[Foreign language] Tēnā koutou katoa. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the presentation of our annual results for the 12 months ended 30 June, 2023. Presenting with me today will be our CFO, Bevan McKenzie. The agenda for today is shown on slide three of the pack. I'll provide an overview of the results, Bevan will provide a bit more detail on the financial performance, then I'll sum up with how we're thinking about FY 2024 and beyond. After this, we'll take any questions you may have. Turning to slide four and a summary of the full year results. Against a backdrop of a softening residential market and extreme wet weather events in New Zealand, we delivered a strong year across our businesses. EBIT increased year-on-year to NZD 798 million, margins were pleasing at 9.4%.
The return on our funds was 17.1%, and our balance sheet remained strong. Against this backdrop, the board declared a fully imputed final dividend of NZD 0.16 per share. The disappointment, however, was in provisions we needed to book on the convention center. Cost forecasts to complete the project post the 2019 fire event moved well beyond the insurance cover, which is in place. These provisions were the main contributor to a drop in our net earnings after tax to NZD 235 million for the year. Provisions aside, the team are making good progress on completing the project, with all the car park levels and the hotel expected to be completed in the next 6 months, and the full project by the end of calendar year 2024.
We continue to look through the cycle and made good progress on our NZD 800 million growth investment program. We remain confident these investments will deliver strong upside earnings to our bottom line in the next couple of years. In the short term, we remain very focused on being prepared for a softer upcoming 12 months and ensuring we perform well through the coming year. While revenue was stable year-on-year, overall group profit and operating margins grew year-on-year, as shown in slide five. The performance of our materials and distribution businesses on both sides of the Tasman was one of the key features for the year. Combined, these businesses produced an 18% or a NZD 104 million profit uplift on the prior year. This improvement offset the tougher year our residential and development business had as it weathered the softer New Zealand housing market.
That said, the business still sold 617 units through the year and made NZD 147 million. Group return on funds eased slightly to 17.1% as we invested through the year into our future growth opportunities. Moving to slide six and onto cash and leverage. Cash flows from the materials and distribution divisions were very strong at over NZD 700 million, but this was partly offset by the outflows to rebuild our land and housing stock following the significant drawdowns that occurred through FY 2021 and 2022. The net result of this, and the growth CapEx investments we made through the half, is that net debt increased as flagged to NZD 1.4 billion, and our leverage ratio moved to 1.2 x.
All this maintains our strong balance sheet position, with available liquidity at the end of the year sitting at NZD 1.4 billion. On slide seven, we show that net earnings for the year were NZD 235 million. As I mentioned previously, the decline in net earnings through the year was mainly from the additional provisions we needed to take on the Auckland Convention Centre project. Earnings per share and before significant items, which is the basis upon we pay our dividend, was NZD 0.577 per share. Against this backdrop, the board declared a fully imputed final dividend of NZD 0.16 per share to be paid in October. Our ongoing progress on making our workplace safer and in delivering against our sustainability targets is shown on slide eight. Protect, our multi-year safety program, continues to drive improvements.
At the end of the year, we recorded a Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate of 3.1. This was a 12% reduction on last year, and pleasingly, 90% of our sites remained injury-free through the year. On sustainability, we continue to make very good progress on reducing our carbon emissions, diverting waste from landfill, getting more of our products sustainable, and substituting the fuels we use with sustainable options. The graphic on the slide highlights the reductions we're achieving in carbon emissions, with our emissions intensity now down 19% on our 2018 levels. Slide nine highlights our progress in two other key areas: our customers and our people. We continue to see our service performance to our customers improve through the year, and our Net Promoter Score, or NPS, increased to an average of 40.
This increase was driven by many things, but I'd call out ongoing improvements in our on-time deliveries, our stock availability, and our online and omni-channel offerings as all being significant contributors. Going hand in hand with customer improvements, we also saw our overall employee engagement increase to an Employee Net Promoter Score or eNPS, of 26. While the improvement was pleasing, this result only places us in the median for global organizations, so more work to do if we're going to get to global best-in-class levels of 40 and above. As we mentioned at our recent Investor Day, driving improvements in these two areas is critical for achieving both the next leg of our important performance improvements and then to perform consistently in the upper quartile over the longer term. Slide 10 provides a summary of each division's performance through the year.
As I mentioned earlier, the uplift in profits and margins across all our materials and distribution businesses was a highlight, and I think the performance in Australia is worth a particular mention, with the Australian division achieving an EBIT margin of 6% through FY 2023. While on Australia, we advise the market today that Dean Fradgley , our Australian Chief Executive, will retire in February next year. I want to take this opportunity to thank Dean for the good work he's done during his time at Fletcher Building and wish him well on his next steps. Once we've decided on Dean's replacement, we'll advise the market accordingly. While down year-on-year, our residential development business performed well in the face of a softer New Zealand housing market.
The combination of the quality of our communities and the product we develop, and with a skew towards a lower average unit price, has meant we continue to see reasonable sale volumes and margins. In construction, Brian Perry delivered a good result. However, Higgins was lower, in part due to the unusually wet weather. The overall construction order book remains strong and continues to be a real highlight for the business. There are more details on the divisions in the appendix to this presentation, as well as in our annual report published today. I'll now hand over to Bevan, who will take you through the details of our financial results for the year.
Thanks, Ross. [Foreign language] Kia ora mai tātou, and good morning, everyone. Turning to slide 12 in the income statement, three key points to note here: firstly, input cost inflation has remained a feature throughout the year, averaging around 6 %-7% compared to the prior year. We are pleased with the ability of our materials and distribution businesses to recover this through price, with gross margins in those businesses expanding by 170 basis points year-on-year. As Ross has highlighted, the significant items charges of NZD 301 million remain mainly to the additional provisions on NZICC, with the other key charges being the Iplex Pro-fit Fund and property and equipment damage during the significant weather events in New Zealand in the second half.
