Hello, everyone. I'm Jason Boyes, the chief executive of Infratil, and I'm joined, as usual, by Phillippa Harford, our CFO. I think officially CFO of the Year, Phillippa, congratulations on that. We're delighted to present a great financial set of financial results for Infratil for the financial year ended March 31, 2023, today. As usual, we've released that result in your report and a copy of this presentation we're about to run through on the NZX and ASX this morning. I'll hand over to Phillippa in a second to run through the highlights of that financial result. I'll take a quick look at how the portfolio is sitting now. We'll turn to the operating companies as usual. I'll hand it back to Phillippa. She'll run through some more details of the result.
I'll talk about how we're thinking about the outlook for the portfolio, and then we can have some questions. As usual, there's lots to get through. Without further ado, I'll hand over to you, Phillippa.
Thanks, Jas.
No worries.
everybody. I'll just flick through to where we are now. As Jason said, we're really pleased to provide an update on our financial result for the year. We're reporting a net current surplus of NZD 643 million and a proportionate EBITDA of NZD 531 million. That EBITDA result is towards the top end of our latest guidance range. On a like-for-like basis is essentially 12% up from last year. You know, as you can appreciate, given the economic backdrop that we've had for quite a large part of FY23, certainly the challenging trading circumstances that have continued to affect some parts of our portfolio, such as diagnostic imaging and also the airport, we're really pleased to be able to report that we've got that 12% uplift.
Mm.
Just to cover off a couple of other things about our result and where we sit at the end of FY23. We've invested over NZD 1.3 billion during the year. About NZD 300 million of that is investment directly by Infratil. That largely relates to our investment in FortySouth, the TowerCo business that One New Zealand sold. The remaining NZD 1 billion is our proportionate share of capital investment by our portfolio companies. We'll take you through what some of that looks like as we talk to some of those businesses. Thinking about our capital position, we've got NZD 1.4 billion, nearly NZD 1.5 billion of available capital. That's a mixture of cash on hand and available debt facilities.
It puts us in a good position as we look at opportunities for investment, both within our portfolio but also beyond that. In terms of the result for shareholders, we're pleased to report a 14.2% return for the year, and we've declared a final dividend of NZD 0.125 per share. That's 4% up on last year. It'll be fully imputed, but the DRP will not apply to this dividend. I'll hand it back to you, Jas.
Thanks. Thanks, Phillippa. Yeah, pleasing, really strong result. Let's stay zoomed out just for a second and look at how the portfolio is sitting. Remember, we have our four high conviction sectors we're investing in: digital infrastructure, renewables, healthcare, and airports. This chart will look pretty familiar. What this is showing is since we last showed this at our investor day in March, digital has increased to 57%. That's as a result of the independent valuations, actually for all the assets, but including CDC and One that we're announcing today. That's gone up about 6%. Renewables as a result, has dropped a little bit as a proportion of the portfolio to 21%, but the rest have stayed more or less in line.
I think the key thing we said in March, which we continue to feel, is that we're fine to be long digital infrastructure in terms of where the portfolio is sitting. We do expect renewables to grow as the value of those platforms is recognized, but don't have any issues with our position in digital infrastructure given the long growth tailwinds we see there. The second point I think here is on this slide, you just see a bunch of flags, but really the point about the portfolio becoming more and more geographically diverse over time is important. I think today we've got only about a third of the assets in New Zealand by value. That just underscores that, and you should expect that to increase over time. Let's turn to the operating companies, and I'll start with the big one, CDC.
Look, this has been a source of a lot of our growth over recent times. That growth story really does continue. They've come in just above the middle of their guidance there, a full third up from last year, which is really off the back of finishing the build of a sort of whopping 104 MWs of data centers across Canberra, Sydney and Auckland now as expected. Those are completed and starting to generate earnings, which are starting to come through that EBITDA number.
The other thing that they've done during the year, which is really important, we think to call out, is they have issued for the first time long-term debt into the U.S. private placement market and actually just recently completed their first loan into the Japanese samurai or ninja loan market, which is long-term debt funding that will fund their sort of next phase of development. That's largely secured now on long-term terms. That pricing that reflects CDC's sort of unique concentration of high credit quality customers and really long-term underlying contracts, which has increased over the period as you'll see here, from about 21 years when we were talking last year to 24 years, if you include the options that customers have to extend.
Which is a really a unique and attractive feature of CDC, both as a borrower but also for us as shareholders. The independent valuation for that business has grown 18% over the year. That's actually only 5% up from what we said in December. That is a lot of as a result of those data centers finishing construction and de-risking. There's some more detail on the way that new independent valuation has been put together in the annual report at the bottom of the slide here for people who are interested.
I think our main point here is now when we look at how our independent valuation sits compared to consensus sell side valuations, those consensus sell side valuations look about NZD 1 billion off this now for Infratil's share, which doesn't look right compared to where NEXTDC is now trading, and we think really does deserve another look by the market, and we'd expect that to happen from today. Looking ahead, Greg explained at the Investor Day that he's still seeing really strong demand for his product, consistent with history, if not slightly more as things like the impact of AI on demand for his product accelerates everybody's plans.
There, in addition to building at the moment in Auckland and Melbourne, they are in advanced planning and discussions with customers to announce a further up to 100 MWs of data center build over the next 12 months, just underscoring the growth that he's seeing. CDC is also building out its land bank, which now sits at a level that would take the business beyond the development assumed in the independent valuation now, which is really important to secure the long-term growth that we still see in this business. That's resulted in guidance for next year, about 25% up from this year. Again, just that strong growth is continuing. Also, more than half of that growth and EBITDA is already contracted. It's pretty secure. That is CDC.
