Thanks, Rachel. Thanks everyone for joining this morning. We set this call up to discuss the announcements that we made today on the Auckland Convention Center rebuild, the group trading outlook, and investments we're making in the New Zealand wood sector. Our Group CFO, Bevan McKenzie, is also on the call. I'm not gonna do a formal presentation today. I will provide a brief overview on some key points and then open it up to any questions for Bevan and myself. Also note, we are doing a separate media call at 11:00 A.M. Any media that are on this call, we won't be taking your questions. We'll leave those until the 11:00 A.M. session. 11:30 A.M. session, sorry. I just don't wanna get everyone mucked up. Firstly, I just want to start with the convention center.
Disappointingly, and despite the good progress we're making on site, we now expect that post-fire rebuild costs for the Auckland Convention Center to exceed the insurance proceeds. This has resulted in us taking an additional NZD 150 million of provision for these costs. The team on site are making good progress. The demolition is complete, the steel remediation is well advanced, the roof installation has commenced, and two of the four car park levels will be completed and handed over later this month to SkyCity. We also importantly have clarity and agreement on the scope now. That really is what needs to be repaired versus what needs to be replaced. We've got the procurement well advanced, and we've got high levels of confidence in our productivity, manning levels, and just overall program.
Based on the progress we're making, we expect to complete early 2025 or late 2024. However, the unfortunate combination of just the real unique complexity of the rebuild, and then overlaid with that the COVID delays we've seen in stoppages and supply chain and manning levels, and then the higher than normal industry cost escalations we've seen, have meant that as we progressively got our arms around the rebuild, it became clear it can't be completed within the insurance levels that are in place. This is what's resulted in the need to take the provision. The cash impacts of this provision are not immediate and will flow through over the remaining two years of the project. I do note that this is our last vertical project as we exited this sector back in early 2021.
This was a deliberate move to ensure Fletcher Construction was focused on the infrastructure and roading sector where the risks and margins are more attractive. In this announcement, we also provided a brief trading update to the balance of the Fletcher Building Group. It in essence remains in line with the comments we made at our recent Annual Shareholder Meeting. Our New Zealand products and distribution businesses continue to see good activity levels, only marginally down from last year, and margins are remaining slightly ahead of expectations. Customer activity continues to look solid into at least the second quarter of next calendar year. The Australian business is performing well, and we expect the EBIT margin for the first half to be at least 5% on similar volumes to last year.
On our New Zealand residential business, it does continue to feel the housing headwinds. Prices are holding up at roughly 10%-15% down from the peak in late 2021. While sales rates are down on our about 20% to our target, we're still seeing solid volumes at that level through our business. As we look at visitation rates for the business as well, they're also staying strong, which gives us confidence we should be able to maintain those sorts of rates as we get into the balance of the year. Finally, we expect a strong second half from Fletcher Construction, similar to what we saw last year.
Baking all that up, we remain comfortable with our FY 2023 EBIT guidance, excluding sig items of at least NZD 855 million. Importantly, our balance sheet continues to be in a strong position, with group leverage forecast to stay in the lower end of our target range of 1 - 2 times through FY 2023. We also announced today some details around our move into the broader wood sector. This is an important part of our growth plans and logically complements our already strong position in steel and concrete. Firstly, we're confirming that we'll proceed with constructing a new wood panels plant in our current Laminex site in Taupō. This investment involves introducing new state-of-the-art technology that is well suited to serve the New Zealand market, but it's equally flexible to supply export markets.
The new plant will enable us to achieve lower manufacturing costs, additional capacity, and allow us to introduce a range of innovative and new products to the New Zealand market. We've also announced our intention to acquire Waipapa Pine. Waipapa produces a range of sawn timber products, including industrial and structural grades, and includes a renewable fuels business. The business is based in Northland, close to the supply of high-quality logs, and services customers from the Far North through to Hamilton. Our plans for this are based on continuing these customer relationships and growing them over time as we look to invest in enhanced production capabilities and volumes at the Waipapa facility. The combined investment in these two initiatives will be around NZD 375 million, and we're targeting ROPIs of 15% or greater.
Importantly, the investment case is based on mid-cycle activity levels and should generate additional EBIT across the group of around NZD 60 million per annum when they complete. That completes the key points I wanted to highlight, I'll now hand back to the moderator 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 are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Simon Thackray from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning, Ross. I hope you can hear me okay.
Yeah. Yeah, can hear you fine.
Okay. Oh, great. Thanks, Ross. Just in terms of the additional NZD 150 mil provision for NZICC, can you just talk or spit out for us a little bit how much is attributable to scope, how much is attributable to labor, and how much is attributable to materials, given you're supplying a large portion of those materials, presuming that the provision you've taken is a sort of a net consolidated provision below the line?
Yeah, look, I don't have that. We don't split it that way. If I had to characterize the where the costs have got into it, there's a whole chunk of it in just the unexpected nature of what I call the demolition. What ended up occurring with all the water that went in the building is there was mold through the whole building. The first year and a half, all work had to happen in full hazard suits, so it was very inefficient. That was sort of one part of it. I'm just gonna go through the sort of... Then what has occurred is all the steelwork in the building, most of it's not being replaced. Most of it's being remediated.