Consistent with our announcement at the half-year, I'd note that all trading and business interruption losses from these weather events were taken above the line in EBIT before significant items. Funding costs of NZD 94 million have risen in 2023 on higher borrowings and variable interest rates, as flagged. Slide 13 shows the group's margin performance over time. The operational gains we've made over the past 5 years have been in a few key areas: cost efficiency, getting sharper on the products and segments where we play, and ensuring our pricing is both well-controlled and linked to the value we deliver. The resulting margin improvements, as shown here, have come mainly in our materials and distribution divisions in both New Zealand and Australia, which is the top chart on slide 13.
In F 2023, we were pleased to deliver margins both for these divisions and the overall group of 9.4%. To cash flows on slide 14, the materials and distribution divisions delivered strong cash flows of NZD 720 million on good earnings and working capital management, especially in the second half. The full year result was about NZD 270 million higher than the prior year. This was partly offset, as Ross has noted, by the expected rebuild of land and housing stocks in residential and development after a material drawdown in the prior 2 years. This constitutes the majority of the working capital movement of NZD 294 million that is shown in the middle of the table. Finally, here, cash tax payments in the year were NZD 191 million, in line with expectations.
We do expect these cash tax payments to reduce materially in F 2024, as I'll highlight shortly. On slide 15, some more detail on the various working capital movements. In our materials and distribution divisions, receivables were well managed in a tightening credit environment. Debtor days for these businesses increased by less than 1 day from June 2022 to June 2023, and bad debt expense for the year remained very low at just NZD 4 million. On inventory, we saw some of the stock unwind take place, given the elevated levels in the prior year, and the creditor movement was from higher balances at June 2022, returning to more normal levels in June 2023, with underlying supplier credit terms unchanged. In resi and development, almost all of the working capital movement was from around NZD 235 million of prior land commitments brought on balance sheet.
We've entered into very few new land commitments and have paused work on some housing developments until we see the New Zealand housing market recover. Pleasingly, we continue to see the market value of the land we hold on balance sheet being around NZD 300 million higher than book. Our housing stocks entering F 2024 are at around 100 finished houses, which is slightly but not materially above the levels we target. On page 16, we show the updated phasing of the legacy construction cash outflows. This is aligned to the latest accounting provisions, so includes the impact of the additional NZD 105 million provision on NZICC announced last week, with NZD 70 million of that impact forecast to be in F 2024 and NZD 35 million in F 2025.
Because we're unable to take third-party liability insurance revenues, recoveries to account at this point, we have not included any in the forecast cash flows shown here. However, we will continue to pursue material claims under this policy, and recoveries would represent cash flow upside from F 2025 onwards. I'd note that FY 2023 legacy cash flows were around NZD 20 million favorable to what we forecasted on Investor Day, with this being a timing difference on Pūhoi to Warkworth between F 2023 and F 2024. I'd also note that legacy cash flows in F 2024 are expected to be heavily weighted to the first half, which will lift our leverage position at December 2023. Finally, all cash flows shown here are pre-tax. Cash tax is impacted by the construction projects based on when the cash outflows occur and not when the accounting provisions are taken.
Our significant legacy cash outflows in F 2024 are expected to materially reduce our tax liability, with group cash tax payments forecast to be in a range of NZD 30 million-NZD 50 million. On page 17, we provide an update on the Iplex Australia Pro-fit matter. As previously announced, houses built in Western Australia using Pro-fit have experienced leaks, with around 1,500 homes currently affected. There have been no abnormal leak rates outside of Western Australia. In April 2023, we announced a provision for this matter of AUD 15 million to cover expected costs through F 2023 and F 2024 of repairs and replacement work. We did this to support our customers and homeowners on a no-fault basis. To date, around 200 homes have been repaired through this fund.
Since our April announcement, the Western Australian Building Regulator, DMIRS, has continued to assert that it has concerns regarding the Pro-fit manufacturing process, though has not provided the results of its investigations to Iplex. Iplex's own extensive testing has not identified a manufacturing defect, and we continue to look at a range of other factors which may be relevant to explaining the cause of the leaks. Last week, DMIRS advised that it referred the matter to the ACCC, which is expected to undertake its own investigation. While there remain a number of uncertainties in this matter, our position announced in April remains unchanged based on what we know today.
On slide 18, our base CapEx was NZD 230 million for the year, which was within our target range of NZD 200 million-NZD 250 million. We're also making strong progress on our program of above-base growth investments. For F 2023, we invested around NZD 300 million in growth CapEx, which includes the successful acquisitions of both Tumu and Waipapa, as well as getting going on several organic projects. As we've noted, all of these growth investments are targeting ROFIs at or above 15% when mature. Finally, we'd call out the Winstone Wallboards plant project, which has gone very well, remaining on time, on budget, with commissioning currently taking place, with final CapEx of around NZD 30 million to complete that project in F 2024.
Slide 19 shows that closing net debt for F 2023 was NZD 1.4 billion, the same as the half year position and slightly ahead of the NZD 1.5 billion we guided to at Investor Day, which was due to a stronger June trading cash result. The increase in net debt for the year was due to expected investments in land and housing stocks, growth CapEx, and the tax and dividend payments. As previously guided, this has resulted in a leverage ratio for the group of 1.2x in exiting F 2023, as shown on slide 20. This remains currently at the lower end of our range. We do expect to move into the upper half of our target range through FY 2024, including at the half year, due to the growth investments and the legacy construction cash outflows.