I'm gonna talk about Longroad next as well, a really big year for Longroad and its position in our portfolio. The main event, obviously, during the year was the transaction, the capital raise that they did, where they raised $500 million for the platform. In doing that, we brought in a new partner, MEAG, which is the investment arm of Munich Re. The price at which they invested resulted in a more than 5x uplift in our independent valuation for that business during the period. That's right, 5x. It's sitting now, we're talking, we've released today a valuation of around $750 million for Infratil share. That's post an estimate of capital gains tax if we had to sell that investment, which we don't intend to.
That was the main event during the year. The other thing we heard about from Paul Gaynor, the founder and CEO of that business at our Investor Day in March, was that post our transaction with MEAG, the U.S government passed this sort of game-changing climate legislation, the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, which as he has explained, has really supercharged his industry. It's increased profitability, it's increased the cadence of development, but it's also enabled them to start planning for developments up to a decade out. Whereas before that legislation, they really only ever planned two or three years out because of the way the incentive regime there always needed to be renewed every two or three years.
That means, as we've said before, that we think the valuation of businesses like these is certainly more than when we transacted with MEAG. We've been working to demonstrate that. The independent valuation that we're releasing today is only 12% up from that mark where we transacted with MEAG. We don't think that by any means reflects the full impact of the IRA. To give you a sense of that, the valuation currently doesn't value anything beyond any projects beyond 2027, despite the longer development runway that Paul talked about last year. We're continuing to work with our partners, with the independent valuers on correctly valuing that business.
We're aware of some comparable transactions that are working their way through the U.S. market now that we think will confirm there's an uplift there, and also confirm that our strategy of retaining projects and growing the scale of that platform is the most valuable one. We hope to be able to give you further valuation guidance on Longroad by the half year once those sorts of things wash through. Looking ahead, it's really a big building year for Longroad this year and next. They're currently building about 1.3 gigawatts of projects across five states, six projects, and then we're planning sort of another gigawatt to go into construction this year. That won't start hitting the EBITDAF line for our investment until FY 2025.
Kind of a flat year ahead on that front for our investment in Longroad. Lots of reasons to be positive about the valuation and the long-term growth trajectory of that one. Turning quickly to our other development platforms, Galileo, Gurin, and Mint in Europe, Asia, and Australia, respectively. Galileo and Gurin, as you can see on the slide, are now sort of fully built out teams of capability across those markets with large pipelines that they're working on to bring to market. Both of those platforms are working on getting to final investment decision, which is a decision to build or sell those projects this year. I'd expect Galileo really to be in the first half. They've been working on that for a while.
Look out for that because that will confirm the economics of our investments in those businesses, which will be good to see. At the end of last year, we established Mint Renewables in Australia with some familiar faces from Tilt Renewables. They're getting started on building a long-term pipeline and long-term development relationships that we think will bear fruit in the future, given their kind of unique set of capabilities, ability to be nimble and entrepreneurial, but also still have good access to capital through their relationship with us and our investment partner there. Lastly, Manawa. Under renewable energy, they released their results last year, not a lot of need to repeat that. It was good to see them come in on their revised guidance.
I know the team is working on optimizing that business now that the sale of their retail business has completed last year, which is good to see, and I expect that to flow through to the share price in time as well. Lastly, before I hand over to you again, Phillippa, diagnostic imaging. This is our first time we've shown a full year of ownership from these businesses, and it's great to see them come in at the EBITDA level above the guidance we gave in March, and good growth from the prior period. They have. This is despite sort of continued COVID-related disruptions in the healthcare system, which is well understood across the industry. They are starting to see some signs of improvement.
We did pull back some of the new clinic investment during that period, given the market, although we did open a couple. Now that we're seeing some signs of recovery, we've got a quite a big plan this year, seven or eight new clinics or clinic expansions over the period. It was good to see. Last year, actually, I should mention that, you know, through good cost control and pulling back some of the development, we managed to keep EBITDA margins pretty stable as well. We think they're in a good spot to profit from the recovery in volumes we expect to see continue over this period.
We spent a lot of time actually doing work inside the businesses that is hard to see, on, you know, improving our remuneration models, investments and capability, investments into IT infrastructure for those businesses. That should bear fruit as volumes recover, and I think positions those businesses really well, particularly in New Zealand, to compete for business with new businesses that are starting up. Yeah. I think with that, I hand over to you.
Thanks, Jason. Great. What I'm planning to do is just take you through a couple more of the portfolio companies, being One, RetireAustralia and Wellington Airport. I'll then talk a bit about a couple of portfolio considerations, and then I'll hand back to Jason for a wrap-up. If we start with One New Zealand, I think it's fair to say that it really has been a milestone year for the business. They've had the sale of their passive tower network. They've, of course, had to respond to the significant weather events across the upper North Island and into, the Hawke's Bay and Gisborne areas.
They've rebranded from Vodafone New Zealand to One, of course, they've also announced their partnership with SpaceX, which is aiming to provide or to start providing mobile coverage across all of New Zealand from the latter part of next year. I think it's fair to say that any one of those events in isolation would have been a fairly significant target. It's fantastic to see that they've been able to achieve all of those across FY 2023. I think the other thing to note is, at the same time, their focus on their strategic priority of being able to deliver a better customer service with a leaner and more efficient business has not been lost. We've seen that come through with significant CapEx into their 4G and 5G network to improve connectivity.
