Greetings everyone, and welcome to our half year results announcements for FY 2022. I'm JB Rousselot, the CEO of Chorus, and with me virtually is David Collins, our CFO.
That's great. Thank you.
Following the finalization of the regulatory framework and the credit rating changes, David has a lot to cover today, so I'll keep my introduction of the main numbers and the trends fairly brief. I'll then hand over to him for the financial guidance and our update on capital management. I'll then cover how we are progressing on our strategic priorities and how we think it's going in the second half.
Then of course, we'll go to Q&A. On the operational highlights, this has been another half impacted by COVID-19, but we are pleased to report very solid results for the half. While the lockdowns and the restricted activity increased the appeal and the value of high-quality broadband, they also impact our field activity.
Fiber connections grew by 47,000- 918,000 in the half, and total net broadband also grew by 7,000 connections. EBITDA of NZD 347 million was up NZD 19 million compared to half year 2021 on a restated basis. This reflected a strong performance on revenues and on costs, helped by some one-offs and some accounting changes that David will take us through. Net profit after tax was NZD 42 million, compared to NZD 27 million in half year 2021, and we're confirming an interim dividend of NZD 0.14, up from NZD 0.105 for the first half in 2021. We remain on track for our target of one million fiber connections by the end of 2022, and we're pleased with the continued growth in fiber uptake.
Across the completed fiber footprint, it averages 67%, up from 65% in June. Uptake in the smaller and the more recent UFB2 footprint lifted by four percentage points to 46%, and there are about 30,000 premises left for us to pass. In the larger and the older UFB1 zone, uptake grew from 69%- 72%. We completed 64,000 fiber installations, and about 23,000 of these were through our managed migration program. With our staff and effective operational processes, we're able to limit the impact of lockdowns and restrictions on our ability to undertake work in the field. Our managed migration activity did have to evolve given the challenge of engaging directly with consumers.
As you can see on the chart, managed migration activations were down from our previous run rate of 30,000, but still 24,000. On the positive side, however, we kept lifting the connection rate with 16,000 managed migration activations in the half, and almost half of those were from Off-Net. A great result.
You'll have seen this slide in our quarterly connections update, so I'm just gonna note that we're really pleased with the continued broadband growth in our fiber zones, plus 60,000 net broadband growth in our fiber footprint for the half year, meaning that our fiber broadband numbers are growing a lot faster than the numbers of customers moving off copper broadband. In fact, in aggregate across all regions, we've experienced two successive quarters of net broadband growth.
While COVID has likely provided a bit of a tailwind by restricting some competitive activity from alternative networks, this is also a very good result. In December, we implemented one of the largest ever migrations on our network when we made our new 300 megabits plan available to about 600,000 homes and businesses that were on our previous 100 megabit plan.
We worked very closely with other fiber providers and with the retailers to ensure that this big fiber boost was adopted by, I think, every retailer and directly passed through to end users. The results have been outstanding, with New Zealand going from being 22nd on the Ookla Speedtest Global Index to 11th just in the first months. That's just a taste of the incredible capacity that our fiber network offers us.
Finally, you can see the effects of the upgrade in the change in product mix in the last quarter. Another good news is that we continue to see many Kiwis choosing our 1 Gb product with the share of that product growing from 19%- 23% in the half. Overall, a very solid half year, despite some COVID disruption. I'm now gonna hand over to David for the financial results, the guidance and an update on our capital policy. Over to you, David.
Thank you, JB. Good morning, everyone. It's great to be with you today. Starting with EBITDA, we're reporting EBITDA at NZD 347 million for the half, which is up NZD 19 million on the prior half. Revenue is up NZD 5 million and expenses down NZD 14 million. I'll come back to both of those in a moment. We do have a restatement in the current period and a couple of significant items which I'll talk about on the next slide. Depreciation continues to grow in line with investment in our network, albeit the increment becoming a little slower now, and our interest cost continues to decline in line with our refinancing program. We note that our weighted average interest cost is now about 3.7%. Moving to the restatements and the significant items.