The problem we then hit with the remediation is you have to remove all the fire-rated intumescent paint off it. Again, the productivity and manning levels to do that was hard to understand at first, and we had to get into a rhythm to understand how fast we can do it, how much manning it was gonna take, and how we got into a process. As we progressively worked through these items, we started to get clarity around what I call the production inefficiencies in it. What went on through the-- as we've been working the project is you end up with the insurer, SkyCity, the design consultant, the authorities, and you're trying to work through what is to be repaired versus what is to be replaced. It seems a very logical, simple discussion, but it's been quite complex.
It really has taken the last three years of the project to sort of land those decisions across the whole thing. Once you know where you're going with it, you can then deal with procurement and start to understand what you're going to do.
Cool.
Most of the procurement issues are not what I call our materials. They're things like escalators, lifts, plant room, facades, where the things that, you know, electrical equipment that gets damaged by water, 'cause most of the damage in the building is not fire, it's actually water damage. Where we then got caught with that is that as you're then defining what you're doing and getting the work done, you then hit what we've seen with the industry escalation as we've got into the back part of it. As we've got clarity around that and we've understood the production rates and brought it all together, that's why it's taken this long to understand where we are and get a good level of confidence of what we think it's gonna take to finish it.
I know that doesn't answer your question, but...
It's all right.
a lot of people just ask me. I don't have an answer for it that way.
No, I think you've answered it anyway, 'cause it sounds like it's mostly third-party, costs in terms of, you know, materials, also than your own materials. Just with that inflation, you know, as you look forward to that NZD 150 provision, Taupō now is saying NZD 275 million for the board plan. Just wondering, you know, how much inflation is in that number versus your expectations at the June Investor Day?
Oh, so when we look at that, I mean, The reason we're announcing is we've procured and signed all the equipment things, which are a big chunk of the cost. That's locked in. Basically we've got the building list, which we're very, you know, got a good grip on, and we actually have baked in what we think the market's gonna look like over the build period over the next 12 - 18 months.
Yep. That's helpful. Just final quick one, just on the EBIT margins for Australia. That's a good update on at least 5% EBIT margins on similar volumes. What's the driver of that, Ross?
Well, look, it's actually what's pleasing about it, Simon. I don't wanna talk around book too much, but, you know, we've had the rail lines out, the weather. The business is actually achieving that despite some of the challenges on it. I mean, what's been driving is just we've talked about a lot, just the general run rate of improvement that we're seeing in the business. Across all of our business lines, we're generally holding to the trajectory of improvement that we've been laying out, which, you know, was this year to get above 5% and then over the next couple of years to continue to drive it up into the 7%, 8%.
Okay. Fantastic. I'll hand it over. Thanks, Ross.
Thank you. The next question is from Brook Campbell-Crawford from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Just the first one on NZICC. Can you confirm what the total remaining costs are to complete that project?
Yeah, look, we are not trying to be difficult. We don't actually disclose the cost. I mean, we've sort of found. It's in our contracts, it's the client's prerogative, and we don't have the ability to talk to it. We've sort of stayed away from that, putting those out there. You know, apologies, but I'm just a bit wary of over-disclosing without their consent.
Okay. No, that's fair enough. I guess outside of that project, can you just provide a bit of an update across your broader construction portfolio? You know, how is performance and margins tracking relative to your expectations? Are you seeing the sort of broader inflation issues start to erode margins in the rest of the business? This is a construction profile too.
No. If I look at our order book in construction, it's just circa around about NZD 3 billion. You know, where we've got longer term, bigger projects that are yet to go forward in the order book, our alliances, and they all have inflation. We don't take the inflation risk, so they use indices, and we reset the cost base as we go. Where we do take risk, they're very short-term projects. You know, so you price them, and then they're small, and they're done in three-six months. You really don't get exposed to it because you price it in quite effectively. I'm very comfortable with how we're not really exposed to inflation risk in that order book.
What we're seeing in that order book is margins that should flow through and support our 3%-5% range that we've been guiding to, is to get that business performing in a margin sense.
That's great. Last, just quickly for me. In the residential construction business, can you just confirm what your expectations are for pricing for the balance of the year? I think you might have mentioned earlier on you're expecting stabilization, correct me if I'm wrong.
Yeah. Look, what we're seeing, as we've gone through this year is if you go back to peak, was about in pricing December 2021 or November, December, somewhere around about there. We're roughly down about our pricing levels stabilized, you know, four or five months ago at around about 10%-15% down, depending where you are in which development and what value of house. We've seen that's sort of pretty well held now. When we look at our... You know, we've been targeting about 1,000 units this year or just above it, and we're running at volumes that would support probably 20% below that. We just see how the...