They're improving their service offering through the retail stores and also moving customers onto simpler plans and actually onto better IT stacks. We're also seeing that come through in terms of the customer feedback we're getting on how that performance is looking and things like call response times and actually just the quality of the service from the network. That's great to see. You'll see from the results as well that postpaid mobile is performing very strongly. We've got growing connections and revenue growth as people move on to more of those end less mobile plans. Really what that culminates in is we've got an EBITDA for the year of NZD 527 million.
Important to note that that's after taking into account NZD 28 million of rebrand costs, which would have been incurred at the same time as the company continued to pay Vodafone Group for branding. Really, once you strip that out, that EBITDA result for FY23 is even better. At the NZD 527 million, we're talking about an EBITDA margin of 27%, which is up from 24% in the prior year. Looking forward to FY24, the business has set itself a EBITDA range of NZD 580 million-NZD 620 million, which is up 14% from the midpoint of FY23.
Mm.
Great to see and really hoping to hit that result. Now looking to RetireAustralia, I think there's been a couple of things going on with RetireAustralia that it is worth drawing out. They've really achieved a very strong resale result, notwithstanding the fact that they've actually got effectively what we'd call full occupancy. What that means is we've got less units or apartments available for sale, and you can see that come through in terms of total resales compared to the prior year, where we would have had more availability and therefore less waiting lists. Excuse me. Just wanna call out that FY 2023 has also been a significant year for development for RetireAustralia.
They've completed construction of over 254 independent living apartments. Of which of those at year-end over 50 have settled, and we've got deposits on over 100. What that looks like, however, is unlike a Broadacre sort of independent living unit approach. What we have with the apartments is, of course, you can't start selling those down until the entire complex is built. Therefore, when you look at the new sales for the year, that might look somewhat muted. What that tells us is we've got a very strong pipeline of sales coming into FY24. Where you'll see that actually come through is that forecast sales for FY24 are between 520 and 560, of which over 150 are new sales. That's up from the roughly 34 that you'll have seen come through in FY23.
When you think about what it is that's driving those sales, the other thing to note is that RetireAustralia has got a very strong focus on its continuum of care product offering. What that means is we're trying to assure residents that as much as possible when they move into one of our villages, we can look after them as their care needs change. The best way to demonstrate that is in FY 2024, RetireAustralia is actually gonna be launching its first care hub. What that will be is 10 care beds where residents of that apartment building can essentially move into that care hub for respite, or they can move in once their care needs are such that they can no longer be looked after in their own apartment.
That's a really important distinction for RetireAustralia when they talk about what they offer to residents and why they're the right place to move into. One thing I think it is worth talking about, though, is construction costs. As you'd appreciate, the current market is quite challenging for construction firms, particularly if they're trying to lock in a construction contract for a multilevel development, which will take a long period of time, and when you've got the backdrop of what's been a highly inflationary environment. We feel that the business has been able to manage that quite well to date. We're really just gonna wait and see and look how that plays out with our next round of construction contracts. We'll keep you posted on that.
I think the final thing to note about RetireAustralia is, as you'll be aware, we did undertake a strategic review of our investment in RetireAustralia. That culminated in a decision from both Infratil and NZ Super to continue to hold that investment. If we fast-forward today, and we're certainly not, we think that that decision was well made. The business is performing strongly, it's executing its strategic plan, and it's delivering those significant new developments, which are very tightly aligned with our target of potential residents. You know, the reason that we thought about disposing of RetireAustralia was more about its relative size in the portfolio. As the portfolio, and particularly Infratil more generally, has grown, the investment is relatively small. Having said that, we've taken a very disciplined approach to our investment, and therefore we're very happy to continue to hold that.
Moving now to the next slide of Wellington Airport. It's already released its result, I won't spend too much time. I think it's fantastic to see an EBITDA of NZD 89 million, up 58% nearly from last year. Breaking that down, we've seen domestic passengers come back to 4.7 million. That's just shy of the kind of 5.2 million that we would have seen pre-COVID. International passengers have increased from what was a meager 49,000 in FY22, up to 560,000 in FY23. That's about a cadence of 76% of pre-COVID levels by the time they got to 31 March 2023. As you'll appreciate, we've still got a ways to go.
I think you'll be aware, but the limiting factors on getting those international travelers back to pre-COVID levels is essentially aircraft availability and aircraft crew availability. On that note, it's really great to see Qantas announce last week that they're going to be bringing back daily flights between Wellington and Brisbane from October. Of course, that's gonna fill some of the gap that was left by Virgin exiting the market. I think really just to touch on infrastructure investment that you've seen at the airport. As you'd expect, we've been closely managing that while airport, passenger throughput's been down and why our cash has been constrained, through COVID. We have continued to invest in things that are sensible to do.
That includes the work on our taxiway and also work on the former Miramar South School, where we've developed an electric bus charging station. I think the most important thing to note, though, is we've laid significant groundwork for future expansion with the designations over both the Miramar South School and also the golf course site. What those designations mean is we've got the capability of adding 15 hectares of land to the airport, which we can develop as required for airport purposes as our demand and growth continues. I think just to note also, the airport's really proud to have entered into its first sustainability-linked loans. Those loans do actually have stretch targets with them, so, you know, we'll be working hard to achieve those. If we can, we'll see some interest rate incentive, which is also great to see.
