Good day everyone. Welcome to the Metro Performance Glass Fiscal Year 2021 Annual Results Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Simon Mander. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome, and thank you for joining our call today. My name is Simon Mander, and I'm CEO of Metro Performance Glass, and with me is our CFO, Brent Mealings. This morning, we'll provide you with an overview of the group's results for the 12 months to the 31st of March 2021, and then at the end of the call, be happy to take any questions you have. Turning to slide two, you'll note our four key messages, which summarize the year. I'd like to start by recognizing the strength and dedication of our people right across the Metro Glass Group. The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic presented significant challenges for our teams, and their resilience has ensured that we've continued to deliver our market-leading products and services to our customers.
We had a solid first half in New Zealand, although the COVID-19 shutdown impact at the start of the financial year overshadowed our underlying performance in a competitive market. Australian Glass Group progressed well on their turnaround plan, with stable operational performance and pleasingly delivered a significantly improved EBIT result. Finally, as a group, Metro Glass has continued to significantly reduce its debt through strong operating cash flow and targeted CapEx. Just onto slide three, we have our Metro Way graphic. Our strategy and values continue to underpin our culture. This year in particular, we've seen this day in, day out, as our people kept our business moving forward through challenging, disruptive, and uncertain times. Turning now to slide four, we outline some of our key successes and outcomes over the FY 2021 period.
We continue to focus on our multi-year safety and wellbeing strategy, making steady progress through the year, implementing standards for controlling hazards effectively and improving early intervention practices. Our teams were resilient and adapted to manage the fluctuating COVID-19 restrictions and international supply chain disruptions, which impacted momentum in both New Zealand and Australia. Importantly, we maintained a strong connection and service level to our customers. This is reflected in the strong customer survey results we received in our last survey, with customers complimentary on our people, customer service, and project management. On slide five, we present our key financial results for FY21. The group achieved a solid set of results this year, despite operating in an increasingly competitive market and facing regular externally driven disruptions which impact on our ability to build sustained momentum.
New Zealand revenue of NZD 179.8 million was down 11% versus the previous comparable period, with an EBIT before significant items of NZD 19.4 million down 27%. In New Zealand, we started the financial year in an Alert Level 4 lockdown, recovering well and achieved good volumes in our retrofit and commercial glazing segments. Pleasingly, activity in those segments and a focus on cost control helped to offset the impacts of increased competitive capacity in the window manufacturer segment. Australian Glass Group's revenue grew by 1% to NZD 52.5 million, with strong performance from all states and rebuilding revenue to offset the exit of non-double glazing product sales in New South Wales. At an EBIT level, AGG were on track to deliver a modest profit for the year after a positive EBIT result for the first half. However, two external factors had negative impacts late in the year.
The first was the highly disruptive COVID-19 snap lockdown imposed in Victoria in mid-February. The second was the severe flooding in New South Wales in March. As a result, AGG delivered an EBIT loss of NZD 700,000 in FY21, which, while disappointing, was a significant improvement from the loss of NZD 3.6 million for the prior year. Group EBIT of NZD 17.9 million includes the New Zealand and Australian segmental results, as well as group costs of NZD 750,000. You will find further information on this in note two of the financial statements. This result is at the top end of our February guidance of NZD 16.5 million-NZD 18 million. We have continued to strengthen our balance sheet, with net debt declining by NZD 18.9 million year-on-year to NZD 48 million.
This was supported by strong operating cash generation, the sale and leaseback of two-thirds of our vehicle fleet, a reduction in capital expenditure. I'd like to briefly talk to the New Zealand residential consenting numbers. As you can see on slide six, on a nine-month lag basis, new residential consents grew 8.1% between March 2020 and March 2021, reflecting strong consent activity despite the onset of COVID-19. In the same period, total floor area consent has increased 3.4%. The mix of consents continues to shift towards multi-residential dwellings, with detached housing consents growing 3.3% on a nine-month lag basis compared to 15.8% for multi-residential. Non-residential consented values have increased by 5.3% in the 12 months to March 2021 compared with prior year. Pleasingly, Metro Glass' commercial glazing forward books remain robust and slightly ahead of the same period last year, reflecting our improved operational performance and acceptance rates.