Visitation is good. As I said, volume-wise, we're still selling, but not quite at the levels we hoped we would. Looking at some of the visitation we're seeing, therefore it feels like we should be at least able to keep doing that. You know? Yeah, we'll see how we go in the second half. As we look right here, right now, it's about 10%-15% down on price and volumes about 20% below target.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Peter Wilson from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning. Just following up on the residential development volumes and any growth targets for the next few years. At the Investor Day, you outlined a target of 1,000+ homes, 300 apartments and 150 in retirement living. How should we think about each of those items? Firstly, you're running at 800 run rate for homes. Should we expect that you're not gonna try and grow that? Then, what are the implications for apartments and retirement living?
Yeah, look, I So we are still producing apartments and our first retirement living offer will go out. We're basically, with the market, we've always said if the market, when we've been quizzed on this historically, what's our downturn or recession playbook? Our recession playbook's always been not to give too much price away and let volumes ease. Basically, you know, I don't want to overplay the 800 or that 20% down sort of target, but that's the playbook we're on. We're giving a bit of price, but we're actually letting volumes ease. What that means is that until we see the market sort of get stronger, we'll be on that playbook. We're just being a little bit prudent about how much we start and not get ahead of ourselves.
We'll basically match our build out across all those to what the market can absorb. That's sort of what we're on. As we get into FY 2024, therefore, it's likely that we won't be chasing those growth plans that we had out previously. Simply because if the market's not there's no point putting the capital in. We'll just manage that quite closely. Once the minute it turns, we've certainly got the land supply. We've got the capability. We've got the spots. As soon as we get a sniff that the market's coming back, we'll just start to increase volumes into that. We certainly have all those three business lines up and running.
It's just we'll only go as fast in growing them as we think we can actually sell product for sensible margins.
Okay, so market dependent. What should we look for in terms of market indicators? Because if we take building consents for October, seasonally adjusted, they're still at 46,000, which is a good number, I think, in anyone's language, you know, well above the average of, I don't know, 30,000-ish. Building consents, it still appears to be a strong number. I think most people expect some downside to that, but, you know, what do we need to see, you know, in terms of market indicators for you to be targeting that kind of 1,450, 1,450 total?
Yeah, look, I mean, I get the question. We look at all the various indicators, consents and interest rates and blah, blah. Fundamentally, the way I'd characterize our residential business, it's sort of a really good lead indicator for how we think about market, because we get a sense of what's going on directly as we're selling. The main indicator we'll start looking at is when we start to can get some pricing movement up and we get volumes up. Honestly, trying to work out what that trigger is going to be is a bit complex. We're just watching it very closely, running that. As soon as it starts to move, we'll feel it quite quickly.
I mean, that's a bit of a blunt instrument because it's not very sophisticated, but yeah, we can look at all the other indicators around there, and it's all there's a few confusing ones. You know, is it employment? Is it interest rate cycle? Is it, as you say, consent? Is it immigration? Is it, you know, yada, yada, it's a bit murky. We're just basically watching closely what we're seeing out in the real world, I guess, and cutting our cloth to suit that.
Okay. Again, in the Investor Day, you said that target was backed by an extensive land portfolio. Now the message seems to be that you've been slowing your land purchases for some time. How do I reconcile those two comments?
Oh, yes. So we've got about 5,000 months, give or take, under control. And, you know, so four or five years, depending on what you think your volumes are. If we're growing the business, we always then make sure that, you know, we've got to then elongate that and add to it. What we tend to look at is we wanna make sure we've got a, you know, reasonable backlog of future work. As we sit here now, I mean, if the volumes do drop a bit, well, we don't really need to secure much to do those volumes. We'll be very selective what, if anything, we buy. As we sit here now, we don't really need to add to our land control position dramatically. You know, we will obviously.
We're very focused on if we see really good opportunities, then we'll certainly, grab those just because it's commercially smart and we've got the capability to do that. Therefore what that message was is we've sort of pulled back and just been very pragmatic about it. I mean, we don't need the land positions to support the volumes for the moment, so we can be quite selective.
Got it. That makes sense. One last one if I can. On the Taupō upgrade, again, sorry to go back to the invest day all the time, but there just seems like some mixed messages. At the invest day, the Taupō was expected to generate NZD 20 million of incremental EBIT. Now you're talking a NZD 40 million number. Is NZD 40 million gross, but the NZD 20 million incremental, or have you actually increased your expectations for the earnings uplift from that project?
I'll let Bevan have a crack at that, and then Bevan McKenzie.
Yeah. You're right. As we've worked through and finalized the plan for the equipment that we're putting in, scope, volume, all of that, you're right, Peter, that we have lifted our expectations there. We were probably a little bit cautious when we spoke to the 20- year Investor Day . It's a combination of that. We're just, you know, we've got a good handle now on the volumes that are gonna come out of that. Again, all based on the cycle. To finalize the plan, we're confident in the improved outlook relative to what we gave at Investor Day .
Good. Just to confirm, is it NZD 40 million incremental? because some of the language today suggests like a supersede that it's going to replace some existing business. Is it NZD 40 million incremental or just NZD 40 million for the project itself, offset by?
NZD 40 million. It is incremental, Peter.