Just to wrap up on the airport, we've got a forecast EBITDA for FY 2024 of NZD 105 million-NZD 110 million, which is a further uptick of 20% from FY 2023. Just quickly on some portfolio considerations. Don't need to spend too much time here. But as I said at the beginning, we've essentially got significant available debt capacity and cash on hand. Essentially NZD 593 million of cash at the end of March and debt facilities of NZD 890 million, with extension of those debt facility maturities now out to 2027, up from 2026 last year. As at 31 March, our gearing remains at a sub 10% level.
Really our ability to increase that level is dependent on the cash profile of the places really where we can allocate capital. Now valuation and incentive fees. There's a few things that we need to update here. As you'll be aware, for the purposes of our annual accounts and for the purposes of the incentive fees, we have independent valuations obtained for our international assets. This year being CDC, Longroad, Ventia Australia, Galileo and Qscan. The management agreement between Morrison & Co and Infratil provides that, essentially, where we've got an annual bucket, which is those first four assets. We look at the performance of those assets over the last 12 months. To the extent there's been a return of over the 12% hurdle, a fee of 20% is payable to Morrison & Co over three tranches.
The main drivers that you'll see for the annual incentive fee is the performance of Longroad and CDC. As Jason noted, the Longroad valuation, you know, largely will fix the entry price of MEAG into our as new partner capital, which completed in October of last year. An initial performance fee has also been assessed for QScan, and as you can see on the slide, that's essentially resulting in a negative outcome of $5.7 million. In terms of the mechanics of the fee calculations, up until this year, the outcomes arising from the different categories of fee were not able to be offset, and they effectively remained separate with any negative fee category being zeroed out. I.e., it didn't offset from a positive result in any of the other categories.
However, with effect from this year, Infratil and Morrison & Co have agreed amendments to the aspects of those fee calculations. There's more information on that in the annual report. The key amendment for today is that the agreement will provide for annual offsetting of the results from those fee buckets. What that means is when we look at the result for FY23, the NZD 5.37 million coming from QScan as a negative is offset against the positive net outcome in the annual bucket, resulting in a net fee of NZD 163.9 million. As usual, that fee will be payable in three tranches, with the remaining tranches only payable if the relative or the value of the relevant assets is maintained in the next two years.
Just for completeness, no changes have been made to the 12% hurdle that must be achieved or to the pool of assets which are eligible for incentive fees. Separately, it's also worth noting that the Infratil board has elected that it'll pay NZD 60 million of the third tranche of the FY 21 incentive fee in shares for which shareholder approval was sought and granted as part of last year's annual meeting. The shares will be issued on 29 May 2023 based on a 2% discount to VWAP over the past five trading days, and that's all in accordance with the management agreement. A lot to digest there, but, you know, clearly a positive result for Infratil in terms of the offsetting of that fee.
That, as I said, those agreements, those amendments are still being put into what we call legalese. They'll be available to the market as soon as they've been finalized, but the agreement has been reached. Just as I wrap up, before I hand it back to Jason, FY 2024 guidance, we're guiding to an EBITDA in the range of NZD 570 million-NZD 610 million, up 11%, up 11% at the midpoint, and most of the components of that guidance are noted on the slide. As part of the guidance, we've noted for the first time the development and operating expenditure that we expect the early stage renewables businesses to incur for FY 2024. That's essentially the operating cost, but also the CapEx that necessarily needs to go through the P&L.
For those purposes, we're estimating a total expense of approximately NZD 50 million. Okay, Jason, I'll hand it back to you.
Awesome. Thanks, Phil.
Thanks.
I am pulling in that right. Try and finish off and go to questions. I've got three things together. Thanks for that, Phil. Sustainability first. Work here continues, and I do wanna mention it. During the year, Infratil and Morrison & Co actually committed to setting climate targets in accordance with the internationally recognized Science Based Targets initiative. We'll be doing that in our inaugural sustainability report that the team are working on now and will be released in about August. Hopefully, that and the things we're gonna continue to do will help you assess the environmental impact of your investment in Infratil better and better. The next thing after that will be actually setting our net zero targets, we hope next year.
We're waiting for the Science Based Targets initiative, SBTi, to finalize the standard for that for businesses like ours. As soon as they do, we will fall in line with that. Look out for that. Two more things I wanted to mention. First, let's talk about the growth outlook for the portfolio. As you would have heard just now, we're continuing to see the tailwinds behind, particularly our core investments in digital infrastructure and renewable energy development, to accelerate that's growing earnings within those businesses. Also continuing to present a really strong and attractive pipeline of internal reinvestment opportunities, which is important for Infratil shareholders because that's where the seeds are sown for future earnings growth.
We have taken the opportunity of this result to lay out on this slide kind of a summary of everything we see across all of our portfolio companies. There are no exceptions there, right? Like, everybody has got something that is a really attractive option for us to invest in. Just to pick one though, Paul Gaynor talked about this at the Investor Day for Longroad. With the acceleration that they're seeing through the Inflation Reduction Act, they know now they're gonna need about another $1 billion over the next three years to meet that increase in demand and to build out the pipeline of projects that he's seeing. No doubt that will be an attractive investment opportunity for Infratil at the right time to invest in.