Turning to slide seven. Metro Glass delivered a solid performance in New Zealand while COVID-19 shutdown impacts overshadowed underlying performance in the competitive market. We responded well to fluctuating COVID-19 restrictions and international supply chain disruptions. However, these shocks significantly impacted momentum across the industry. Throughout, our teams mobilized safely and efficiently to maintain operations. Pleasingly, from June onwards, activity in our retrofit and commercial glazing segments was strong. Our retrofit business grew 16% this year despite the lockdown, with significant increases in inquiry levels and record growth level forward book. This helped to partially offset the Alert Level 4 lockdown and heightened competition in the residential segment. We remain firmly focused on our customers and our people, making good progress with both.
I'm particularly proud of progress made on our multi-year safety and wellbeing strategy and our apprenticeship scheme, in which we now have more than 80 apprentices enrolled, with 15 qualifying in the FY21. This year has provided further proof of the importance of our strong customer relationships and our continual focus on improving our service model and customer experience. Our six-monthly customer survey results reinforce that we are on the right track, with New Zealand receiving its strongest rating to date. Looking at slide eight. Australian Glass Group is primarily involved in the new detached houses and alterations and addition segments in our key southeastern Australian markets. Since the middle of 2020, housing approval numbers have begun to increase, which has flown progressively through to commencements and completions increasing last month. Moving to slide nine. The Australian turnaround progressed well with stable operating performance and significantly improved EBIT results.
AGG remained almost fully operational throughout the prolonged COVID-19 restrictions and associated disruptions, maintaining momentum on the turnaround plan. The business delivered a revenue growth of 1% year-on-year despite the impacts of COVID-19 and has offset the exiting of the non-VGU market in New South Wales. AGG achieved positive results for the first three quarters of the financial year. However, Victoria's snap lockdown in February and significant flooding in New South Wales in March negatively impacted momentum in the second half. Pleasingly, we continue to see the demand for double glazing increase, with the sales increasing by 9% versus the same period last year. AGG is now well positioned for growth alongside the increasing adoption of double glazing. Recent commercial building regulations have driven increased specification and demand for double glazing products. Similar code changes are scheduled for the residential building segment in 2022-23.
I'll now hand over to Brent to discuss the financial results in more detail.
Thanks, Simon, and good morning, everybody. On slide 10, we break out our revenue, and in New Zealand, you can see an overall decline of 11%. However, if we exclude the lockdown in April and the ramp-up period in May, this reduces to a 2% decline year-on-year. This decline is largely driven by our residential segment, which declined 17% to NZD 118 million, with approximately 55% of that decline attributable to the April and May period. Our commercial glazing business declined 8% in absolute terms due to the lockdown period. However, EBIT in this segment improved as we focused on maintaining strong relationships and service, executing projects well, and managing our costs. Our retrofit business revenue grew 16% year-on-year despite the shutdown period, with a significant increase in inquiry levels and a record level forward book as many customers looked to invest and upgrade their properties.
Slide 11 reflects our full-year results. I'll draw you to the sequential results on the right-hand side of the page. The impact on New Zealand's gross profit margin was driven by the carrying costs through the April shutdown and May ramp-up period, competitive price pressure in the residential segment, and additional incurred costs due to the well-publicized disruptions to our global supply chain. In Australia, gross profit margin increased by 12%, benefiting from product mix changes and the restructure of the New South Wales business in December 2019.
Turning to the group results on the left-hand side, our net profit after tax before significant items decreased from NZD 9.9 million to NZD 7.9 million in 12 months. Statutory NPAT was NZD 8.5 million, benefiting from a NZD 700,000 tax-paid one-off gain on the sale relating to the lease of our vehicle fleet. I'd like to move on to the waterfall on slide 12.
