Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Fonterra Co-operative Group fiscal year 2023, Q3 investor call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear a message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw the question, simply press star 11 again. Be advised that today's conference is being recorded. Now it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Miles Hurrell. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you. I'm joined here this morning with Neil Beaumont, CFO, and Simon Till, Capital Markets, looking forward to taking you through our Q3 results that we released to the market this morning. If we start quickly on slide two, we are pleased to report that the co-op has continued its strong performance that we reported half year. Our profit after tax for the first nine months of FY 2023 is NZD 1.326 billion, up NZD 854 million on the prior year, and includes, that does include the gain on sale, Soprole. Excluding the gain on sale of the divestment of NZD 248 million, normalized profit is NZD 1.078 billion, which is equivalent to NZD 0.65 for the nine months.
In terms of full year earnings, we've also lifted our guidance for the full year from NZD 0.55-NZD 0.75, up to NZD 0.65-NZD 0.80 per share, mainly on the back of those ongoing favorable price relativities, also the improvements we are seeing through consumer and food service. On the milk price, we have both narrowed the range and reduced the midpoint for the current season to NZD 8.20 midpoint from NZD 8.30 per kg. For the season ahead, gone back out to a wide range given the early part of the season, NZD 7.25-NZD 8.75 with a midpoint of NZD 8.00. The next slide just provides a bit of an update on how we're going, how we're going against our strategy. A couple of comments.
Firstly, we did complete the sale of Soprole during the quarter, which we've well documented, and the proposed capital return of NZD 800 million have made the decision to bring that forward into late August this year, which is pleasing. Of course, we have transitioned to the new Flexible Shareholding structure and the on-market buyback has been in place to support liquidity since the end of March. We have a very small portion of the allocated funds have been used, and the market maker continues to operate. As part of the regular capital management program, continue to evaluate opportunities for our market buybacks at the same time. We also continue to progress sustainability both on and off-farm.
We expect to announce a Scope 3 and on-farm emissions target around the middle of the year. Also pleased to see the Centre for Climate Action joint venture we have with industry and government is now up and running and has made its first investment. Neil will take us through a couple of the numbers, then I'll come back towards the end to talk a little bit.
Thanks, Miles. Good afternoon, everyone. As Miles mentioned, the co-op has delivered a strong result for the first nine months. Looking at some of our key numbers, profit after tax of NZD 0.81 per share. Excluding the gain on divestment, our earnings per share reduces to NZD 0.65. I think quite importantly, you know, it's that underlying earnings per share of NZD 0.65 that our dividend policy is based on. Looking at free cash flow, a key metric for us, just over NZD 1.6 billion, and this is up more than NZD 3 billion from the prior year. Key drivers obviously being the net proceeds from the sale of Soprole, the higher earnings, and critically, the selling down of our investment in inventory to more what I would call historical levels.
Higher earnings remain the key driver to our improved Return on Capital for the last 12 months, which is tracking at 11.7% up from 5.7%. You will certainly be familiar with the price relativities graph on slide five, and we use this graph a lot to illustrate the relative price movements between Reference and non-reference products, which really directly impact our earnings. The strong pricing in our non-reference product portfolio has lasted longer than we initially anticipated, and these favorable price relativities continue to drive our higher margins, particularly in the ingredients channel, and are the key contributors to the earnings that we're reporting today. Looking at our total group performance on slide six.
Overall, the drivers of our performance are similar to what we reported at the interim results, with the key points being sales volumes remain slightly up on last year, reflecting the sell-down of additional 22 year-end inventory. Gross margin, gross profit are up, mainly due to the favorable price relativities I just spoke of. Our operating expenses are also up, reflecting the impairments we recognize in our interim results. Like most businesses, we are certainly experiencing ongoing inflation. Moving to slide eight, this presents a matrix view of our business with our business segments across the top and our product channels down the side. I want to highlight a few key points. The favorable price relativities discussed earlier can be seen across the ingredients channel, particularly in our group operations segment.
Our food service channel EBIT increased as we continued to adjust our in-market product prices as well as increases in sales volume. Finally, during the third quarter, input costs within the consumer channel actually started to ease lifting margins, but the overall channel result remains impacted by the impairments that we spoke about at interim. With that, I'll hand it back to you, Miles.
Great. Thanks, Neil. Slide nine just talks about the current Farmgate Milk Price. As mentioned earlier, we have both narrowed the range and also reduced the midpoint to NZD 8.20. A key rationale really is we didn't quite see GDT prices recover to the levels that we had anticipated. We did see some movement in March and April, it plateaued a little bit of late. That reinforces our need to bring it to NZD 8.20. If I look at our earnings on the following slide, we have lifted our forecast earnings guidance from NZD 0.55-0.75 to NZD 0.65-0.80. Firstly, the ongoing strong margins and ingredients channel which Neil referred to, also that ongoing improved performance we are seeing in Consumer Food Service business.
In particular, the Southeast Asian global markets businesses are also performing well. Our price relativities have continued longer than anticipated, but we do expect to see them revert in time. I'll just finish off by looking at the year ahead from milk price perspective. From 1st of June, our range will be at NZD 7.25-NZD 8.75, with a midpoint of NZD 8.00. That's an expectation there. We will see gradual increase in demand over the course of the year as the China economy continues to recover post-COVID. However, timing is, of course, uncertain, and there is a little bit of stock to work through in the Chinese market.
