Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the PGG Wrightson Annual Result Announcement Conference 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 one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to the speaker today, Stephen Guerin. Thank you. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Good morning. Welcome to the PGG Wrightson annual results briefing for the year ending June 30, 2021. I'm Stephen Guerin, the Chief Executive Officer for PGG Wrightson, and it's my pleasure today to provide an overview of our results for the 2021 financial year. With me on the call this morning is Peter Scott, our CFO, and Julian Daly, our General Manager, Corporate Affairs, who is also our Company Secretary. On behalf of the board and the executive team, for a start, I'd like to thank our PW employees for their continued and tireless work and commitment to the business. Some of our employees were again affected by COVID-19 and the February lockdowns in greater Auckland, where four of our stores in the zone were classified as essential services.
Two of our sale yards were also affected, with our Tuakau sale yard permitted to operate, but again, on a limited sales basis. Our team reacted brilliantly and reestablished the lockdown protocols that we had in place previously. I'd like to acknowledge the support of our customers. Through their continuous support, the results that we're about to talk about are possible. During this call, I will summarize this year's financial results, our trading performance, key themes, and initiatives, and some thoughts on the year ahead. Afterwards, I'll open up for a question and answer session. I will predominantly refer to operating EBITDA as a key measure for our performance, but I will refer to our ultimate bottom line of net profit after tax, the formal GAAP measure.
The key financial results for the group year ending June 30th include revenue of NZD 847.8 million, up NZD 59.8 million or 7.6% year-on-year. Operating EBITDA of NZD 56 million, up NZD 13.8 million or 33% year-on-year. Net profit after tax, or NPAT, of NZD 22.7 million, up NZD 15 million year-on-year. We've declared a fully imputed final dividend of NZD 0.16 per share, payable on the October 4th. We've seen very strong performances from our retail, Fruitfed Supplies, livestock, wool and real estate businesses. We bear past a strong balance sheet and operating cash flows, leading to lower net interest-bearing debt at the balance of June 30th, 2021. Continuing strong demand and price of New Zealand produce is underpinning our outlook performance and confidence of farmers and growers in the agri sector.
Our team and the business have again proved that our leaders in the field in supporting our customers and the agri sector rural communities to deliver excellent results. The financial year started and finished strongly with the operating EBITDA at NZD 56 million, up NZD 13.8 million or 33% on last year's COVID-19 impacted results. PW also delivered NPAT of NZD 22.7 million, which was up NZD 15 million year-on-year. These results further vindicate the decisions taken over the last two years in divesting the seeds business and the commitment and recalibration of our cost base and systems. Directors are particularly pleased that the business has backed up its strong first half result and has continued to trade well over the second half.
This result reflects the collective efforts of the dedicated team we have through the business, who are passionate about agriculture, supporting our customers, and the role the sector plays in New Zealand. We've seen just how important and critical to New Zealand's success the primary sector is, and this has come into stark focus with the global pandemic. I'll now discuss the two operating business units, retail and water, then agency. Our retail and water operating EBITDA was very pleasing at NZD 37.5 million. It was up NZD 4.3 million on last year's prior results, which is an increase of 13%. Both the Rural Supplies and Fruitfed Supplies business traded very well. We have continued to increase our market share. Much of this growth can be attributed to the superior technical expertise of our staff, backed up by our leading product range. We have a very stable workforce.
We are well supported by a specialist technical R&D team. A significant challenge that we have, and many businesses face, is around the much publicized supply chain disruption, which has been felt around the world. This will continue to have an impact on the timeliness of sourcing the product and grower inputs as well as our exports offshore. Our team continue to work assiduously to proactively minimize supply chain disruptions to our businesses and customers. Our teams have been working collaboratively with our key suppliers, securing and taking product into stock earlier and working with customers to lock in their seasonal requirements three to six months earlier than would ordinarily be the case.
The Rural Supplies business experienced particularly strong growth this year, which was a fantastic result in a highly competitive marketplace. The success is attributed to both the new customers who have shifted business into PGW, but also growth in our market share as customers respond positively to our value-added technical offering and advice. We have employed some great new talent in the business that have brought fresh ideas and in some instances, new business. Our sales culture has grown through increased investment in our people by providing more training opportunities across all levels of our business and with a focus on sales and service. Our Fruitfed Supplies business has again registered another record year for both operating EBITDA and revenue. The business is diversified across a number of crops, and we continue to adapt to customer and market needs.