Movements in New Zealand EBIT results are shown in the gray shading area, where you'll see we've dimensioned the impacts of April and May last year. Our New Zealand EBIT result in April and May was NZD 10.5 million lower than the prior year as a result of the shutdown and ramp-up periods, albeit partially offset by the New Zealand government wage subsidy.
The following two red bars are a consequence of lower revenue, increases in shipping-related costs, and the competitive pressures impacting gross profit. We've been focused on our cost base and achieved some solid cost savings year-on-year in distribution and glazing and administration, selling and marketing expenses during the period. Turning to the Australian performance, which is in the green shaded area of the waterfall. The encouraging story here is the gross profit margin improvement and reduction in administration expenses, which primarily arose because of the restructure of our New South Wales business. Turning to the balance sheet on slide 13. Net operating cash flows are only slightly below last year with the reduction in overall group earnings. We continue to focus on working capital in FY 2021 through close management of trade debtors and inventory.
Safety levels of raw glass inventory are being progressively increased at present in response to the ongoing international shipping disruptions. Net debt decreased by NZD 18.9 million year-on-year, supported by strong operating cash flows, reduced working capital, targeted capital expenditure, and the sale and leaseback of two-thirds of our vehicle fleet. Net debt to EBITDA is now at 1.7 times as at the end of March. Slide 14 demonstrates our continued commitment to net debt reduction. We think this has been an important achievement to date, which ensures the group is well-placed to adapt and take opportunities into the future. I'll now pass back to Simon to pick up the next couple of slides and the outlook for FY22.
Turning to slide 15, I'd like to outline the company's capital allocation framework. This framework describes our decision-making process on uses of our net operating cash flow. Over the last two years, we've been applying excess cash to debt reduction, as Brent has shown on the previous slide. This has been in preference to other alternatives, including dividends and CapEx. The combination of a stronger balance sheet increased confidence in the sustainability of the group's market position and future financial performance. It enabled the board to reassess the company's capital priorities. The board has decided to prioritize cash, firstly, in capital expenditure to maintain operational capability, improve efficiency, and increase capability where appropriate. Secondly, on maintaining group leverage within a target range of one to two times net debt to EBITDA. Thirdly, the reestablishment of a conservative and sustainable dividend.
Fourthly, applying excess cash flows across a range of several competing alternatives. At present, the board sees merit in pursuing further reduction in net debt towards an underlying net debt to EBITDA ratio of one. Moving to slide 16. In November 2018, Metro announced the suspension of dividend payments to focus on debt reduction. The success of Metro Glass' debt reduction means that the group is expecting to be below its communicated target of net debt to EBITDA ratio of 1.5 during the first half of FY22. It is the board's current intention to resume dividend payments alongside the company's FY22 interim results. Going forward, Metro Glass expects to pay fully imputed dividends of between 15% and 70% of net profit after tax before significant items.
In determining any dividend, the board will consider a range of factors, including group financial performance, one-off or non-recurring events, prevailing and anticipated business and economic conditions. Turning now to outlook for FY22 on slide 17. We have increasing confidence that activity levels across both New Zealand and Australia will be at least sustained at current levels for the rest of the 2021 calendar year, though in New Zealand, industry capacity constraints may limit growth in the near term. The residential segment in New Zealand will continue to be competitive and dynamic. In Australia, we're confident that AGG has embedded the improvements achieved in FY21. The level of residential approvals in Australia improved significantly through FY21, which will provide some support through the 2021 calendar year. The group remains alert to COVID-19 risks and significant disruptions in international shipping. Both are likely to continue until the end of 2021.
We'll continue to take a prudent approach to managing costs, with a focus on essential capital expenditure. Finally, on slide 18, Metro Glass' strategy and focus remain unchanged as we continue to build resilience and defend our leading position in an increasingly competitive New Zealand market. To grow and improve the profitability of our Australian business and benefit from increasing demands for double glazing there. To ensure our balance sheet is strong and sufficient to tackle future risks and opportunities. Now that brings us to the end of our presentation, and we're really happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you.