We had a restatement during the period with regard to field services revenue, and in particular roadworks revenue. This is a change in accounting policy, and it relates to situations where we receive funding from a Crown authority or Crown body to make changes to our asset to facilitate roadworks. The easiest way to think about that is moving a cable from one side of the road to the other. Previously, we've recorded this as unearned or deferred revenue and then amortized that against depreciation over the life of the asset, similar to how we treat Crown funding. Having reviewed our accounting policy, we've reached the view that actually a more appropriate treatment is to record the revenue immediately. Hence, we have made that change in the current period, and we have restated prior periods to reflect that.
The slide gives some detail on what that looks like. We also have three significant one-off items in the period. Firstly, the holiday pay provision. There was a court case late in the calendar year which clarified the interpretation of how the provision should be calculated under the Holidays Act. That has resulted in a reversal of a provision that we had previously raised of about NZD 9 million. Secondly, we signed an extension on the lease that we undertake for exchange space across the country. As a result of that, we've had a favorable one-off gain of NZD 3 million. Lastly, we had a legal settlement of NZD 3 million within the period.
At an underlying restated level, our EBITDA for the half was NZD 332 million, up from 329 in the prior half. Moving to revenue. Revenue is up NZD 5 million against the prior corresponding period. We continue to see fiber revenue growing as connections grow. Our uptake level is now at 67%. Our fiber ARPU continues to grow, and we've noted the increment on the slide, reflecting mostly the transition or growth of our 1 gigabit product within the market. Copper revenue continues to decline as we see transition across to fiber in our UFB areas. Although we do note we had a CPI increase come through the copper price during the half.
Two other items to call out in terms of revenue, field services revenue, so greenfields or new property developments was NZD 13 million within that number, and roadworks was NZD 5 million. Revenue increasing for the period. Moving on to expenses. Expenses were down NZD 14 million against the prior corresponding period, or if you adjust for the holiday provision adjustment, down NZD 5 million. Just two things to call out. Firstly, in terms of labor, I've mentioned the holiday pay provision. We did also have lower capitalization rates during the period as a result of COVID, which has impacted our labor adversely at approximately NZD 2 million or thereabouts.
Maintenance continues to trend downwards, reflecting both the decline in copper connections, and there was also a small COVID impact through lower levels of activity. Moving to CapEx. We're reporting CapEx at NZD 263 million for the half. The communal build continues to reduce year-over-year. We will finish the communal build this calendar year, which is a great milestone for Chorus. Installation spend was a little lower in the half, impacted by COVID, as JB mentioned, but we did still complete 64,000 installations in the half. Our cost per premises connected is within range, and we are actually lowering the range for cost per premises connected for UFB2 going forward. Greenfield spend during the period was NZD 27 million.
That's new property developments, a little higher than where we have been previously. Customer retention costs continue to grow in line with the incentive spend in market to drive uptake across our UFB areas. A brief comment on copper and common CapEx. Copper CapEx continues to decline in line with connection reduction and also our optimization efforts across our copper network. For common CapEx, more of a timing issue, again related to COVID, has delayed some of the projects around building across our property portfolio. Moving on to guidance. We're today announcing an increase in our EBITDA guidance to NZD 665 million-NZD 685 million for the year, up from NZD 640 million-NZD 660 million.
This reflects strong underlying performance in the business, but also the impacts of the restatement for roadworks revenue and the significant items that I spoke to a little earlier on. We haven't made any allowance for additional or incremental Omicron impact, but we'll manage that as time goes by. For CapEx, we are lowering our guidance to a revised level of NZD 520 million-NZD 560 million. That's a reduction of NZD 30 million on the prior guidance, and that reflects installation spend impact related to COVID. We do still expect to do a range of 125,000-145,000 for the year, but we will be at the lower end of the range for installation.
As I mentioned earlier on, our average cost per premises connected, we have slightly reduced the guidance for CPPC. Moving on to gearing. Our net debt to EBITDA ratio at the half was 4.03x . That's down from 4.24x at the June 2021 year end. There's two things to note within that number. First, the EBITDA, we have excluded the holiday pay provision impact in calculating that metric. That was worth NZD 9 million in the half. Second, I mentioned earlier the Exchange Space lease renewal. That has resulted in a significant reduction in our lease liability of about NZD 74 million, which has positively impacted our net debt to EBITDA ratio.