We remain very happy to have available capacity to address these opportunities as and when they arise at our election, assuming they are as attractive as we think they're going to be. We continue to scan externally as well for the next new investment, and we're continuing to see attractive and interesting opportunities. The internal pipeline comes first, but there is interesting stuff out there. As I said at the Investor Day, we're starting to see vendors' expectations becoming much more realistic, actually. We're hopeful that some of the things we're looking at, we'll be able to announce to you soon. As I said, also at the Investor Day, those have and still have a real digital infrastructure flavor, which we're happy about, as I said, before. Let's try and sum up.
I think we've got four key points here, Phillippa, don't we? It's been a really strong result this year, and we're giving strong guidance for next year, up both over 10%, which is really pleasing given the volatile macro- environment that we've gone through and continue to live through. The tailwinds that are driving the portfolio in recent years are accelerating, including, you know, the explosion of data continues, accelerated by the introduction of lot more AI applications this year. We expect that to continue. Decarbonization continues to accelerate.
We're seeing still a very strong internal pipeline of attractive investment opportunities, and we're very happy to have a strong and flexible balance sheet to allow us to take advantage of those opportunities and external ones as they come, which we're sure they will. That confidence is really reflected in an increase in the dividend this year, and also Morrison & Co. acquiring more shares and in particular adding to the shares we've acquired over the period. I don't know if you could think of a better endorsement from us anyway of how we think the portfolio's going. We'll finish there.
Great.
We'll go for some questions, if there are any. I think, Winnie, are you there? Do we have any questions?
Yes. Your first question comes from Aaron Ibbotson from Forsyth Barr. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Good morning.
Mm-hmm.
Congratulations on a very strong and broad-based result, I have to say.
Thank you.
I've got a couple of questions. First of all, maybe Phillippa, I'm not sure how much you can share or even are able to share, for a change, I'm a little bit interested in what's happening on Wellington Airport and, you know, if you have any early expectations around what this pricing consultation may or may not bring. If I can start there.
Great. Well, as you can understand, Aaron Ibbotson, I think it's a little bit too early to be able to determine what the WACC forecast will be. Obviously, that's still going through a process. I think the one thing that we can draw out, though, is the change in the risk-free rate that has occurred since PSE4 now as we move into PSE5. Essentially, when we look at PSE4, we had a risk-free rate of about 1.77%. That's now above 4%. Even if we just look at that element of WACC alone, essentially that would have our WACC increase by over 20% to, like, a mid 7%-8% WACC. Obviously we're not trying to anticipate where the WACC might land, and we're in very early stages here and haven't yet started our consultation with airlines.
I think the risk-free rate movement, in part, speaks for itself as well.
If I can just probe a little bit, because, if I've understood the releases, there's also big or reasonably sizable wash-up. Just if you add it all up, you know, it looks like.
Yeah
...quite large movements. You know, how do you think Wellington Airport is gonna attack that? Is it gonna be all in one go, or are you gonna be willing to under earn a little bit? Or how do you-
Yeah, we haven't quite got there yet, Aaron. I think your point around the wash-ups is really important and worth noting. Essentially, as part of PSE4, the airport did agree with the airline customers that part of the landing charges for the PSE4 period would be deferred into PSE5. Obviously, that was in large part to actually reflect the fact that there was a lot of uncertainty about the number of passengers we'd have through PSE4, given that we were essentially moving into that consultation, agreeing pricing right at the time when COVID struck. You know, just as a backdrop to that, you know, our passenger numbers went to zero. If you'd had to try and set a PSE4 price based on where we were, that would have been very difficult.
As a result, the parties agreed that the best thing to do was to do a wash-up. You're right, some of that will flow through. It's really too early to say where that'll go to, though. I think it's just best left to the consultation process, and we'll update you when we can.
Thank you very much for that. Second question, just on CDC, I guess it's a slightly bigger picture question.
Mm.
If I look at sort of EBITDA per megawatt used or even per megawatt installed, it sort of is moving slowly, but in the wrong direction.
Mm-hmm.
If my math is roughly right. I'm just curious to know, you know, when you hear Greg talk, it seems to be that, you know, on a like-for-like basis, we're still seeing price increases. You know, I know it's within guidance and everything, but if you look at the capacity that's been put in, on my estimate, you know, the actual megawatt, dollar, you know, the EBITDA per megawatt is declining somewhat. I guess my question is, do you expect that to change? Am I correct? What type of utilization rates are you thinking about or do you think that the team is targeting for 2024, 2025? I think it was 66%.
Mm.
for the full year.
I could have a go at that. We're not seeing material changes on that EBITDA per megawatt, but I can understand the math that you're seeing. Occasionally, for additional tenor, that can end up being reflected in the dollar per megawatt. That might be a feature of what you're seeing temporarily there. You'll see the whale being extended. We're not seeing overly massive pressure there. That could change, you know, for a large forward order. Maybe you would do something differently. Sort of in the general running, we're not seeing major changes there.
In fact, the team have done a good job, I think of passing through inflation increases, you know, through the escalators available in the contracts over the period to get that EBITDA margin rising in the right direction again, which you might have seen as well, Oren. In terms of utilization, that will definitely tick up during the year because of the time it takes to build that next 100MW s that I mentioned. I also mentioned, you know, we've got sort of half of the uplift next year already contracted, so that will just come through, and you'll see the utilization getting up closer to sort of that 75-ish area, I think. 75%-80% would be my recollection of the target zone on a rack basis, which is what we disclose. Hope that helps.
Okay. Thank you.
Yep.
Final question, just on, very encouraging to see, you know, some changes to the management agreement.
