWR Communications

Okay, great. Thank you. Just turning to CapEx, what's the budget of CapEx for FY2024 or anything you can elaborate on, on, on that?

Fergus Hume
CFO, Wagners Holding Company

We're expecting the CapEx spend to be higher than what it was this year. Most of that, there will be a fair bit of replacement CapEx that we will have to do for things like loaders and mobile equipment at our quarries, and some of our fleet will need to be upgraded. We're expecting it to be more in line with the historical sort of depreciation numbers, excluding the AASB 16 depreciation, so more in line with the underlying depreciation of our fixed plant assets.

Sam Wells
Investor Relations Manager, NWR Communications

Okay, great. Thank you. I think we've got a couple more questions from Liam. You should be able to speak, Liam. Please go ahead.

Liam Schofield
Equity Research Analyst, Morgans

Guys, just on the completion of the precast concrete contract. That finishes in the third quarter of FY2024, and you know, that was an AUD 140 million contract, so call it AUD 85 million yet to be earned. How do we sort of think about the pipeline of additional projects beyond that? You know, are you looking at projects that could fill that hole, or is that, just, you know, too far out at this point in time?

Cameron Coleman
Managing Director, Wagners Holding Company

Liam, we are looking at a number of projects there at the moment. We've obviously got the Olympic Games coming to Southeast Queensland, There will be some significant precast concrete opportunities on the back of that. That being said, there could be a gap between the commencement of that work and the completion of the Cross River Rail project. Now that we've sort of proven that carousel down at Wacol's ability to manufacture segments, and then our ability to manage the logistics to get them through to Sydney, we've cast the net now a lot wider in our search for precast concrete projects, I mean, sort of that larger project size.

There is plenty of pre-stress type concrete work around that we traditionally have performed in that business, but our, our focus has really turned to that sort of much larger infrastructure type work that we can get really, really efficient manufacturing processes out of our carousel. Look, we, we don't have an identified and contracted opportunity to fill that void, but it's certainly a, a, a focus for us, and we are aware of a number of opportunities that we're working on there that, that could dovetail into the back of, of that precast job. You know, we need to be very, very aware that two years ago, we effectively, we effectively mothballed that site, waiting for the next piece of project to come along.

It is a lumpy business, and we need to understand the fact that it's very, very lucrative when the work's there, but when the infrastructure work's not there, it's something that we wind back. We still operate the concrete business from that site. We, we wind the, we wind the holding costs of the precast side of the business right back and wait for the next project type opportunity to come along.

Liam Schofield
Equity Research Analyst, Morgans

Gotcha. Probably just 2 more very quick questions for Fergus, maybe. Can you just talk me through the gross debt balance change? Like, I'm just looking at gross debt went up, but, call it net proceeds from borrowing, looks fairly unchanged in the cash flow statement. What, what constituted that increase in debt? Then just also there's a note on disaggregation of revenue. What's the difference between point in time and over time?

Fergus Hume
CFO, Wagners Holding Company

With, with the debt, Liam, as I said, it was mainly working capital related debt that, that we incurred. Most of that increase in the net debt we have, since 30th of June reduced, based on that late, late receipt of cash. With your second question, I'm, I'm not quite-- I didn't quite catch that one. Disaggregation of revenue?

Liam Schofield
Equity Research Analyst, Morgans

Oh, yeah. There's a note, just in the accounts on disaggregation of revenue that refers to revenue recognized, at a point in time as opposed to over time.

Fergus Hume
CFO, Wagners Holding Company

Most, most of the revenue we try to recognize over time. For things like the Sydney Metro project, we recognize the revenue as we're producing the segments, rather than waiting until we invoice for the segment per se, or something like that. Most of the time, any project work we do is over time. Our custom build business, any of the, any of our project style work, revenue is recognized over time. Point in time is when we sell a ton of cement or we sell a cubic meter of concrete, so mainly around the materials business, we recognize it when we sell it. That's the, that's a point in time. Over time is on, on most of our project businesses.

Liam Schofield
Equity Research Analyst, Morgans

Perfect. That's all from me, Sam.

Sam Wells
Investor Relations Manager, NWR Communications

Okay, great. Thanks. I think there's just one more question just on net debt that has been submitted here. You mentioned some of the receivables paid shortly after the 30 June balance. Moving forward, is there a targeted, normalized level of net debt?

Fergus Hume
CFO, Wagners Holding Company

We, we would aim for a leverage ratio of around 1.5x-2x, is where we would mostly be comfortable. And that might increase if we have a major project that comes on board, and we have to gear up straight away. But we would normally aim for somewhere between that 1.5x-2x on a, on a leverage ratio. That's pre-AASB 16, the too. A slightly lower number than, than what you would see now with AASB 16.

Sam Wells
Investor Relations Manager, NWR Communications

Okay, great. Thank you. That's all the time we have for questions today. If you do have any follow-up questions, please feel free to send them through and we'll try and get back to them via email. Perhaps I'll just pass it back to, to Cameron Coleman, Denis, for any closing comments.

Denis Wagner
Co-founder and Chairman, Wagners Holding Company

Well, thanks, everyone, for joining us. We still have enormous confidence in this business, in our management team, and the, the way we're going. As I sort of mentioned before, we have got some work to do to get it to a position where we will be comfortable. I can assure you, it's all hands on deck, and we are working fairly hard to achieve that.

Cameron Coleman
Managing Director, Wagners Holding Company

I guess just in closing, the last quarter that we've just seen in FY2023 is certainly really encouraging, and momentum's, momentum has really sort of kept up into the start of this year. I'm really excited about the, the volume of work out there and the, the level of activity in the business. Even more pleasing is the, the return to, to much more enjoyable margins that we're seeing. That probably wraps our presentation up. Thanks very much, everyone, for dialing in and, and listening to us today.

Sam Wells
Investor Relations Manager, NWR Communications

Okay, thanks. That concludes today's Wagners FY2023 results call. Thank you, and enjoy the rest of your day. Goodbye.

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