I would also call out on this slide, we had a significant event in January, with both Standard & Poor's and Moody's lifting the downgrade threshold for our credit rating BBB or Baa2. We would also note that in the ordinary course of business, we would not expect to exceed 4.75x net debt to EBITDA under the S&P methodology relative to the downgrade threshold of 5x . Moving on to capital management and the share buyback. We're announcing today a share buyback program of NZD 150 million over the next 12 months. When we think about capital management, our key focus, our key objective is shareholder value. We've shared with you previously our capital management framework and have spoken about that over the last couple of years.
We've had a very significant increase in the available capital or headroom as a result of the lift in the credit rating downdrivers from S&P and Moody's. We're therefore faced with the question of, well, how should we best utilize this surplus capital? Our view, in the short term, we don't have a clear view of alternative discretionary growth, CapEx or uses for that funding. We also note that dividends looking forward after the interim dividend will be unimputed for a period of time, which I'll come back to in a few moments. In our view, the best, initial use, of the surplus capital from a shareholder value perspective is to buy back shares in the market. Hence, we have announced that buyback program today.
Of course, the board reserves the right to amend as time goes by if that is deemed to be necessary. Moving on to dividend and dividend guidance. We've had two very significant events over the last two months. Firstly, the finalization of the regulatory components in December with the RAB and the MAA for RP1. What that confirmed is the MAA for RP1 supports our business plan and we will not be constrained by the MAA for the first regulatory period. Secondly, we had our credit rating thresholds lifted as I've mentioned earlier on. They are two very significant events and they have lifted two of the key constraints on our transition to the free cash flow-based dividend policy, which we first announced in February of 2020. Today we're announcing a couple of things.
Firstly, we are lifting the guidance for FY 2022 from the previous level of NZD 0.26 per share to NZD 0.35 per share. The interim dividend will be NZD 0.14 and will be fully imputed. The dividend reinvestment plan will remain in place, but will be at a zero discount. As we look forward to FY 2023 and FY 2024, we're announcing today that our payout range on free cash flow will be 60%-80%, and we expect to be fully transitioned and within that range by FY 2024. Stepping through the next two years, as a result of the lift in our credit threshold, we can accelerate the transition to that policy.
We're therefore announcing today minimum guidance for full- year 2023 of NZD 0.40 per share, unimputed, and minimum guidance of NZD 0.45 per share for full- year 2024 unimputed. One other thing to call out on this slide, we note this in our accounts. We have adjusted the treatment of interest on leases in our cash flow statement. We had previously treated that as a financing cash flow. It will now be shown as part of operating cash flow along with the interest cost for our external debt, which we think is a more appropriate description of our interest cash flows. Lastly, moving on to regulatory. A few comments on RP1 and RP2 MAA. Firstly, on RP1, reiterating my earlier comment, we do expect that we will be unconstrained by the MAA through RP1.
To put it a little bit differently, the MAA supports our business plan, and we expect to be within it or a little bit under it for the first three years. I also thought it would be useful to make a few comments about RP2 MAA. We often get the question, well, what do we think the next regulatory period will look like? Of course, we don't have a crystal ball, but I do want to just point out a few things that we should keep in mind as we think about what the next reg period will look like. The first key one is the risk-free rate. We have a risk-free rate in RP1 of 0.51% that was set in the three months ending 31 May of 2021.
If you were to recut that today, you would get a risk-free rate closer to 1.96%. If you look at the right-hand side of the table, we're showing you what the recent announcement from the Commerce Commission around the information disclosure WACC, which will apply for this year. This does not impact our MAA, but it impacts the information disclosures that we make, and it gives you an idea of what a future view of WACC and risk-free rate might look like ahead to RP2. The second comment is the tax building block. As a result of tax losses that we have at present, we won't have a tax building block within the RP1 MAR, but we do expect this will kick in during RP2 around about 2027.