We remain confident, though, that we'll remain within the overall 1x- 2x range. Slide 21 shows that the group's funding profile remains strong, with around NZD 2.8 billion of total credit facilities, meaning the group's total liquidity is healthy at NZD 1.4 billion. The group's current average interest rate is 5.7%, and around 60% of our current borrowings are on fixed rates. In FY 2024, we expect funding costs to lift to NZD 140 million-NZD 150 million as a result of the higher debt levels and higher average variable interest rates. Finally, on slide 22, the board has declared a fully imputed final dividend of 16% per share, which brings the full year dividend to NZD 0.34, a payout ratio of 59%.
This dividend reflects a solid FY 2023 earnings result, while also having regard to the expected cash flow impact of the construction legacy projects through the next year. The final FY 2023 dividend will be fully imputed. We do not expect to be in a position to impute the interim FY 2024 dividend due to our lower cash tax profile this year. With that, I'll hand back to Ross for some closing remarks.
Thanks, Bevan. I'll take you to slide 24 and make a few comments, both on these results and the year ahead. Firstly, we've delivered a solid 2023 result. While this result was impacted by the Auckland Convention Centre project, we are getting closer to having all legacy co-construction work firmly behind us and in our rear view mirror. We're well positioned to perform in the 2024 financial year and through the cycle across all our operations. We're actively focused on further improvements to our overall operational performance and have a good set of metrics, beyond just margins, to demonstrate this progress. We're well into NZD 800 million of committed growth projects, which we are confident will be delivered well and set us up for significant extra earnings in the next 2-3 years.
Beyond this, there remain plenty of other growth opportunities we can take advantage of as soon as we have a firmer sense of when the cycle is returning to growth. All in all, Fletcher Building is nicely positioned for both the present market cycle and an exciting future beyond this. To finish, I'd just like to thank our people, our customers, and our shareholders for their efforts and support through the last 12 months. I'll now hand back to the operator to take questions.
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 speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Grant Swanepoel from Jarden. Please go ahead.
Good morning, team. A couple of questions. Just first one, you mentioned in the past that you have about 10% of your workforce on flexible or temporary contracts. Can you still cut this into the slowdown that we're now seeing?
Look, I think a lot of that's being moved on in certain areas, and it's always a bit of a chicken and egg, Grant. What I mean by that is that as we start to see businesses that have been busy, you just don't move. Some of the businesses haven't done that. Others that have already seen softening, we've already moved in certain things, and there's some that will probably be a work in progress. It's hard to sit here and say there's a whole 10% available, because we've already seen some of the volumes come off across our businesses. We're probably a chunk of the way through that, but probably not all of it, just depending where you are. We've probably got a bit more flex there.
Thanks. Then in 2H, Tradelink was pretty disappointing. There was a project to improve those margins. What's going wrong there, and is there a change of strategy coming up?
Look, it's not lost on us, and we talked about this, I think, quite openly at the Investor Day. We, yeah, we are disappointed with what Tradelink's achieved. Yeah, so we need to get in under the covers there and just, just have a good look at that, and which we'll do over the next few months. I, and I don't mean that in a threatening way. I just think it's just obviously it's not doing what we want, and we need to find a way forward for it that, that works.
Thanks. Iplex, you've done 200 homes out of the 1,500. How much of the AUD 15 million provision has been used up for the 200, for those 200 homes?
Roughly about 20%. It sort of gives you a run rate for the year to do the repairs while we need to look after the homeowners and the customers while we actually get to the bottom of what's going on and get data, 'cause it's, you know, 'cause we've got to get to causation, what's causing it, and we've got to then work out what the best and appropriate fix is. We're also working on other things that we might be able to do to realign pipes, etc. , just to bring the cost of the fixes down.
Critically, it's keep the, keep on top of the leaks while we get to the bottom and finish our testing ourselves, as well as understand causation, and that we should be fair way through that over the next couple of months.
Thanks. My final question is on net working capital. Can you give some color in terms of what FY 2024 might look like? Is the housing inventory going to get run down, so we actually get a reversal of that impact?
Yeah, that'll be the main, morning, Grant. The main working capital movement you see will be in Steve's business. We will have, we think, a reasonably, a material reduction in funds through the year, with NZD 915 million in that business at June 2023. You will see that come down through F 2024. The materials and distribution businesses, there's a little bit more to come there, Grant, but it'll be mainly in Steve's business that you see the unwind.
Thanks for those answers.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Lisa Huynh from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi. Morning, team. I guess I just had a question on the outlook and, you know, the expectations of material and distribution volumes being down 8% next year. I guess, can you just talk through a little bit more about the range of outcomes the business is planning for, you know, around that -8% and just the key milestones you're kind of watching out for from a macro perspective, considering an election is coming up?
I'm going to try and avoid guidance and give you thematics and see, see how satisfied.
Mm-hmm.
You are after I finish. If I look at the, what I call the volume at the materials and distribution, concrete businesses, Australia and New Zealand, we've sort of said we think we'll see about another 8% come off in that, in volumes. Look, it'll be something order of magnitude like that, I think. I do think those businesses are well, well-positioned and you've seen strong margin performance this year. I think it'll come off a bit, but not dramatically. That's sort of how I'd think about those businesses. You know, as the volumes come off, there's going to be a bit of cost inflation. Exactly the revenue line will, you know, it might not be exact wash, but it should be there or thereabouts, with a bit of, with a bit of margin softening.