Perfect. All right. Thank you. That's all. Cheers.
Thank you. The next question is from Keith Chau from MST Marquee. Please go ahead.
Good morning, gents. Just the first question, going back to NZICC and perhaps more a reflection on projects from the past, Ross. You know, the learnings from the Justice Precinct in Christchurch, I think, you know, five to six years ago, would tell us that, you know, these provisions can be ongoing, particularly if there's a couple of years to run on the projects. Can you give us a sense of your level of confidence that this will be the last provision? You know, the question's asked all the time. The answer's always, you know, we're comfortable with our provisioning levels. Obviously, things happen that are out of your control, perhaps some in your control, but, you know, how...
Can you give us some confidence around the current provisioning level or the incremental provisions that have been written for this project?
Yeah. Look, Keith, I... I mean, I'm not sure you believe me anyway. It's my third go at it. But the things I'd say to give you some comfort would be that, you know, from the whatever, how many 60 projects we were grappling with back in 2017 or 2018, you know, really we're... If I look at them now, we're broadly finishing. Two Waters Warkworth will, you know, it's a big loading crush. That'll finish and open probably March next year. That's done. If I look at them, really it's down to this project, NZICC. When I was giving Simon, answering the question, hopefully I gave you a sense of it.
This is one complex beast and but where we are now is I think we've, we do have our arms around what we have to do and how we have to do it. What's been good to see is we've, you know, a program that we were running to back mid-year. We're actually have stayed on that and are actually bettering it, which is why I'm now sort of saying we think it'll be an early 2025, maybe late 2024 finish. Our confidence level on our production rate and what we're doing is there and we're actually, you know, achieving it, and that's very important. The team's really on point. They know what they're doing. We're well procured, we're well manned.
Subbies are working well with us and the quality of what we're producing is really good. I'm, you know, as I said, it took a while to get all that to come together, and we have now. Therefore, I think we've got our, got our arms around this, and we know where we're heading. I think it's the right provision, and I don't think we'll have to come back to that well. There's always risk. The good thing I'd say to you is that we're down broadly to the last one and in the home stretch of this. As long as it has been, we are getting close.
Okay. That's great. Thank you. The second question, just around the trading update. I think, you mentioned, you know, there's good visibility out into the first quarter of CY 2023. The business, I think through the course of COVID, it was disclosed 40%-45% of the EBIT is actually generated in the fourth quarter. You know, certainly a lot of risk and, you know, not as clear of a line of sight into the fourth quarter of the year. Again, you know, just around conviction levels of getting to that EBIT guidance given, you know, the bulk of the earnings for the second half are delivered in the fourth quarter.
What gives you comfort that that can be achieved given 40%-45% of the year's earnings are delivered in a period where there's not great line of sight at the moment?
I mean, I, the reason I think we'll be okay is that the 855 assumes we ease back a bit anyway. What I don't think will happen, we could be wrong here, I don't think we're gonna fall off a cliff in May and June. I think what will happen is it'll probably start easing. We're seeing good customer base and what they're talking about, their commitments tend to be out to the middle of next calendar year. What we just don't know is, I think it will be definitely lower through FY 2024 and when does it start to ease off? I think the 855 allows for a bit of that.
As I said, the anecdotal evidence from what we're seeing in forward orders where we have them and some of the things that we're selling now at high volumes, for instance, just the roof volumes and things that are going on the top of houses that then have the trades following it suggest that the first half should be pretty solid. Might get a bit scrappy out in June-ish maybe. I think the number we've got out there allows for a bit there. I don't know, Bevan, whether you'd add anything else.
I'll just add, Keith, obviously a chunk of that fourth quarter is the Robbie, you know, part that was heavily weighted back in, as we said back in 2020. Run rate on Robbie house sales is gonna be, you know, that's a reasonable driver of that second half result. As Ross said earlier, whilst Robbie sales volumes have been lower, you know, they've still been running at reasonable rates, and I think we're probably, you know, doing a bit better than the broader market out there. That's in large part due to the way that the team has positioned that business. You know, we've got more of lower priced stock out there than the average developer, which is benefiting us for the moment because the market for lower medium in Auckland is definitely stronger than above.
That gives us some confidence that we can, you know, hopefully more or less maintain that run rate that we've been seeing or maybe even do a bit better in the second half. If you look to FY23, that's obviously gonna be a key part of where we land.
Thank you. Maybe just come back for a quick one on the Waipapa acquisition. EBIT for that business running at NZD 14.5 million now, targeting to get to NZD 20 million. Can you just give us a sense of how that EBIT uplift is gonna be achieved? Just thinking about that from the perspective of the New Zealand market running at peak cycle now, delivering NZD 14.5 million, but the expectation of getting to NZD 20 million mid-cycle, how does that square up, and where will the synergies come through?