We expect to be back to normal levels before long. This is obviously reflected in the opening price. We recognize, you know, farmers are under pressure and at NZD 8 that may be below the cost of breakeven for some farmers, which is why we've adjusted our Advance Rate settings for the year ahead. That's obviously welcome news for our farmers. On that basis, I will then open for questions for the three of us to answer. Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, simply press star one one on your telephone. We have a question coming from the line of Arie Dekker with Jarden. Please proceed.
Oh, good afternoon, and thanks for the update. Just three questions. Firstly, just, you know, obviously called out very strong free cash flow. On a post-cap return basis, where do you sort of see gearing ending, FY2023 at?
Yeah, just a few comments on that. I think, you know, we sit here today, we probably see gearing running at about 34%-35% ex capital distribution. Making some assumptions around how we'll continue to work through inventory in the next couple of months. You know, we see numbers tracking sort of high 30s, low 40s, so maybe 40%.
Right. Thank you. I mean, you've upgraded, you know, throughout this year, you know, as those favorable pricing conditions have continued. You've got a slide there, you know, on sort of the price basis outlook for Q4, which looks pretty solid also. What's your scope to sort of contract some of this favorable, you know, price gap into FY2024 over, you know, from here?
Arie, that's the big question. you know, we'd anticipated things to sort of revert by now. They've held up longer and it's probably more a reflection, I think, of the milk price not pushing ahead the way we saw it, we expected it to go. you know, as we see milk price potentially move in the right direction from a farm perspective next year, we might see some of those relativities close up. It's the big question. We'll obviously, you know, come out with our opening guidance for the new year soon and that will then give a sort of view as to where we see that playing out and when that gap may close.
Okay. Yeah. Can we expect that opening guidance might actually come before the full year result or?
A bit early to confirm. Last year, I think we brought it out a bit earlier, but not sure how we're gonna play the year ahead at this point.
Sure. And then just on that, I guess just from a practical perspective, you know, just at, like, what period are you sort of contracting out to at the moment? Like, is that starting to fall into the start of FY2024?
Yes. You know, we're well.
Yeah.
We're well into sort of the Q1 is sort of a. It's quite a regular process now into Q1. Of course, you know, with the financial tools available to us that we are going, you know, well beyond that now. We're contracting out one year in advance in some limited cases.
Yeah.
Yes.
Is that across both Reference and non-reference? Like, are you, like, are you starting to lock in some of that stream return into FY2024?
Yes, yes, we are.
Oh, great.
It is off a relatively small base. Yes.
No, that's encouraging. Just last one, you know, well done on exiting the last of the farms legacy. Are you gonna be able to remove Brazil by year-end?
Working hard on that. That would certainly be a nice, a nice thing for us to close out by the end of the year. We're in the lap of the regulatory gods in Brazil at this point. Certainly our intention to move as fast as we can, but too early to say any more than that, Arie. Just we're waiting for the wheels in motion to continue in Brazil.
Okay, great. Thanks a lot. Well done.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Again, ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question, simply press star one one on your telephone. One moment for our next question. It comes from the line of Mark Topy with Select Equities. Please proceed.
Good afternoon, gents. Just a question, just on your assumption on the China demand, picking up across the year. I suppose most recently we've seen slowdown in the China economy. I'm just wondering your sort of basis for perhaps commenting that you might see some increased demand in China over the course of the year?
Yeah. Remember, when we say an increase, it's an increase on last year, where that was very, very sluggish demand, based on historic levels, predominantly on the back of, you know, the COVID lockdown that we saw in the Chinese market, and a strong domestic milk play. As that milk exits the supply chain in China, and demand even on a lower GDP base comes through, we expect to sort of recover somewhat from what we expected in the year prior. We, you know, we're looking towards the end of this calendar year to see some movement on that and hopefully well into next year to see how that completely plays out.
Right. Thank you. Can you comment on how you're seeing the Australian market in terms of perhaps the farm gate there going forward and also the milk supply, which continues to be under pressure in Australia? How do you see the Australian business?
Yeah.
Yeah, maybe just a couple comments on the Australian business and Miles can talk a bit about milk price. I mean, I think, quite frankly, since we made the decision to retain that business, it's actually traveling quite well and in a lot of cases exceeding what some of our expectations were. I think we're pleased with that financial performance, both from a, you know, obviously a Return on Capital basis, but just efficiency of capital as well. I think that's what we would say. We'll get Miles to talk a bit about milk price, they're still recovering a little bit, I think, from some of the other earlier drought conditions.
Milk price in Australia, there was obviously a strong milk price throughout the last year. We'd expect the market to come out relatively soon with their opening positions for the year ahead. They're obviously experiencing a little softness as we have in the global market. We're seeing that play out in Australia as well. In terms of what that opening price looks like, it's not quite there yet.
Right. Okay. Great. Thank you for that.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, simply press star one one to get in the queue. All right. I don't see any further questions in the queue. I will pass it back to Miles Hurrell for any final thoughts.
Great. Thank you. Thanks for your time today. We do appreciate your support. It's nice again to be here with a decency in numbers and look forward to catching up with a number of you over the next few weeks. Thank you very much.
With that, we thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.