That is a very material impact on our maximum allowable revenue. As you look through to RP3, there'll be five years impact rather than 2.5, if you assume a five-year period. Lastly, we have shared assets that will come into the RAB over time, mostly in RP2, and we have the impact of the CIP refinancing. Last comment on reg before I hand back to JB. We have given disclosure in the appendices of the component of our revenue that relates to FLAS, and we've noted that at 64%. We've also noted the current proportion of OpEx that would be FLAS, which is 51%. I will make some additional comments just briefly on cost allocations.
We do believe that the allocations to FLAS over RP 1 do understate the component of our cost base that relates to FLAS or fiber. We expect that for RP 2, the allocators will be updated to more appropriately reflect the transition of our business from copper to fiber and from build to operate. Thank you, and JB, I'll hand back to you now.
Okay. Thank you very much, David. Really appreciate that. A little bit more on the going-forward strategy, and what we expect in the second half. The ongoing effect of COVID and the arrival of Omicron in New Zealand are continuing to influence our business. We saw the lockdowns and other restrictions in the first quarter significantly ramp up data usage. It has fallen a bit post-lockdown, but the rising tide continues. Adoption of streaming services and, of course, working from home are the main driver for this increase in data consumption. Those trends are not going away, and we know from our own business, that working from home isn't going to disappear even, when Omicron is gone.
We expect door-knocking activities to be constrained as people remain cautious, and also time will tell what effect Omicron will have on our field force capacity for installations during the second half. At the same time, in the last few weeks, we've seen fiber demand bounce back from the seasonal holiday dip, and broadband growth has continued, and in particular, 1 gig demand continues to be strong. We also are continuing to provide partially subsidized broadband connections for some student homes. We still see a lot of room to grow fiber uptake. Auckland, Dunedin, and Wellington make up more than 70% of the homes and the businesses able to connect to our fiber network. As the chart shows, we're continuing to see strong growth in uptake in those centers. Auckland, for example, is at 77% and keeps moving up.
Dunedin has had its usual dip around student holidays in December but continues to grow year on year. Wellington has been our strongest growth area as we win share from other networks in that region. In the first half, we saw some increased intensity in the marketing of fiber broadband by many retailers, and we think that it will continue. Non-telco entrants especially are keen to continue to grow market share, and we've got a pool of about 145,000 inactive fiber connections that are ready to be activated. If I step through our strategic priorities, first and foremost, we remain focused on winning in our core fiber business.
We're beginning marketing activity to leverage our December big fiber upgrade, and we're close to launching a new entry-level 50 Mbps plan at a reduced price point, subject to a NZD 60 cap on the retail price. This should provide all retailers, and especially tier two and three retailers, with a low-cost entry fiber product to compete with low-cost fixed wireless products. With the uncertainty of Omicron, we've upweighted our direct marketing activity and promoting the option of requesting installations via our website. The marketing principles that were published by the Commerce Commission, and hopefully soon to be adopted by the industry, will also ensure that customers will have the information that they need to choose what is right for them. This will include providing them with a four-month notice period on copper service withdrawal by retailers.
Some of the retailers have also begun providing clearer information on the performance of alternative technologies by referencing the Commission's quarterly testing results, and we've also begun to do so on our marketing. In January, we took a major step towards our focus on building the long-term future of the business. Our announcement of new service company contracts with UCG and Downer were the result of a huge amount of work by Andy and his team to transition our agreements to a more operational focus. We're excited about the consumer experience opportunities that the simplified structure should bring. A highlight of our approach has been the involvement of the service companies to co-design outcomes to make sure that they are sustainable for everyone and that they meet our worker welfare objectives.
That kind of collaborative approach is something that we're continuing to embed across Chorus with adaptive teams working on a range of projects and, for example, the recent fiber upgrade or our regulatory readiness. We also work with the other New Zealand fiber companies to produce some local research on the environmental benefits of fiber. As the chart shows, fiber is by far and away the best technology when it comes to carbon emissions. At 300 Mbps, fiber generates about 4x-5x less carbon emissions per user than wireless technologies. There's a lot of work going on to optimize our non-fiber assets. The shutdown of our first 28 copper cabinets has been a little delayed by COVID, but will restart next month, and a third of them are already empty.