Yeah. Effectively it's running on one shift now. We think we can add... We can actually get more through the plant as well as there's a program, a bit of an upgrade we wanna do at the plant as well. We think then there's an opportunity around the broader customer base up there, to and this is at, as you mentioned, some mid-cycle levels, we're not being too crazy with it, that we can actually drive that EBIT up to that level at lower levels of background market volume. We're quite confident about that. We've done a fair bit of work on that. Yeah. That's how we approached it.
We think we can get more through the plant, make it more efficient in doing that, 'cause what happens as you double shift a plant like that, you actually lower your cost base 'cause you sweat the asset a bit more. The combination of lowering the throughput cost as well as getting a bit more volume is sort of where it comes from.
There is an expectation that you'll take it from a one-shift operation to a two-shift operation?
Yes. Yeah, that's part and parcel of what we're doing. I mean, we... We've actually, that was, we've done a lot of work ahead of purchasing it to make sure that's all plausible and understanding what we needed to do around the plant and equipment to drive some of those cost efficiencies. That's all been baked in as we've thought about it. We've spent a fair bit of time laying it out. The other thing which is good about it is, you know, when you look at the renewable fuels piece of it as well, that's a very interesting sector for us. Because of our own security of supply for our own businesses, but the pellet and the sort of use of wood byproducts is becoming a very interesting sector.
I think there's a few ancillary opportunities around it as well for us.
When you change the shift pattern from one to two, who would you be taking share off in the New Zealand market?
I mean, we've actually done it quite granularly with the customer base up in that region and down to sort of, I guess, northern Auckland. I don't really wanna flag that particularly. I mean, yeah, it's probably a step too far for this call. You know, there will be a competitive dynamic up there. We've got to think that through, and we need to be a bit thoughtful about it, so. It's not just a hope and a prayer. As I said, it's an important investment for us. We want it to work, so we've put a lot of thought into this.
Yeah. Okay. That's fair, and thanks very much. Thanks, Ross. Thanks, BBevanevan.
Thank you. The next question is from Daniel Kang from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Morning Ross, morning Bevan. Just a few more on NZICC, if I can. You mentioned in your release that you'll be pursuing opportunities to cover the additional project costs on the revenue and cost side. Can you just elaborate on these initiatives?
Sure, Shane. I mean, I don't wanna overplay my hand publicly. You know, but what's going on here is that, you know, there are, as we look at the different insurance pots out there, third party and building works that we've got to think through. There's, as we look down the subcontracting thing, it's just how we think about the procurement there and what we may do around there. As we do this, there are opportunities to hopefully improve on that. We're certainly just flagging that's our attitude. You always wanna look up and down and around and make sure that it's not just us wearing all the pain where we have legal opportunities or contractual opportunities elsewhere. It's just flagging that we're not just sitting here taking everything that comes our way.
We will work that, but I'm not dimensioning what that might be or might look like. Certainly just flagging that we will be working up and down on this as we work through the completion.
Makes sense, Ross. Also note that you're still expecting completion of the project by 2025 or earlier. I mean, is there a risk to that timeline given today's announcement?
No. As I said, Well, there's not, I mean, not there's always risk, but I'm very comfortable that the team are really on top of this now. As I said, what we've been seeing with our program, we've been hitting our milestones, delivering these first two car park levels is a really big tick for us. Starting to hand stuff back over is a nice thing to do, get it off our books onto SkyCity. The reason I'm sort of alluding that we think we'll probably do a bit better than 2025 is that based on our programming and production performance that we're seeing, and just the fact that I think we've got our arms around it now and we know where we're going. I don't say that lightly.
I feel like we can do pretty well from here.
Nice. Thank you. I'll pass it over.
Thank you. The next question is from Stephen Hudson, from Macquarie Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, Ross and Bevan. Just a couple of quick ones from me. The 20% variance to the 1,000 build rates that you mentioned. We're hearing sort of stories of design and build guys sort of down 50% or more. I just wondered if you sort of consider that you're outperforming the market because of your offering or you're expecting some sort of second half up-lift there. Can you know, maybe give a feel for the difference in those two numbers? Secondly, on the unrealized land bank, I think you put it at NZD 350 million-NZD 400 million for your resi business. I just wondered if you had any more update estimated banked number.
Hi, Stephen. I'll take a couple. I'll start with the second one. We don't have an updated number relative to the one that we talked to it in yesterday, but we are refreshing that. I will be able to talk to that at half-year results. We've already got that work underway. On the first one, I kind of just teased earlier, yes, we think we are, you know, a small share of the overall New Zealand market for resi households, obviously. Yes, we think we are doing better than the average at the moment. As I said, that's I think because the quality of the community Steve and the team builds and also because the price points that we've got are below the median and that has been the more active part of the market.
That's actually surprised us a bit. Again, that in Auckland, the NZD 700,000 -NZD 900 ,000 sort of space, that's where you're moving more volume at the moment. As you're moving up into your low and mid ones, that's where your stock has been harder to move, including for us. Because we're more weighted to the lower end price point, yes, I think that means we're doing better than the average at present.
Good. Thanks, Bevan.
Thank you. The next question is from Grant Swanepoel from Jarden. Please go ahead.