Mm.
It looks like interesting amendments. I haven't read through all the material yet, but I just wondered if either of you could clarify, you know, if I read it right, that there's sort of an element of high-water mark included in the new amendments or do I misread that?
Phil, that's right here.
Yeah. That's right, Aaron. There is an element of a high-water mark. Essentially, where the agreement is going to be moving to is that, you know, the high-water mark will be in place for unrealized assets and also to a limited extent for realized assets. What that means is we'll have a look back on a realized asset to see if there's been any net performance fee paid over the previous two years. To that extent, there will be a high-water mark or a claw-back of any of that fee. Essentially, for as long as a asset remains in the portfolio, then we're looking at a 12% return per annum year-on-year.
Yeah.
A true high-water mark.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Fantastic. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Aaron.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Wade Gardiner from Craigs Investment Partners. Please go ahead.
Hi, Wade.
Hi. How you going? A couple of quick questions from me. While we're on the performance fee.
Mm.
You did note that, you know, there's valuations for CDC in the market. What do you say about NZD 1 billion less than yours?
Mm.
also, you know, you know.
The comp
...the comp multiples, whether it's NEXTDC or some of the other DCs are a lot lower. In that regard, did you consider moving the performance fee to a situation where you deferred some of the fee until realization?
We think the comps are higher. Sorry to be clear, Wade. Where NEXTDC is trading on our sort of math that we've done recently, given the way NEXTDC's come back. No. That's the first point, just to be clear what I was trying to say there. No, we didn't, we didn't look at those changes. It was really sort of came about because we said we would look at a situation where a negative arose in one and wasn't offsetting a positive in others. This is really the first time it had arisen since we'd become aware of that issue, and so we've addressed that. We sort of left it at that, really.
Okay. just to clarify on, Longroad.
Mm.
First of all, the second half result, if I look at.
Yeah
the first half presentation, I think you did about NZD 40 mil of EBITDA, and for the year it was NZD 39. What happened in the small loss in the second half?
Do you recall?
Yeah. I think it'll be that we actually sold some of the operating assets that we had been maintaining for a customer were actually sold, so we've no longer got that service contract. That'll be causing the drop-off in the EBITDA for the second half of the year.
Right.
Does that mean that those contracts were all of the EBITDA?
Yeah. No, not all of it. Essentially what we have weighed is there were some assets called, I think, the Fenchurch Street Assets. We were previously paid to maintain those assets.
Right.
That contract was terminated, so we were paid out early, but that's why you'll see.
Right.
A difference between the EBITDA in the first half and the second half. That's essentially the line of our business, which is more about providing services to third parties or maintaining our own operating assets, as distinct from kind of the development activity.
Okay. on the Longroad valuation.
Yeah.
Again, looking at the half year versus.
Yeah.
the one you've gotten this year. Just to clarify, I mean, both have a little asterisk note saying, the valuation after tax.
Yeah.
the half year, there was included the cost of disposal. I assume that that's all on the same basis.
Yeah.
why therefore $180 US increase, or about 32% increase in the valuation over the last six months?
I had a much lower increase than that.
Yeah. I thought it was about 18%. Can we come back to you on that, Wade?
We have to come back to you on that maths, Wade.
Sure. Sure. Finally, I guess from me, just, on One NZ-
Mm.
You know, outside of the branding costs, what's, you know, what's gonna drive that range? You know, what are, what are gonna be the big drivers in earnings for that this year?
Yeah, I think, you know, there's a couple of things. Wade, certainly, they're seeing momentum in their mobile revenue. They're seeing good take up of those kind of all you can eat plans. They're seeing that as a strong area for growth. I think, the other part is, of course, we're just continuing to try to focus on being more efficient and leaner in the way we do things. We do still continue to see the opportunity for further cost out. As we talked about, essentially NZD 28 million of the movement through to FY 2024 will come through from the fact that those rebrand costs in FY 2023 were a one-off.
Right.
I think other thing to note is we're also continuing to see some growth in Enterprise. Actually, the growth in Enterprise is, you know, at a larger percentage to the market growth, obviously off a smaller base.
Okay.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, Wade.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Phil Campbell from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hey, Phil.
Morning, Jason and Phillippa. Just, three quick questions from me. Just, Jason, in terms of Longroad, you kinda talked a little bit.
Mm.
you know, what potentially could be happening with that business in terms of valuation over the next kinda six months. 'Cause I'm assuming the valuation uplift this time around obviously is not really including a lot of the IRA benefits. you know, we've already had one IRS clarification on one of the.
Yeah.
-taxable or stackable tax credits. Could you just give us a little bit more information about what you were kinda mentioning there in terms of that commentary?
Yeah.
When we get to kind of the half year result, we'll obviously have, I'm assuming we'll have the IRS clarification on all the tax credits. Then you also talked a bit about comps. Some of the recent comps might have had higher valuation multiples and so forth. Yeah, just be interested in your kinda views on that.
Yeah, I can put a bit more flesh on that. That's exactly right. The details of the regime are still being finalized and released, there was a set released last week, as you saw. I think First Solar, who we buy our panels from, their stock was up, when I last checked, about 50% on the day. Clearly the details are really important, and as they're coming through, certainly, given we buy all our panels from First Solar, the clarifications last week a positive for Longroad. There's still a little bit more to happen, like where the energy communities are, which is another important feature, that we think should then flow through into the valuation as well.