Notices have been issued for almost another 500 cabinets so far, with 1,000 expected by the end of 2022. David mentioned some of the gains that we've made on rationalizing properties, and we have about 13 that we're moving into subdivision phase. As David noted, the allocation of expenses between copper and fiber in the new regulatory framework means that we're taking a closer look at our non-fiber business. This has highlighted that the nationwide copper service obligations that we inherited a decade ago will need to be revised. Large urban areas have been allocated to other local fiber companies, and rural wireless networks are being subsidized by government. Together, these regulatory and market development means that we can no longer cross-subsidize rural costs. Yet, we're still required to provide services at urban prices.
Ultimately, the industry, the government, the regulator need to come together to develop a long-term approach for areas outside of the current fiber footprint. Lastly, on growing new revenues. Our changes to our small business portfolio, including the recent speed upgrade, are showing some good results. Mobile and data center backhaul services have experienced good demand. With the regulatory framework not fully defined, we're stepping up our focus on growth opportunities outside the regulated fiber. We're doing so with an open mind and also recognizing the need to stay close to our core business. Should any opportunity present itself, we'll also allocate capital wisely. That covers our four strategic pillars and what we're focused on for the second half and beyond. We'll now go to Q&As. James, over to you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question- and- answer session. You may register to ask a question by pressing zero followed by one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. There may be a slight delay while participants register and names are collated. Our first question is from Arie Dekker. Ari, your line is open.
Oh, good morning. Yeah, firstly just on the buyback. I guess if I look at your dividend policy, which, you know, at 60%-80%, post FY 2024, you know, appears to sort of be cautious and, you know, erring, I guess, you know, to a conservative side to accommodate, you know, competition, the TSO impulse, which you've talked to. I guess that declining RAB post 2030, given the financial loss asset is, you know, subject to quite significant amortization acceleration. I guess the thing I'm just trying to understand is the valuation framework that you've used to support a buyback that'll be NPV accretive at these levels. I mean, the share price has arguably been more supported by medium-term dividends over long term.
Like, are you suggesting that the total asset base incorporating copper and fiber is above your market implied enterprise value or, alternatively, that your WACC on fiber is below the CommCom WACC?
Sure, Ari. Thanks. A couple of comments I would make on this. Views of the long term RAB is one that we often get raised with us. Our view over time is that if you take a 10- or 20-year view of our regulated asset base, sure, the financial loss asset will decline, but our core RAB over time, we will invest. We expect to maintain our core RAB. The MAR longer term, there are other factors that influence the MAR which I mentioned before, but we expect RP2 MAR to lift relative to RP1. In terms of the valuation framework and why are we doing a buyback, the reason we're doing a buyback is we think from a shareholder value perspective, it's the best use of surplus capital.
With the lift in the downgrade thresholds from S&P and Moody's, we've got significant capacity. We've got significant surplus capital. At the moment, we don't have clear line of sight on other uses for that capital. We also have a situation where dividends are unimputed looking forward other than the interim dividend at present. We believe it's the best use of or the best first use of some of that surplus capital. In terms of the valuation framework that we'll employ, as you'd expect, we'll look at a range of valuations to guide this decision. One would be our internal view. A second would be what we see in the market. There are comparative company valuations and also transaction valuations that you see externally.
I can't give a view publicly on what we would actually view the valuation to be, but we do believe it is a good use of capital at existing pricing for the company. That's probably the best color I could give you.
Yeah. I mean, just on the maintenance of the core RAB, you know, in the longer term, I mean, I guess there is a little bit of an inconsistency between that and the fact that you've got surplus capital because there's nothing immediate to invest in. I guess the question I did sort of have on your on your sort of, you know, your desire to obviously invest back into the business and maintain that core RAB. I mean, JB Rousselot, you just mentioned that it would be close to the core business. What is the nature at the moment of the business line restrictions? Is that one of the reasons why you haven't been able to be more specific at this point around or progress sort of investment outside of the core?
In a nutshell, will you need to get relief on business line restrictions to be able to do that?