You then get into the residential business, I, I actually think, yeah, we're seeing reasonable volumes, but they're sort of stabilizing. Prices sort of stabilizing. The issue we'd have to deal with through this coming 12 months is, is cost. Costs will go up. We're expecting, and we've said for a while, that we expect to see a, a margin contraction in that business as, as revenue stays the same for the year and costs go up a bit. Yeah. I think the other thing that we, we'll see is that might change by the end of this financial year, FY 2025, but time will tell on what that looks like. Construction will be about similar, similar outlook.
That's how I'd talk about the year, but it, we're only in August, so I'm not going to get too far ahead of myself.
Yeah, it is a bit early. I guess, you know, you talked about the stabilization in residential, but I guess for us, what type of feedback and trends are you kind of hearing back from your sales team around foot traffic?
That's good. I mean, I'll just go to sales. I mean, if I look at traffics, if I look at where we exited last financial year and into July, August, we've just been selling 17 - 20 houses a week. You know, foot traffic's good. Prices have stabilized, so I think that augurs well, but it's just too early to call. I mean, some of the commentators out in the market are a bit more bullish about where we are in the cycle. We just need to see that in the business. I'm hopeful, but I'd call it stabilized, is where I'd call it now, and we're seeing decent volumes, so that's good. You know, it's a nice, better place to be than we have been.
Yeah, we'll see how we go from here. By the time we get to the ASM or later this year, we might have a better fix on it as we get through the election, into the summer season. We'll, we'll see, yeah, see what, see what it looks like then.
Yeah, definitely. I guess, just a follow-up question on the dividend. You know, the payout ratio was below the street's expectations, but should we be expecting you to, err on the side of caution around the dividend payout ratio range over the next 12 months, just given the slowdown that's ahead?
Yeah, Lisa, I the first thing I'd say is your dividend payout range this year at around 60% is a little bit below the street. It's still a good, solid dividend, reflecting good underlying performance. Our reality is that that construction legacy outflow has clipped us a bit this year. That's our reality. If, if you take that out going forward, we continue to think that we will pay good, sustainable dividends within that range. We'd like, over time, to move higher in the range. It's, it's too early to call that now, but I'd say that on an underlying basis, the dividend performance, it reflects the strength of the, you know, the business ex those legacy cash outflows.
Yeah, sure. Thanks. I'll leave it there, guys.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Sam Seow from Citi. Please go ahead.
Morning, all. Thanks for taking my question. Just on resi, you had the 617 sales there. Just wanted to ask if there was any contracted that are not sold during the period. You talked a couple of months ago the sales around 700-800 through FY 2024. Just wondering if that's still correct?
We only book a sale when we get the certificate of completion and the. You know, basically, by the time we get to the end of May-ish, we're pretty well done in sales. There's always been a carried forward into the financial year. In a sales sense, our year almost finishes in May and starts then, but that's every year it looks like that. It's very normal. You still get a year's sales, but it's just that, that's how it works. In terms of the volumes, yes, I think 700-800 is about where we feel it is, and it's very well supported by the sort of sales run rate we're seeing in these, in July, August.
That might all go well for better than that, but we'll stay with the 700- 800 now, and we'll see how we go.
Squeezy. Thanks for that. Then just on Australia, you had the 6% margin, which is a great result. Just maybe unpack some of the drivers there. You know, some of the factors there look like online sales, which look a little bit more structural.
Yeah, look, I think what if I get right in my helicopter, and it was Bevan speaking, he'd be in his tower crane. If I sort of get up above it all, the Tradelink was a disappointment, so it's, it's sort of stuck at those low margins. That didn't really feature in the improvement. What we saw across the other businesses is a couple of high-level dynamics. One is costs well under control, but then what we've been doing is pushing, you know, focusing on the, the right products with the right margin and just getting our mix better and more, better set. The combination of the products we're emphasizing, the quality of our distribution, logistics, and cost base, and the manufacturing improvements. It's a whole lot of things.
The reason we've been, I guess, quite confidently forecasting getting to this sort of level is we could see those structural improvements getting in place, and then the profit from the revenues always lags by about 12 months. That's why we're being quite emphatic that we get into the 5%-7% range, because we could sort of see the trajectory, and that's just what you've seen. The good, the good and bad thing is we've achieved it without seeing the uplift we'd expected in Tradelink. The focus really now is on what we need to do to get Tradelink to contribute to that uplift as well. What we've also said is we therefore still see opportunity in the future.
We've still got to deal with what will probably be a softer market through 2024, but we still see runway in front of the Australian business.
Thanks, guys. Appreciate the call.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Stephen Hudson, from Macquarie Securities. Please go ahead.
Morning, Ross and Bevan. Just a few from me. Firstly, just your comments that all trading and BI losses were taken above the line this half. Can you give us some idea of, of, you know, what you think those costs could have been, Bevan? Also I'm going to add in destocking as well, because that's obviously a feature for your customers. Second question, just on Australia, are you minded to replace Dean as country head, or do you think you might sort of look to replicate the New Zealand model and look at alliance reporting only rather than sort of a geographic country head?
Then, just finally on, on the mix of fixed and variable costs, I think in the past you've sort of said, 25 fixed and 75 cent variable. Bevan, I just wondered if, if you could, give us your, your latest thinking in terms of the mix there to, to the EBITDA line?
Yeah. Hi, Stephen. Ross here. I might start with the Dean question, then let Bevan answer the other two. Look, I, I, I am committed to replacing Dean with a country head. I, I think it's quite important, you know, because it is a time zone step away, and I do think there's a benefit of having closer real-time hands-on management of that business, leadership of that business. Yeah, so that was the model we moved to. If you think back 5 years ago, you know, if I look at the Australian business back then, it was achieving 1%. I do think part of the reason for the success of what we've been implementing is having a leader in country with that leadership team, working with them in real time.