What we also saw through the period is, although there was, you know, quite good news for development margins, what a lot of the curve providers immediately did is cut their long-term power curves, which we think is probably just an initial reaction to the idea that more development will happen sooner. There's still a lot of reasons why that development may not happen as quickly as that drop in curves has suggested. You know, you've ended up in the valuation with a bit of a net effect of that happening at the moment. The last point I think is just the valuation methodology is still stuck a little bit in the way the businesses was marketed last year to MEAG and also back to the old days of the way it was valued.
Although we do full DCF of projects now three years out rather than 12 months out, like we used to talk about before. The uplift really reflects a few more projects heading into that three-year target zone. It's all a little bit arbitrary. If a project slips, you know, three months and falls into year four, then suddenly it's worth a materially small amount. The valuation really needs to mature. I think the last point that we're really working on is, you know, surely there's a value of this business beyond 2027, given the long-term tailwinds and its track record, which again is not reflected in the independent valuation.
There's some private market transactions of platforms like ours that are happening at the moment that we think will set a good benchmark. I was actually really interested to see a lot of the analysts' kind of reaction to like NextEra's result, also AES. I don't know if you follow that, in there, you know, you've got some analysts talking about nine times forward development margins in terms of ways of developing, of valuing development businesses, which will be really interesting to see where the transaction comps come out and whether that's picked up broadly in the industry as well. I definitely think it's a volatile time for those valuations of businesses like these. Hopefully some of those clouds clear over the next six months, and we can get a clearer view of it.
Hope that helps.
Yep. No, that's awesome. Just a question on One. Just wanted to see if you got any comments in terms of, there was always that target of getting to kind of 30% EBITDA margins. Obviously, I think this result was around 27%.
Yep.
The previous one was around 26%. Just interested in your views on kind of is that 30% target still a target? Kind of have you got any comments around potential timing of when you think.
Yeah.
target will get to that?
Absolutely. Actually, the year, if you back out the rebreanding costs, just for completeness, it was 28%, which is a nice little up. Definitely the 30% is still a target. I think if we can land within the range that we have indicated for FY 2024, then we'll be very, very close to that. I mean, clearly that's quite an ambitious target for FY 2024. That really is off what's been a very strong FY 2023. We're seeing a lot of momentum out of the Weebewang. It actually does make a difference.
you know, we think we've got quite a unique offering in the market in terms of the all you can eat and of course, the partnership with SpaceX and what that should mean, not just for One customers but also for everyone else. We think we're well positioned, and by all means we're aiming very high for that 30% margin.
Great. Awesome. Then just, maybe one for Jason on CDC.
Mm.
Obviously, the valuation looks so it's gone up about 5%.
Mm.
I'd just be interested if you give us a bit more color around kinda what was driving that. Obviously, you know, this is not new news, but obviously you got the Jim Chanos kind of, you know, data center short thesis. I'd just be interested in your views, kind of, you know, obviously looking at his thesis and then kinda maybe comparing to CDC.
Yeah.
kinda what's different or-
Yeah.
What's your kinda view?
Yeah. In that valuation, I think we talked about the discount rate had gone down maybe 15, 20 bips, I think is in the footnote there. I can't recall what's in the annual report. A lot of that was, I think there was a little risk-free rate adjustment and also just a little bit of de-risking. That's really the basis in terms of, you know, the data center builds finished since December and people moving in and some CapEx risk taken off the table. Not a lot there really. In terms of, you know, the short, I think the NEXTDC capital raise in the last couple of weeks has been pretty instructive, right? About what people are willing to pay for pretty similar pipelines of business.
You know, maybe there's like 10 turns of EBITDA of difference between where NEXTDC is trading today on a forward basis compared to where consensus is sitting, which just feels totally wrong. I think, you know, the rumored to be big short positions around NEXTDC, which wouldn't have felt pretty, very profitable over the last couple of weeks, I suspect. Really, when I think about CDC, the points I was trying to make around the types of contracts it has, the credit quality of them, the length of them, that's enabling, you know, access to capital markets in ways, you know, frankly, Infratil as a parent company couldn't dream of. Certainly I think contracts with shorter contract lengths, you know, participating in the market every three or four years or whatever to replace a good book of business.
I think CDC is just a totally different beast from that right end. Being able to debt fund so far ahead that development makes a heck of a lot of difference to your return on capital, your target returns of capital, which we have not changed from around that 20% mark, taking into account, you know, what's happened to CapEx, you know, what might be happening on the customer end on a per megawatt basis, but also how we're funding it. I would point to those things, I think is why we continue to believe CDC is a premium offering compared to NEXTDC, not a discount.
Mm.
Great. Awesome. Thanks.
Okay.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Nevill Gluyas from Jarden. Please go ahead.
Hi, Nevill.
Good morning. Good morning. Three questions from me. First one on CDC. I guess, it's a cruder way of asking, some of the detail that Aaron was covering earlier. When we think ahead to FY 25.
Yeah.
Are you still thinking that sort of we're talking mid-20% EBITDAF growth ranges?
Yeah, we're not changing that longer term growth outlook at the moment, Nevill. That's right.
Great. Thank you. Next question then, on Longroad. Just to understand how EBITDAF or EBITDA, I should say, is being reported or, and will be reported over the next sort of three years.
Mm.
I'm assuming that the EBITDAF as given now, is sort of on a, you know, it goes through several layers of calculation, and allows for the fact you've got tax equity partners.
That's right.