What I would say, Ari, is that, you know, what was important for us was to get to that point that we are in today, which is the regulatory certainty around the model. Until this was finalized, it was really hard for us to kind of go and place some bets in terms of new revenue areas, et cetera. Now that we have this, as I said, we are now doubling up on identifying where we would like to consider investing in new revenues. We're not gonna become a diversified player. You know, ultimately, shareholders, if they want to invest in other businesses, can do so themselves. What we wanna do is to leverage the assets that we have and see the line of new revenues that we can generate off it.
That's what we are signaling now. We needed that regulatory certainty. We needed to know what would fall within the regulated revenue framework and what would be classified out of it. Now that we have this, we can really push on and develop that new revenue stream.
Just to my question about line of business restrictions. I mean, can you just give a little bit of color on what those are and to the extent that you think that there is a conversation you need to also have with regulators around easing any of those or do you not actually feel encumbered by business line restrictions at the moment?
Well, listen, you know, ultimately when you look at it, and especially with now the 2degrees and Vocus merger, you have three fully integrated players that will control a big portion of the market. The point that we've made in our submission to the Commerce Commission regarding the 2degrees and the Vocus merger is the regulator really needs to think about how they define the telecommunications market going forward. Currently, they've kind of cordoned off fiber as a separate thing. Our view is that ultimately this is a market that needs to be defined more broadly, and that would potentially eventually release some of the business line restrictions that we're facing.
You know, this is not gonna happen tomorrow, but it is definitely a dialogue that we wanna start with the Commerce Commission and the regulator, as soon as possible.
Yeah. No, that makes sense. Then just on the TSO negotiations and, you know, and industry and, I guess, regulatory solution to that obligation you have, what do you sort of see as the catalyst for starting that? Like, what's sort of the approach and when can we sort of expect to sort of see that start to get some prominence?
Listen, the timing is a difficult one to pick, and it's probably more something for the regulator or the government to comment on. What I'll say on the current regions that are not covered by fiber is that, you know, ultimately, as I said in my notes, the industry, the regulator, and the government needs to sit down to come up with a long-term viable way to provide better services in the areas that are currently not provided by fiber. Multiple technologies will play a role there. You know, hopefully we can do more fiber. There'll be a role for fixed wireless technology. There'll be a role for low Earth orbit satellite services, and there'll still be a role probably for copper for some of the footprint.
What we have now currently is unfortunately a regulatory framework that discourages any further fiber investment in those areas. That needs to be taken into consideration because ultimately a lot of these alternative technologies are some that needs ongoing continuous investments to keep up with demand. You know, fiber is the only technology that once you've made the initial investment, can keep up with speed increases and data consumption increases. We'd like to find a way with the government, with the regulator, to encourage that type of investment alongside investments with other technologies, because this is a complex area to serve, and it will need all technologies to do so.
No, great. Thanks. Just final question, a quick one, David. Imputation credits. You talk about short to medium term before they return. I guess you know am interested in some color on what medium term might mean. I guess with you know a lot of your settings in place, why can't you be more specific on the timing of imputation credits returning? Like, what are the swing factors?
Sure. That's fine, Arie. Short to medium term, if you pick three years as a number, that would be a fair assessment of what I mean by short to medium term.
Great. Thank you.
Our next question is from Brian Han. Brian, your line is open.
David, can I just clarify. The EBITDA guidance you provided for FY 2022, does it include any more benefits from those three one-offs that you mentioned beyond the NZD 15 million booked in the first half? Also, is it fair to assume the change in field services revenue will be around NZD 8 million for the full- year? My second question is, JB, is Chorus experiencing much staff turnover, or did it over the past year? If so, is that a good thing or a bad thing for you guys? Because I'm not quite sure whether Chorus is still in a cost and staff optimization phase. Thanks.
Sure, Brian. Good to chat to you. On the significant items or one-off benefits noted on the slide. That's NZD 15 million. That's what we expect for the full- year. The other factor in our guidance uplift are the field services restatements. That's worth about between NZD 9 million and NZD 10 million for the year. If you add the two together, you'll get about NZD 25 million. That's the summary there. JB for the other question.