That, that, that's the intended approach. Once, you know, we'll work through that over the next 6 months, and, I'm confident we'll have someone in place by early next year.
Morning, Steve. The weather events in January, February this year, they cost us around NZD 30 million-NZD 35 million. You know, essentially, we lost, think about it, as two, two and a half weeks of trading. Of that impact, about two-thirds of it was in the materials and distribution divisions, and the balance was in the resi and construction businesses, as they were obviously interrupted as well. It was a reasonably chunky impact as we spoke to at the half year. In terms of destocking, you've seen that continue in a couple of places through the second half of this year. You're definitely seeing the merchant channel continue to destock, including in ours and in PlaceMakers.
It's, it's largely run through, and, you know, when we look at some key businesses like wallboards, like steel, we think we're broadly done there, that the destocking has occurred, so you've got to more normal levels. I think there's a couple of spotty areas to go. I think timber will be, be one of them, but largely run its course. Then finally, on fixed variable split, we still sit for the materials and distribution divisions at 24%-25% fixed. It's very consistent with what we've seen before. Yeah, the read-through there is, as you've had revenues come off, the fixed cost control has been good in those businesses.
Bevan, just to clarify, that's for the EBIT line that you're talking on that last comment?
The fixed the fixed variable split, fixed costs represent between 24% and 25% of total revenue for the materials and distribution divisions.
Oh, okay.
The balance, the balance being, variable.
Okay. That's great. Thanks, gents.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Simon Thackray from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning, Ross. Morning, Bevan. You've partially touched on this, Bevan. Just, I just want to get a little bit more color on the first half versus second half timing of cash flows for gearing. Just because I think you, you made the point, first half will be a bit heavier on the cash outflows than the second, but you'll stay within the range. Can, can you sort of maybe just help us understand the, the, the expected timing of cash flows first half versus second half?
What, what you should expect in the materials and distribution divisions is a pretty normal trading cash performance there, so use 2023 as a pretty good guide, Simon. I think resi will be broadly a cash neutral first half, with cash mainly flowing in the second, as we've got the weight of our completions there. Your final key factor is obviously those construction legacy flows, and we've, we've pointed out our estimate at the moment is that in H1, it'll be about NZD 275 million of the F 2024 flow. That'll be the key driver that's pushing up the leverage at the, at the half year.
That's perfect, Bevan. I, I presume then, but the fund, the funding costs themselves, are they reasonably even, given your, your, your comment about being about 60% fixed?
Yeah, they should be slightly more second half weighted at, at, at this point. It's, you know, the phasing of that legacy cash flow is going to be the key variable there, but, you know, slightly more second half weighted on funding costs.
Perfect. Thank you. Ross, maybe just one more for both of you. Just in terms of easing supply chain constraints and falling logistics costs and, and freight costs, I'm just thinking in terms of distribution. You know, you, you had that dynamic pricing model working very well through, through COVID and, and post-pandemic. Do we expect you to give price back in, in the market? How should we be thinking about pricing, given you know, not all areas of, of the business face rising costs, some in fact, face cost deflation?
Yeah, look, I, I wouldn't say there's a wholesale approach to give price back. I don't think that's what will happen. I do think if I look at the businesses, I think where we're going to see the most competitive part of our business is going to be the distribution business, and we're seeing it already. I think there'll be a bunch of, you know, as you, as you work there, it's a volume versus margin game, and there'll be a bit of a need to be a bit of elasticity there, and so, as we work through this year. If I look at our businesses, I, you know. It goes back to what I was characterizing earlier.
If I look at the, the concrete and the materials businesses, generally, I think there might be a bit of it, but I don't think that'll be a feature of those businesses. I think we'll see some real push and shove in the distribution businesses, because there's, there's a fair bit of competition, particularly in New Zealand, across both plumbing and just the normal hardware distribution. Then in resi, as I said, the revenue, I think the prices are stabilized. Maybe, hopefully, we'll see some improvement there. That's sort of how I, I think about it.
Yeah, thanks. That, that's super helpful. Finally, just on your, on your wagon wheel of, of revenue on slide 32, which is always helpful. Just in terms of your 8% decline in volume expectation for the FY 2024, how do we think that wagon wheel, in your mind, how does that wagon wheel shift between sort of resi, non-resi, infrastructure?
That feels like a question for Bevan.
Okay, Bevan?
The, the, the resi sector exposures in both New Zealand and Australia, Simon, we expect to be down a bit more than that 8%. I think you should be, you know, more sort of, 12, 13 type levels is our guess at the moment. Then it's the commercial and infrastructure exposures, which are better than the average. We think infrastructure will be broadly flat, slightly down. Commercial might be down about -5, and that gets you the weighted average of the -8%. No surprise, it's resi, which is the one that'll come off more than the others.
Super helpful. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Marcus Curley, from UBS. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Just, just following up on that, Bevan. Have you seen any sign of commercial bank down 5% so far?
It's not down that much yet. Your question's a good one, Marcus. It's holding up pretty robustly at, at this point, and you're seeing that in the consenting numbers, as, as well. Yeah, look, we're calling it for the year at a -5%. How do we feel today? Well, we probably feel like, you know, that, that should get it, and we might do a bit better in, in commercial. One of the things Ross and I have been pleased about is the businesses have been pointing themselves, you know, particularly in Nick's world, for example, into that commercial segment. No, it's remaining robust at this point.
Just circling back to the dividend, am I right to think that the reset down, you would hope, is a base or, you know, or is it a slippery slope?