Are you going to start disclosing and can you give us some guidance at the moment for the OpCo level EBITDA? You know?
Yeah.
the one matching the NZD 500 million target.
Yeah, we will be doing that, just to make it clear how we're going towards that target, Nevill. That essentially reverses out CapEx that's not capitalizable, which is still sitting in those EBITDA numbers.
Of course. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's still in there. Exactly.
Any idea where that's sitting today? Or can you give me a rough number where that's sitting now?
I'd have to come back to you, and we probably think about it mostly on a run rate basis, and that should see a big step out-
Right. Yeah.
-of the megawatt step up, we'd have to come back to you on that.
Great. Okay. Last question for me really relates to diagnostic imaging and particularly QScan. There was a recent Thomas and Naaz tribunal ruling, which means that contracted practitioners are gonna start be treated as employees for a state payroll tax perspective.
Yeah, yeah.
May have a wide range impact. Can you sort of give us Qscan sort of management first take on where that might lead?
Yeah.
Nevill, at this stage, we don't think that that's got a large impact on Qscan in terms of their arrangements.
Mm.
We have flagged that issue up, and certainly, that's the early indication, but we'll let you know or let the market know if there's any change from that. We're not expecting it to be a material impact given their current arrangements.
Yeah.
sort of... Do they give you any color as to why that was the case?
I think, it'll be a question of how many of their staff are actually contractors versus employees. Clearly, I think the issue that's been identified is whether or not some contractors need to actually be treated as employees. Is that right?
That's right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, you know, it'll all just come down to what, to what extent their workforce is currently operating that way in any event. The feedback we've got is that it's not a lot.
Okay. thank you very much. That's all for me.
Thanks, Neville.
Great.
Might have time for one more maybe, Winnie, if there's any.
Yeah, sure thing. Yeah. Your next question comes from Stephen Hudson from Macquarie Securities. Please go ahead.
Hey, Stephen.
Hey, Jason and Phillippa. A couple quick ones from me. Just firstly on CDC, I know you quote the EBITDA, pre-RMS.
Mm.
That's been coming down.
Mm.
Can you give us the rough number there? I think it's sort of gone 20 and then 14. I'm assuming it's sort of similar drop, but if you can give us a number. You've been quoted as, or Morrison & Co. have been quoted as securing a preferred bidder position for Ark Data Centres, which sounds like a very logical fit for CDC Data Centres. Can you give us an update on the process for the sale of that asset? Just on One, I think you've talked about a BSS write-down in this current financial period. Did that occur? If so, what was the number? I'm gonna sneak in one last one. Just to come back to Neville's sorry, very greedy.
That's all right.
Just to come back to Nevill's question. You know, you've booked NZD 40 million of EBITDA for this year. I think, you know, you've, I know the Longroad partners have put up a slide sort of showing NZD 150-ish, I think, if I've read the slide right, for 2023 for OpCo.
Run rate.
Does that sound about right? I mean, that's a reasonably important number.
Yeah. Okay. We can go through those. I'm not sure I understood the RMS one, but maybe if I just keep skipping, and we might need to come back to you on that for CDC. What was the second one?
I've lost the second one.
Lost the second one. What was your second one, Stephen?
Oh, I've forgotten. It's
I had a good answer to it, I think.
The first one was RMS.
I can answer the RMS part.
Oh, yeah, there you go.
How about, Stephen, while you-.
The second one was the BSS write-down, and the third one was OpCo.
Sorry, just to start with the RMS number. You're right, the EBITDA guidance that we provide and the EBITDA that we report does exclude the RMS. I haven't got the number in front of me, but as you rightly point out, that has come down as the RMS vests. We can provide you that number separately. What was the second one, Stephen?
BSS write-down.
I'm not sure what that is.
ARK DC, can you confirm if you preferred bidder and what the process is for ARK?
I saw that. That was about Morrison & Co. I don't think that process is ongoing. I would say. I think that's on pause.
The BSS write-down?
BSS, I think he's talking about, DX.
Oh, okay. BSS write-down, that's the DX. Is that what you're talking about, Stephen?
For Vodafone?
yeah. You're just-
Yeah.
Your system write-down.
Yeah, yeah, sure.
on Topline.
Yeah, just confirming that. Essentially as we indicated last year, we did a reevaluation of that project to determine how much of the work could be carried forward. As you can imagine, the project became somewhat complicated during COVID because we'd contracted with an international party.
Mm-hmm.
Borders were closed. Actually at the same time, the business needed to try and find solutions with its, within its existing IT stack, 'cause clearly we couldn't sit around and do nothing while COVID was somewhat constraining our ability to move forward. Where that's culminated is we've had a NZD 78 million impairment, I think, through the P&L for FY23. We did determine that there was, I'm going to guess, approximately NZD 20 million that we were able to carry forward and we'll be able to use in the future. I think is that the question and the answer to the question you were asking?
Yep. Yep. Perfect. Thanks.
Great. Thank you.
On the OpCo, you were quoting an FY23 number. That probably was right then, and it'll be a run rate. Of course, we've sold actually a bunch of projects since then, like the distributed generation portfolio. We might have to come back to you with what the current one is. Basically the same as the answer to Nevill's question, which is what's the current OpCo run rate. We can get that around.
Okay. Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Stephen. Well, we might have to call it there. We're right on the hour. Thank you, Winnie, and thank you everyone for your attention. Sorry if you didn't get to ask your question. We're happy to address those directly, of course, as well. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you soon.