Yeah, Brian, on the staff issue. You know, like every other business, we have seen the impact that long periods of working from home and lockdowns have created on people. Yes, we're seeing a little bit more voluntary or involuntary attrition in our staff. As you're saying, you know, ultimately, our business is changing. We're completing the build. We'll be done by the end of this calendar year with the build. We're migrating to a full operational model. We're still in that phase where we have less people needed to deliver the services that we have. In some ways, it's something that can be seen as helping us a little bit.
You know, ultimately, what you want is to keep the best person and the best people in the business. We do a lot of effort with our team, making sure that we maintain a very high engagement score. During the lockdown, in particular, we've looked after our team. Not only our Chorus team, but also the service delivery partners, 'cause they are an extended portion of the team. Yes, we're seeing a little bit more attrition. It's something that we think we're managing well, but we'll continue to pay attention to it.
Thanks, guys.
Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. Our next question is from Phil Campbell. Phil, your line is open.
Yeah. Morning, guys. Just a few questions from me. David, just the first one was just with the medium-term dividend payout ratio of 60%-80%, is it possible just to give us a bit more color around what some of the assumptions are for that? Like, I'm assuming it, you know, is S&P at 5x . You know, what assumptions may be around redemption of the Crown securities or, you know, the banking covenant and stuff like that. And also just if you could just provide a bit more explanation around, is it the lease interest that's now gonna go into the operating cash flow definition for that when we do the calculation?
Sure, Phil. No problem. In terms of assumptions around the 60%-80% into the medium term and the link to the credit rating thresholds, we're not assuming any change to the recently announced lift, which has created significant headroom for us. We don't expect to be using all of that headroom with what we've announced today. There is more capacity in the future. In terms of the leases, we are moving just the interest component from the lease payments from the financing cash flows up to operating. The principal payments remain as a financing cash flow. It's just the interest component that moves up to operating cash flows.
Okay, great. Awesome. Just to follow up on the buyback, question was so, you know, the other alternative would've been to increase or, you know, have special dividends. Like, is the reason for not doing that in the case that you just wouldn't be able to even partially impute for a much longer period of time or, is there some other reason?
Sure, Phil. It's a great question. We've tried to thread a line between a significant lift in dividends, trying to keep a growth profile in front of us on our DPS trajectory, but also trying to be as tax efficient as we can from the perspective of our shareholders. Imputation was part of the equation. As I mentioned before, after the interim dividend, we've got a period of circa three years of no imputation. That was absolutely part of it. Then we're just trying to balance lifting dividends but also leaving a growth trajectory looking forward. The special dividend question would've been all unimputed, and we'd rather have a sustainable growing dividend profile versus a special. All of those were in the equation, Phil.
Awesome. No, that's very clear. Just the other one on the new product, the 50/10. It just looked to me as though the pricing of that has come down slightly, both in terms of the wholesale price and the retail cap. Just interested in kind of reasons for that. Was that based on RSP feedback, or is that kind of a view that maybe you think 5G could be a little bit more onerous?
No, it was. Thanks for that question. It was primarily driven by the feedback that we got from the RSPs. If you remember, the first consultation we did was to propose to enter with a 30 Mbps product. The feedback from the industry was, "No, let's stick to 50." There were some feedback also on pricing. We're also finalizing the amount of incentives that we're gonna create around this product, and that's the last bit that we need to do before we launch the product. You know, where it's been positioned is to allow all retail service providers to offer an entry-level fiber product for people that are leaving copper and considering an alternative technology. It's available to all retailers.
Realistically, it's probably gonna be tier two and tier three retailers that will initially make use of it to try to compete with some of the fixed wireless competition that they're facing from the MNOs. Ultimately, you know, if this product gets a bit of traction, you know, why shouldn't it be offered by all retailers? You know, ultimately, we should all be putting a range of products to customers and let them pick what is the technology that best suits their needs and what is the product and the price point that best suits their needs. We wanted to have that product in the mix with a cap on the retail pricing to make sure that the benefits are passed on to end users.
We'll have it launched in the beginning of Q4.