No, I'd avoid. I certainly would describe it as a slippery slope. I'd go back to the comments before. We're targeting being well within that 50%-75% range of NPAT pre SIG. We're just being, you know, we're just being prudent at the moment, given those legacy cash outflows. We think this business should be delivering a good, healthy dividend. Outside of legacy, the performance is, is very good and the cash flow performance is, is following it, so shouldn't be anything that changes that. We're just being realistic at the moment with that, that outflow we've got in 2024.
Yeah, when you put out the statement the other day around the NZICC, you know, it sort of read, you know, that you weren't giving up on insurance proceeds, but could you give a little bit of color? The number that you talked to was about NZD 100 million, so obviously pretty meaningful. Can you give a little bit of color in terms of what's changed here outside of, you know, the accountants having a particularly strong view on how you should think about putting this through the accounts?
Yeah, look, I think the issue is the threshold for, you know, booking those sorts of revenues that come from insurance proceeds is there's words like absolute certainty, and unfortunately, the intersection of what your commercial view is, doesn't necessarily intersect well with accounting standards, would be the way I'd characterize it. So we are, you know, we will, and as we said in the stock exchange announcement, we think we've got a very good case for those third-party insurance revenues, and we intend to, you know, execute that case as we go through the year. What you've seen and what we've now profiled in both the cash flow expectations is that's not baked in.
We'd expect to see benefits from that of some order of magnitude in the future years.
Just finally, you know, you know, can you talk a little bit about, the timber acquisition contribution in FY 2024? Has that moved at all away from, you know, your last comments around NZD 35 million?
Yeah, Marcus, Waipapa first, we're very pleased with how that business is, is, is running. Hamish and Ian and the team doing a great job, integrated well. In FY 2024, it'll deliver between NZD 10 million and NZD 15 million, is what we're targeting. That's of the total NZD 35 million contribution from those investments that we highlighted. We've also said that Waipapa has capacity to grow. We're working on an expansion of that, and you'll see a little bit of investment flow over 2024, 2025 as we build up the capacity of the mill. We're pleased with the position. Team's done a good job.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Shaurya Visen from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Morning, Ross. Morning, Bevan. Thank you for taking my question. I had one on your residential and development business. Just following on from Sam, right? Can you just give us a sense of how we should be thinking about the volumes for that business? See how the invested outlook was for 700 - 800 units, right? Which sort of, at the lower end, implies 14% year-on-year growth, 30% year-on-year, at a higher end. I'm just trying to marry that with some of your comments that, you know, resi markets are still remaining quite soft. I understand they've stabilized.
The next one, just related perhaps for Bevan is, could you just help us with a few numbers on, you know, what are the number of sales agreements you have in place, or what is your current weekly sales rate? I think there's some of the numbers you have shared with us in the past. Thank you.
I, I think we caught most of that. I'll have a crack at the, the answers, and to the extent there's some left over, then Bevan can have a crack. Look, so firstly, when I, when I look at the, you've got to remember, obviously not remember, but last year we, we had two dynamics we talked about to get to the 617 we, we sold. One was we came out of the previous financial year with little, very little stock, so we, we really had to rebuild our stock through the first half. We, we, we had the dynamic of not the market plus not having a whole lot of fronts to sell stock on.
What you then saw in the second half, which we pointed to, and we thought we'd do a bit better than we did, but we sort of still got a lot of volume out in the second half. We had more sites to do, and we saw a couple of features, more, more, more development sites we're selling on, better stock levels. As we got towards the end of the financial year, we started to see the market stabilize and people starting to think, "Well, okay, it looks like the market's bottom," so they got more confident in, in actually buying houses. What we're now seeing as we wash into FY 2024, which is quite a different dynamic, we've, as Bevan mentioned in his presentation, we've got good stock levels.
You know, we, we've still got to build a lot through the year, but we're coming into the year much better positioned, which was part of needing to put the capital back into residential to get those stock levels back up. That's been done successfully. We're seeing a market that we're not calling it as growing just yet, but we certainly are calling it as stabilizing. What we're seeing through the winter months are not the best months generally, but we're still seeing 17-20 sales per week, which is good.
You know, the combination of what we're seeing as foot traffic, sentiment out in the market, our stock levels and, and the volumes we're seeing, are giving us confidence in sort of saying, "We will get to the NZD 700 million or NZD 800 million." We will be targeting more than that, but, but as we sit here today, we're just getting ahead of ourselves because it is only mid-August. Everything's pointing to at least NZD 700 million-NZD 800 million, and hopefully, we do better than that. I think that was all of your questions, but if I've missed something, maybe you get a clarification.
That's super helpful. That's super helpful, Ross. Very quickly, can you give us a sense of cancellation, cancellation rates? I think in the past you have spoken about less than 1%, but does that still hold?
They're, they're very low. Look, you, you, i t's, it's not a material consider, generally, it, it just goes around finance, you know? But, but they're not. It's, they might fall over before you actually get an unconditional. So, so, but it's not a material consideration. We're generally seeing by the time we sell, they're transacting, so there might be a few percent in the background.
Sure. Thanks, Ross. Ross, very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Brook Campbell-Crawford, from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I'd just like to ask about Pro-fit. I think the provision just relates to homes that might need repairing in Western Australia, but I think the product was also used in an equivalent amount of homes around other states in Australia. Can you just help me better understand why perhaps you might not see issues in claims in other states? That'd be great. Thanks.
Yeah, look, I'll do my best to answer it. Roughly, the product went into, say, 30,000 homes. That's order of magnitude, pretty close. Half of them in Western Australia and half of them on the East Coast. There are no abnormal leak rates on anywhere other than the Western Australian homes. At a high level, what you see everywhere but Western Australia, the installation practices are quite different on the eastern states, where the pipes generally installed in straight lengths with elbows at every bend. We're just not seeing anything different occurring than normal in all that area. The focus is very much into the Western Australian pipes and where the leaks are occurring.