Good morning, all. First question, just on your guidance. From what I'm hearing, can I interpret it as Australia is offsetting the softness in the housing market, that's why there's no real change to guidance? My second question is around all the activities now you've got going with the plasterboard and new plasterboard plant, the glass wool and new marketing team there, now the panel plant as well as this Waipapa acquisition. Is this a lot going on when you guys are potentially facing a downturn in 2024, which could need a bit of management time? My final question is on NZICC. Just from an insurance perspective, is Fletcher Building just under-insured or...
I just I still don't quite get my head around why this is an insurance issue or actually it's unexpected damage issue and you're carrying NZD 150 million of extra costs. Can you please try and just close the gap on that one?
Grant, I may forget one. You gave me a few questions there, but I'll see how I go. On the guidance one on Australia filling the gap. If you remember when we talked about the guidance, we called it NZD 855 million +. The reason we said plus is that we were basically saying it'll be better than that if we sort of end up having a broadly flat market, which we didn't think would actually occur because we, you know, we knew we were coming into some sort of level of headwinds. What's really happening with the guidance being maintained is, we've talked about the residential development, which is probably experiencing, you know, the bigger headwinds. Yeah, Australia is probably ticking a little bit better than we thought.
When I look at the distribution products businesses in New Zealand, they're up a bit in volume, but they're actually doing a bit better in margin, so they're not far off or wash of what we thought anyway. As I respond to that, the reason we're still confident in our guidance is that it was a relatively conservative peg which assumed there'd be some market headwinds anyway. Yeah. That's really the main theme as opposed to one offsetting the other. If you remember, we basically just added back the NZD 100 million from the COVID impacts and didn't take any market upside, yeah, into it. That's how it impacts. It's not so much Australia offsetting it. It's just a bit more conservative than we went into it.
On the lot going on, a couple of things. You probably don't remember this, but when we, especially on the timber piece, Ian Jones used to run our concrete business as the CE. When we started really focusing, you know, on how we grow the business and what sectors are interesting, we basically identified the wood timber sector as a very logical area for us, and we thought there was a real opportunity in there, both in new product lines, adding a bit of capacity as well as in our theme of the structural timber.
Back, I think it was two years ago, two and a half years ago, we took Ian out of that role, and he's running the whole wood strategy, and he has been focused on, you know, the setting up of the Tokoroa plant and doing that. He's got a good history of capital projects, and he's been all over then the setting up of the team and going after now the Waipapa plant. I'm very comfortable. We've actually taken a CE and put resources around him, like one of our other divisions, albeit he's working in Hamish's business for Hamish in building products. Effectively, he's set up with a CE-level individual, good track record on that, and focused on timber. I think that really does land that well.
You step back out of that, and you look at the other major ones, really, we're all but there on Tauriko. We've managed that well, on time, on budget. The only other major CapEx that we're envisaging is Comfortech or the Pink Batts, the insulation plant, you know, which it's NZD 150 million. I think we've definitely got the bandwidth to do one other based on how we've set it up. There'll be a few other smaller ones, but so I don't think we've got a capacity problem, in terms of skills to sit over it. In terms of then. I don't feel like we're making poor decisions here.
We're doing everything on mid-market when it comes to timber and their adjacencies, so we're not really adding capacity at the top. On the Comfortech one, I mean, that's the code change. I mean, it's just a bit of a no-brainer for us to go after that market volume. You know, hold share, increase share maybe, but it'd be mad to let it not just cede share. I think we're okay with that, Grant. I don't think we're actually overstretching. I'll let Bevan answer the last one.
Morning, Grant. We've discussed before there are two key insurance policies on the Convention Centre. There's a contract works policy and there's a third-party policy. The one that covers the reinstatement or rebuild cost is the contract works policy. The best way to think about it is when Ross and I came in, we did the initial write-down on the building book, and it was clear that the Convention Centre was gonna cost a lot more than we had bid it for. When we renewed the insurance post that, we significantly increased the quantum of that insurance. It's like any policy, it's got a total coverage cap. We increased that because we knew the rebuild costs were higher. What's happened since then, that insurance has responded, so it's not an issue with the insurance responding.
As Ross said before, as the costs have increased on the remediation due to the complexity, those costs have now gone past that cap that we put in place, notwithstanding the fact we increased it materially. That's why we've now got an overrun.
Okay. Thanks very much.
Thank you. The next question is from Marcus Curley from UBS. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Just a couple of quick ones. Maybe I'll start with the easiest. You know, is the NZD 150 million, is that, can that be tax-deductible?
The answer is yes, Marcus. The tax effect is when you get the tax deduction when, obviously by when the cash flow, rather than when you make the provision. It'll be treated just the same way as the prior B+I provisions were. Basically, when you do the work that crystallizes the cash loss, that's when you get the deductibility.
Bevan, the NZD 150 is a gross number so that the after-tax number would be more like NZD 100?
It is the pre-deductibility benefit number. Yes, that's right.
Secondly, Ross, it sort of sounds like it's a little early to be, you know, talking to what you think the right sort of resi-style outcome is for FY 2024, even though there's some potential signs of some weakness. It's, you know, it's a little early to be conclusive in terms of what market you're entering next year?