Great. Awesome. Just the other comment on the slide pack, there was some comment around you reviewing, I think, investment in the non-UFB zone. Just wondering if you could provide a bit more color around that.
No, I think what we're doing is we're managing very carefully the assets in the non-UFB zone. This is, you know, some of the things that we're doing with our portfolio of buildings. As we need less space in those buildings, what do we do with them? We've already disposed of some of the land around the buildings. We're continuing to do that. It's that optimizations of our assets outside of the fiber footprint that we were talking about. David, did I miss something?
No. That's good.
JB. Thank you.
Our next question is from Nathan Lead. Nathan, your line is open. Nathan, you may be muted on your handsets. Your line is open.
Yep, my mistake. Thanks for your presentation, guys. Hey, just two or three questions from me. First up, steady-state CapEx two to three years out, where are you expecting that to fall at the moment?
Sure. Nathan, hi. Hope all is well in Brisbane.
Yeah.
In terms of sustaining CapEx, NZD 200 million is still the guidance that we've given over the business cycle. For non-sustaining CapEx, the biggest component is installation CapEx spend. We've given a view on the current year trajectory for that. If you were to look at the full- year 2021 investor deck, you'd see there's a slide in there that gives a view out to full- year 2023 and 2024. That's the best forward view for installation CapEx, which is the main component of non-sustaining spend.
Yeah. Okay. The refinancing plans, David, for the CIP.
Yes.
What's the current thinking there?
Sure. Absolutely. Again, if I reference the full- year 2021 slide deck, I think it's the last slide or second last slide, there's a summary of the refinancing dates for both the CIP debt and equity. The first refinancing date is 2025. There's NZD 85 million of CIP debt and NZD 85 million of CIP equity. The next date is 2030, then 2033, then 2036. So most of it is 10+ years away. The first component, the NZD 85 million, we'll make that call closer to the time, as you'd expect, and we'll look at the options that we have, both for the debt and the equity. Of course, we'll be conscious of rating agency views of those pieces of our capital structure as well.
Closer to the time, we'll make that call, Nathan, but it's not on the short term to-do list at present.
Okay. Just final one to you, David. I suppose the revenue from the return on and return of the financial loss asset, and I suppose also the initial core fiber asset sort of goes down quite a bit middle of next decade. How do you think about where your debt needs to be at that point in time?
Sure. No problem, Nathan. Sustainable gearing for our company, a couple of comments on this. As we think about what's sustainable, there's a question as to how far ahead you can look and how much certainty you have. Clearly, the further out you go, the harder it is to predict what the business might look like. When we think about capital management and gearing, we look out over a minimum of two regulatory periods. We're looking out 10 years out to 2029, 2030 as a minimum. If I look past that point, there's a couple of key assumptions that you need to make. One is on what we think the risk-free rates will be for the MAR at that point in time.
The second component that I would reference for RP3 is that you'll get five years of tax building block versus 2.5 years in RP2 versus none in RP1. That's very material. The last thing I would note is on the core RAB itself, over time, we do expect to invest in our core RAB. In the short term, we don't have clear line of sight of opportunity, and our regulatory WACC is very low for the next three years. If you're looking at 10, 15, 20 years, we will invest over time. When you're looking out that far, that's our perspective. Coming back to gearing, we look at ourselves as a form of regulated utility. Our rating agencies have viewed us as such and confirmed that.
Our investors generally hold that view as well. That's how we think we should gear ourself, albeit we are lower geared than a pure regulated utility. There's a lot in that one, Nathan, but I think it deserves a bit of a longer answer. Thanks for the question.
Thanks, guys.
We currently have no further audio questions. I'll pass back to you, JB.
Well, listen, thank you very much for joining us today. As I said in the opening, we thought that those were solid results for the first half of FY 2022, both operational and financial results. Most importantly, with the certainty around the outcome of the regulatory framework, and the related changes in these thresholds by the rating agencies, we are now able to better articulate guidance around future capital management policy. Hopefully, this is something that is well received by shareholders, and we look forward to giving you hopefully as good an update at the full- year around August. Cheers, everybody. Thank you.