As I said, there's a couple of themes we need to work through, and it's just quite a complicated period to do all the external testing and verification that the pipe is built to code and fit for purpose. Just takes a bit of time because it's quite a sophisticated set of tests we need to do and verify, and we're well through those, but there's a couple more we need to just finish off, and we're seeing no issues there. It was also a matter of going back through our manufacturing records and just understanding, you know, the, all the QA and all those processes were robust, and that's what we've found. We're not there yet on the, the, the product particular piece, but we're, you know, by the end of October, November, we should be through all those.
You go into, well, what else could be causation? The idea of the fund was to, just as I said, make sure the consumer's okay while we actually get to the bottom of it. It's going out and looking at how it was installed in Western Australia. You know, what is the water pressure? You know, the pipe operates up to a certain water pressure, so if the water pressure is higher in a house, then that can cause issues. There's also, what is the water chemistry? Are there any unusual things going in the chemistry, and are there any other particular nuances that we need to look at? You've got to get into the houses and just do a review of what's going on there, and that just takes a little bit of time.
We're through, we've been to 200 repairs now, so we're getting a good, solid database and a good emerging view. We just need to bring all that together with the test results and get to causation. The beauty, once you know that, it does get a liability ultimately as well. More importantly, it goes to the fix because once you've pinpointed what's going on, you know what you've got to fix. At this stage, it feels like it's just a Western Australian issue. It feels like it's going to be something that we'll get to the bottom of as we do the reviews in the houses, and then we can understand what the right fix is.
While some of the fixes go in and replace the pipe, the other thing we're looking at is, are there things we can do to line pipes or do something that's less invasive and a little bit simpler and cheaper just to deal with the problem a bit more quickly? We just have to work through that, and it just takes a bit of time, but I think we'll be well advanced through this, this next half.
Thanks for that. Just a question on price and cost. Are you able to quantify the magnitude of the price increase that should come through in FY 2024 from your, your core manufacturing businesses, based on already announced increases to the market? I guess the, the roll-through of what's already been announced. Could you give a comment on cost trends, things like raw materials, freight, labor? Are you seeing any relief at this point year-over-year on those buckets? Thanks very much.
Yeah, well, I mean, we've, we've said in mostly every market announcement we made, that we, we think we've got good price disciplines, so we'd expect to cover costs. I mean, that, that's, that's our position. That'd be generally, I mean, the only place I'd flag where we might have a bit more elasticity, call it that, in our distribution businesses might not be as simple as that. It might not be as straightforward, because we'll have to be a bit pragmatic about volume and, and, and, and just throughput as well. In terms of the broader market. My sense is that, that we're starting to see the cost increases ease. Some places, that is still not the case. Direction of travel, I do think we're starting to see it come down.
Let's see where we are in the next 6 months, and we'll see how well all the settings, the reserve banks on both sides of the ditch, of actually translating to, to that reality and just what the world's doing. That'd be my sense of where it's going. It's probably easing.
That's good. Thanks.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Cameron Parker, from Craigs Investment Partners. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Hey, just the two from me. Look, I'm just wondering about the powers of the regulator or the investigators in this, in this Iplex issue on the West Coast. You know, if your exposure's kind of 15,000 houses, can they force a product recall or a replacement on all of them, and so forth, or? I know it's early days in terms of investigation, but some color around that would be great. Also, just wondering about the speed to market on infrastructure projects in New Zealand. You know, are you seeing those come forward and progress or, you know, things take a little while, sometimes, in New Zealand, so any color on that would be great, too.
Yeah, regulators have the power to recall, but they've got to actually find a fault with the product. You know, to the extent- That's why causation is quite important here. You know, as ACCC get involved, I mean, we will work absolutely with them because we all need to get to the bottom of what's going on. That's the way. I don't really have a lot to add to that. We're, we're quite comfortable to work through with them, and we've actually set ourselves up so we can very effectively do that. We will. There was a second question there, which I was. Oh, the speed on infrastructure. Look, I think the.
Yeah, speed to market.
Yeah, look, there's a couple of things I'd say to that, is that the, the market was very busy in infrastructure in New Zealand, and, and therefore it was sort of writing at about the capacity to deliver it. I do think we'll see it grow, but you can only scale up as fast as you can resource up. I do think all the extra damage that's occurred and the need to rebuild is going to ultimately drive more work getting done, but it just takes a bit of time to, to do that.
The government, I think, is taking steps to, to do that as fast as possible in terms of the way it's stood up alliances and really directing where it wants companies like us and others to work to get stuff going, so they can actually respond to the need as quickly as possible. I, I, it's, it, it was already busy, so there you'll see, you'll see that momentum grow, but it'll just take a little bit of time for it to, to get a head of steam.
Nothing really in expected as much as 2024, but maybe, probably be past that.
It's going to underpin our, our businesses face, f acing an infrastructure. Businesses, I do think you'll see that probably being a little bit more robust than it otherwise would have been. Really just how much. I don't think it'll be huge, I think it. I do think it'll be positive for, for our business.
Okay. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Keith Chau from MST Marquee. Please go ahead.
Good morning, gents. Apologies for laboring the points on Iplex. I think you mentioned, Ross, earlier, that you've burned through 20% of the provision, to date on the home repairs. Can you help us understand whether you're through 20% of the work related to the 200 homes where Fletchers has decided to support the repairs?