Look, I mean, I sort of indicated what I think the run rate looks like this year, you know, we're 20% off our volumes, and we know what the price is, so that'll be supportive of the margins we have out there. I'm actually... Look, we just need to keep doing what we're doing, but that's sort of the direction of travel we're seeing. I think FY 2024, I mean, I'm not sure. I mean, we're basically watching it like a hawk and basically whether it be our residential development business and our more volumetric businesses, we're just, we're really going to make sure we have about a six-month indicator if we look ahead.
As we start to see it dropping a bit more than we think, then we'll be ready to move on costs and some of those sorts of things. If it's a bit more buoyant, then we'll again, we're well positioned. I think we've got our costs, we understand them. We're fighting fits of these sorts of things, so we're ready to move, and we're watching it very closely. And I'm just not sure where it'll end up. I mean, you know, I think it'll ease. I don't think it'll be a calamity, but, you know, we'll watch it and make sure if it's getting really hard, then we'll be basically sizing our business to suit it.
Then just finally, probably the first time publicly, you've got an opportunity to talk about the changes you've made with the GIB rebates. How do you think that impacts the business, if at all?
Not at all. I mean, I, you know, I don't think the way we were rebating was actually volume forcing. When you look at the submissions into the Commerce Commission from our clients, the merchants, they actually said, "This does not influence the volumes we buy." I mean, it wasn't us saying that. It was actually our customers saying that. We, we'll change it. I mean, the thing is that it just made no sense to fight that fight. I mean, they were looking for us to do that. We decided we'll just change it. I mean, I was waiting for the report to come out and the recommendation. It just seemed the logical thing to do, but I don't think it'll have any impact on what we sell.
You removed the rebate and in replace of that you lower the price, or how does the, how do you?
Oh.
How do you manage that?
The rebates. What... I'll explain. What they didn't like was the concept of volumetric rebates. What that means is if you... Say you bought 10 and you had 100 and you get a 10% discount, but if you got to 200, you might get a 15% discount across the whole 200, not the... You know. What they didn't like is the incentive that created potentially to drive volumes. You know, they go for the next bit, and therefore they get a rebate across their whole volume. What we're changing that from that to just each client based on what we think their volume is, we'll just order you a rebate each year. You know, if they then change the volumes the following year, then you'll adjust it accordingly.
There's no rebate incentivizing driving volumes. It's just, there'll be some volume sense around it as you think about how much they put through, but they won't have to get to a magic number to get a rebate across the whole volume. That's really, they're still rebates, but they're just different constructed rebates.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Rohan Koreman-Smit from Forsyth Barr. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Just a couple of quick questions. First of all, you know, there's talk of kind of 20% down in the resi business. Can you talk of early stage construction orders, you know, frame and truss, concrete slabs and resi, reinforcing volumes, just, you know, things like that. I know you gave us some color on, you know, decent roofing numbers. Something a bit earlier in the construction process.
I'll have a. Sorry. Bevan and I are both a bit of a dual on this. I mean, if I. I think what we're seeing and as I said, the roofing, plasterboard , those sorts of trades, very strong. Civil, what I call civil has been a little bit soft, but it's a bit complex as to what's going on because the wet season in New Zealand has been very wet the last six months. What we're seeing, if I look at the customers that are pointing into non-res and infrastructure, they're all saying the same thing. It's been very wet. A lot of those customers that they're actually asking and getting product stockpiling, trying to get through it all in the first half.
It feels like that part of what I call the civil works equation is going to be quite strong in the second half. We've seen the same thing through Fletcher Construction and the roading. We just had a terrible sealing season so far and everyone's getting organized to try and get as much through in the first half of calendar 2023. If you get into the residential civil works side, that's also been softer and I think that's probably representative of just that sector being a bit slower. I think that's probably more underlying. If you look at what we're estimating in PlaceMakers, in frame and truss, that's probably about 15%-20% off a year ago. It's a bit complex, that number, simply because it's not...
What's happening is, as projects have been getting delayed, part of that is actually being stuff getting stripped forward as projects didn't start. It's a bit messy, that number, in terms of a lead indicator. I don't know, Bevan, if you'd add.
No, I think the only other thing I'd add, Rohan, is that, you know, we get asked the question a lot, you know, what do you see in terms of cancellations? We continue to see very little getting canceled, but you still do see deferrals taking place. To Ross's point, you know, residential slab laying, for example, has been lumpy due to weather. That creates a flow-on effect. You're still in that lumpy deferred mode at the moment.
What has been strong in the concrete world has been non-residential, you know, kind of warehouse, large warehousing, logistics, et cetera. We've been very busy in that space. The non-res has been going well, and the forwards in that space continue to look robust.
Perfect. Thanks for the color. Just circling back to your comment around it being difficult for the civils to kind of lay road base in your own construction business. You know, I think one of the last projects you've got where there's some risk, Pūhoi to Warkworth is a PPP. Are you able to give us some color on, I guess, provisioning there and, timeline going forward? I've been paying close attention to the YouTube videos you put up every month. Looks like there's still a little bit of work to do.