At this time if you would like to ask a question please press star followed by number one on your telephone keypad. If you calling from the speaker phone please make sure muted function is off to ensure your signal [Inaudible] equipment. A voice from your line will indicate that your line is open and you may state your name again before pausing your question. Again star one to ask your question. We'll go first to Grant Lowe with Jarden. Your line is open
Oh, hi, guys. Just a few questions for me, just around the margin side of things, especially in New Zealand. Gross margins are down around 3.2%. I'm just trying to get a handle on how much of that is potentially mix shift with New Zealand residential down, glass input costs, shipping, competition. Can you give us a sense of how much of that falls into each of those buckets? I want to get an idea of how much of that just is transitory COVID-related that might improve with COVID.
Yeah. Grant Spence here. Look, there's a fair bit going on in that particular number. If you look at the second half, which is probably the more important Because the first half, remembering that there was an impact there of recovery costs through that April-May period that we've sort of talked about. The second half is potentially comparative. Gross profit margin is 47.4% in the second half versus 49.4% for the same period last year. There's a fair bit going on. I guess the two big things in there is, we do have increased input costs. We are, particularly in that residential segment, competing on price, no doubt, but we also have some things that have gone and helped offset some of that.
The change in mix, particularly towards retrofit and a bit more into commercial relative to the residential segment, has definitely helped offset some of those downsides. We actually have done some quite good work in the fixed cost space. There's a couple of negatives and a couple of positives that offset each other.
Yeah. Okay. In terms of how you're seeing the input costs and the shipping at the present moment, where's that sitting at the moment directionally?
I think it's stabilized, but it is certainly ongoing, if you want to say that. It's disruptive, but the costs themselves are not significantly increasing from where they were when we were talking in February. They're sort of consistently there, but it's honestly an everyday issue that we're dealing with.
Yeah. Of course. Okay. In Australia, obviously, you did around NZD 1.1 million negative for the second half, which I understand third quarter was positive. It suggests at least that number in the fourth quarter. What were you expecting when you gave the February guidance? What were you expecting for the last quarter? Perhaps, how much would you attribute to that flooding and COVID-19 lockdown?
Well, I think we were still optimistic at the time that we would get through February and March and still be breakeven, if not maybe slightly negative. As you said, that late lockdown in February and then the flooding in New South Wales really knocked our business around. Yeah, we were still hoping that we would have been breakeven.
Yeah. Do you get the sense that you're back in positive territory year to date?
Fiscal 2022?
Yes.
Sorry, were you talking calendar year, were you?
Sorry, yes. Fiscal 2022, yeah, month to half. I appreciate it's only a short timeframe. Post the flooding, have you got that bounce back to positive territory?
Sorry. Look, it's early days, but I think broadly speaking, yes.
Yeah. Okay. Then just around the margin in Australia, that was up slightly. Obviously, it's been a difficult run with COVID and everything else. With the shift to the higher margin DGUs, what do you think I'm not sure how you might want to approach this, whether you want to talk in terms of a normalized margin or where you think margins could have been without COVID impact. Where do you see that being on a normalized basis from the sort of 24% that you've delivered in the year?
Yeah. I'd say that our first half is probably a better reflection. Australia's a little bit different because we didn't have any impact of lockdowns in the first half. It was obviously a disruptive period, but it was probably a better demonstration of where we think our gross profit should be operating at.
Got it. Okay. Thank you. That's all from me at the moment.
Again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. I'll pause for just a moment and give everyone a last chance to signal. We have no further questions in the queue. I'll turn it back over to Simon Mander for closing remarks. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much, and thanks everyone for attending today. If you have any questions that arise during the day, don't hesitate to get in touch with us. Thanks very much.
And that does conclude our call for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.