Yes. What we've done is 200 homes. Basically, they're, they're quite small jobs. You go. I mean, I'm not trivializing. You go in, and you might do it over a couple of days, and you replace pipes or fix, fix the problem. So they, so the 200 is, represents what's been, what's been spent, and it's basically work, work done. As I said, there's a. The other consideration in there is, it's just what, what, sort of the, the rate we need to react to, but we're working with a chunk of it. There's certain builders that are doing their own work as well, so, so we're not doing everything at this stage. We're prepared to, but we just have to work through our relationship with others that wish to work with us or not on this.
Yeah, the other thing that's going on in the background is there's only so much, you know, so much capacity in the industry, so you've got to, you know, it can only go so fast as well. There's a few dynamics over there that we're, we're working within.
Okay. I mean, ultimately, what I'm trying to get a gauge of is the comment around there, you know, it could be a, a material impact to Fletchers. I, I'm assuming that's beyond the AUD 15 million provision. Just trying to get a gauge of, you know, worst case scenario, what that number could look like.
Yeah, look at, it's pure, that'd be pure speculation. I mean, I mean, all I can tell you is what I've. The idea of the AUD 15 million was to, to deal with the here and now, in terms of the, the effect-what we think will be the affected people through this year and allow us to then deal with that while we got to the bottom of what was going on. I'd just go back and repeat where we're up to. As I said, we're, we're, we've, we've got to get to the bottom of causation, and then we've got to finish our own testings on our product, as well as get into enough houses and put together enough data on what we're seeing around those other elements.
Mm.
I really can't help you much on that. I can only tell you where we're up to.
Okay, no, understand. The second one, another set of provisions just relating to the, the construction business, there's, you know, obviously quite a bit of chat about that at the Investor Day on the 21st of June. You know, the company's decided to firm up on some of those provisions alongside some estimations, of what can be recovered through insurance. I appreciate, you know, some of the detail you've provided on the call around accounting standards, Ross, obviously, accounting standards haven't changed, you know, between June and, and August. You know, given the experience of the business and the board, I'm just trying to understand what did change between June and August, such that the estimations of insurance recoveries and, the costs associated with those projects, moved adversely relative to prior expectations?
Yeah, I, I'll make a couple to try and, w e've tried to lay it out in our NZX and ASX announcement. To high level, what, what changed at NZICC was we, we took out NZD 55 million of revenue, and we added back in NZD 50 million of cost. If I go back to what we said, what happened is that when we looked at the building works insurance or the construction works insurance, SkyCity are covered by the same insurance, they, they took NZD 20 million went their way, which we were expecting to get ourselves. That, that impacted us. That was lost revenue relative to what we'd assumed back in at Investor Day. Then there was NZD 35 million we'd assumed from the, the, the third party liability insurance.
The other thing that changed is we flagged back then, we thought there was zero to NZD 55 million of NZD 50 million of cost risk. As we worked through the full year and just looked at where we were, the thing that changed is we decided just to book that cost, and then we took out NZD 20 million of construction work insurance, and we chose because we looked at the accounting, not to assume any third party liability insurance. Even though we think we've got a much bigger claim against it than the NZD 35 million, it just didn't pass the accounting tests of being able to recognize it as revenue. Those were the two changes.
Revenue, NZD 55 million down, albeit we've got an opportunity, much more than that, I think, to go after, which we just have to prosecute through the next 12 months.
Maybe if we think about the risk going forward, you know, I think there's a comment talking about, you know, there being some risk still to go. Can you perhaps elaborate on that for us as it relates to the construction division? Is it NZICC related? Is it the balance of the projects within the backlog? And an adjunct to that question, if you can give us a sense of what proportion of the total backlog is alliance projects, and for those that are not alliance projects, what is the weighted average duration of those projects?
All right. I'll just give you a quick run through the legacy, Bevan can try and give you a quick sense of the alliance one while he can figure that, while I'm answering. The other thing I noticed, we do need to stop soon, so this is probably going to be our last question. If I go back to what we said at the Investor Day in terms of the risk on legacy, simply on Pūhoi to Warkworth, we've got a claim above NZD 200 million for the COVID delays, so our risk is how much of that claim we get. We think it's a well-constructed claim, but that is a risk. That claim is for 100% of the project. Our share is 50%.
If I look at the Auckland Convention Centre, given what we've now done here, there is an opportunity above what we said then, which is how much of the third party insurance we get. Until it's finished, there's always cost risk. The only thing I would say, the closer we get to the end, the less that risk becomes. Then we also flagged a dispute we've got with Wellington Airport, where they've got a claim against us of NZD 40 million over some defects, and we've got some counterclaims in there, which we have to work through. They're the main ones that we talked about. I'll just now let Bevan quickly answer the alliance.
Morning, Keith. Just on the, the flow of the order book, I'll just point you to page 66 of the Investor Day. We laid out in quite some detail how that, both in order book and preferred workflows, but in rough numbers, about half of it flows in F 2024, the balance flows thereafter. On the risk profile, as we, Ross and I look at the contract profile, we would classify around 80%-90% of that book as low or low to medium risk, is how we look at it. Then you've got a little bit at the edges, which is mainly smaller jobs, so your overall kind of quantum risk is, is low.
We don't if you looked at pure alliances within that, Keith, you're between a third and 40% of that is pure alliance, but then you add measure and value, maintenance contracts, et c., and you get to a high quality order book in that business, which the team have done a good job to build.
Okay, thank you for the call.
We have to finish there. Apologies. I know that if any of you didn't get to ask your questions, then you can always call in, and I'm sure Aleida is more than happy to talk to you, or we'll pick you up over the the rounds as we we we go through the investor roadshow. Apologies if we didn't get to your question, but we do need to finish up there. Thank you very much for attending the call.