Yeah, just to give you. We're pretty close to physical works completion now. You know, what then happens at the end of it is a bit of a QA, quality assurance process where you've got to do all your final testing, put bows around it and get the acceptance process through. Predominantly in the first couple of months of next year, we'll be going through that process, and we should be able to open not long after that, 2nd March. You know, that's, we've got to work through that with Waka Kotahi. Broadly the road, the physical work is give or take finished as we get up to Christmas.
What then, and we flagged it in our accounts, what then happens is we've still got a wash-up COVID delay claim to do, which we're working through with Waka Kotahi. If you remember the first COVID shutdown, we did wash that up after a year of negotiations. We've got a similar one to wash up at the end of the project, which we'll probably just sweep it all up. I believe we'll get the right outcome there, but we've got to get that, and we've flagged in the accounts that, you know, that there's a risk for that. As we sit here today, I think the dimensions of it and the justification for it's solid. I think we should be okay. That's sort of how it is.
The good thing is, always nice to get these things finished. You know, And the other big one, which we're Peka Peka to Ōtaki which we're hoping we open on the 21st of December, give or take. Finished. That's, that's why, as I was answering the earlier question, we're broadly through all that historical stuff. All that'll be open and then the last one will be the convention center, which hopefully we get done by the end of 2024.
Perfect. Then final question. You know, you're going into the sawmilling industry. It's historically been a pretty rocky industry in New Zealand. You know, I guess why do you think you can do it better than other people who have kind of been in and out of the industry?
Look, I think there's a few things. If I look at the timber opportunity is, you know, not just sawmilling, but the structural timber. I mean, we deal with a lot of structural timber through PlaceMakers, our frame and truss plant. We're sort of all in that area. The bit we haven't got is what I call, we don't play in what I call the raw material conversion into the structural timbers itself. I don't see it as a, what I call a major adventure. It's sort of a logical adjacency for us. I would make the point that we do have a 50/50 JV in Australia with Wespine in Western Australia, which run the sawmill. We do have those sorts of things in our business.
The other thing around the sawmill, which is interesting, as we look at what we're doing with the Taupō and the wood products is there's a whole bunch of stuff that comes out of sawmills that you use in different board products, which get reconstituted. Having that raw material supply with offcuts, we've already got a way to use it. And as we grow that part of the business, it's a very, very good complementary strategy. The third part of it is there's also some of the byproducts, you make fuel pellets. Again, we're a very big consumer of that and probably are getting more so. I think it's a growing part of the manufacturing environment anyway. It's a power source. I think it's an. That's the way we've looked at it.
We've looked at it as a very logical place for us to play and a not a big step for us to make. It sort of complements nicely. If you think of the big structural components out there, we're well-positioned in concrete, we're well-positioned in steel, and we sort of were half there in timber, and we just really wanna fill that out because I think then you've got those core structural elements covered.
Cool. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is a follow-up from Simon Thackray from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks very much. Quick one for Bevan, actually. I think we've got around about NZD 600 million guide of CapEx at the August result. You've obviously sized the project now for the plan. You've got the additional acquisition now with Waipapa. Just can you just talk us through sort of CapEx expectations this year, next year and the year after, Bevan? Just to just give us a guide as to where against whatever the market is, where the gearing is likely to be over the next couple of years.
Yeah, sure, Simon. What we call our base CapEx envelope, so that's everything excluding the major growth investments, is the best way to think about it. That's consistently in that NZD 200-NZD 250 range per year. No change there. That's all the maintenance CapEx, normal efficiency, the digital transformation programs. That's all in the NZD 200-NZD 250 per year. Over and above that, what we said at Invest Day is we have about NZD 500 million of growth CapEx, and Ross ran through the projects earlier. We remain committed to those. That includes Tradelink, which we've just reconfirmed. The split of that CapEx is roughly half of that 500 is flowing in FY 2023, Simon, and the balance across 2024 and 2025. The one additional piece per our announcement this morning is Waipapa.
That we expect to be about, you know, that NZD 100 million going out in Q4 this year. Otherwise, it's all still consistent with what we said at Investor Day.
Excellent. Then I think on top of that, we've got the NZD 125 for Winstone Wallboards as well, right? In this year.
Yeah, that's right, yeah. That project is what very briefly alluded to going well. Team's done a great job. We're on track for that May full commissioning there. Again, as I said, we'll keep the Felix Street running for a little bit longer, but we are on time, on budget, on delivery time.
Okay. That's terrific. Thanks, Nick.
I think that's my cue. We've got to get on the 11:30 A.M. Perfect. You're winding it up.
Thank you. There's no further questions at this time. I'll hand back to Mr. Taylor for closing remarks.
Well, that was a seamless end, wasn't it, Rachel? Look, everyone, thanks for coming on the call. Obviously we'll be around if you've got any follow-up questions, but appreciate your time. Thank you.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.