The horticultural sector is growing and remains buoyant. We continue to see investment and development. We enjoy impressive market share across a broad range of horticultural crops, with particular strengths in grape, stone fruit, and kiwi fruit. We've continued to grow in the avocado and cherry sectors. Excuse me for a moment. Our core focus remains to add value to our clients' businesses through our technical ability of our technical horticultural representatives, or THR's, as we refer to them internally, by supplying specialist products and services. Our technical expertise offering is differentiated by expert technical R&D teams who support our in-field and store teams. This team conducts a number of trials through the industry, investigating new products and chemistry to assist our growers and engage with industry bodies to improve products and resolve market conditions. Excuse me.
Our wholesale subsidiary, Agritrade, which manufactures, sells, and distributes products, continues to demonstrate positive momentum. Maintaining inventory during the worldwide supply chain disruption created by COVID-19 caused Agritrade to place orders and receive stock earlier than usual. Whilst the inability to travel internationally has hampered product development opportunities, it is nevertheless pleasing to note that five new products were registered during the year and have been commercialized. We have reshaped the water business to align with market conditions. This has resulted in improvement in EBITDA comparative to the previous year. Our full-service water and irrigation packages to customers through our rural water business have seen an increase in sales. However, shipping delays will likely push some delivery timelines into the short to medium term. Turning to our agency business. Our agency business incorporates the livestock, wool, and real estate businesses.
Trading for this group was weighted towards the second half of the financial year. Operating EBITDA was NZD 25.2 million and was up NZD 9.5 million on prior year's results. This is an impressive increase of approximately 60.6%. The livestock business has maintained market share throughout the country, with the South Island achieving a very solid result, especially within the sheep and beef sector. During the year, strong values were achieved for sheep farmers, and dairy farmers also achieved increased payouts, which in turn supported our livestock business. Our deer business experienced good fawn season, where values offset low venison prices. We expanded our GO-BEEF and GO-LAMB product offering and launched GO-DEER. Next year, we expect to add to our GO-STOCK range with the GO-DAIRY, which we anticipate will be well-received in our GO-STOCK offering.
Bidr, which is our virtual saleyards, has run over 400 auctions and sold approximately NZD 50 million worth of livestock since its launch in June 2019. Bidr continued its significant software development and an FY2022 live streaming from our Feilding at Stortford Lodge, which is in Hawke's Bay, Rosedale, and Tuakau saleyards will be launched with others to follow as we roll out the technology. Excellent livestock genetic results throughout the year culminated in the bull sale auction series, with bidr, the hybrid platform, coming to the fore. PGG Wrightson Wool has done a very good job of navigating through the ongoing challenges that have been accentuated by the COVID-19. Our team have worked closely with growers to reduce the stockpiles of crossbred wool . We did see some benefit from improved pricing in the second half of the year.
Our export subsidiary, Bloch & Behrens, worked diligently with our overseas customers to ensure contracted obligations to our growers were fulfilled. Real estate business has seen particularly strong demand across all sectors of the rural property market , which has been fueled by lower interest rates. This resulted in the real estate business experiencing its best returns in over one decade at both operating EBITDA and gross commission income levels. We also have seen early signs as positive spring sales in the rural sector, with higher-than-normal prices taking place with early spring listings occurring, which we expect will turn into continuing solid demand in the first six months of FY2022. The strong commodity values in the rural sector, we anticipate a number of retirement succession-initiated listings coming to the marketplace.
The shortage of residential and lifestyle listings may continue with the current low interest rate environment as a contributing factor. Key programs of work to enhance the culture and develop our people have continued over the past year, with a focus on leadership, safety, and wellbeing, and finessing our people-related systems and processes. With a revised leadership brand and associated training and coaching programs, we have made positive steps in elevating leadership across the business, a focus around the behaviors and PGG values that help our people become the kind of leaders they and others wish them to be. Our continued investment in training and development demonstrates our commitment to providing our people with tools and training to be safe and competent in their roles, with an eye on personal growth and future development opportunities.
Safety and wellbeing remains a constant focus of the organization throughout the year, with the commitment from the executive team to keep it that way. As we're pleased to see, our total recordable injury frequency rate see reductions of 28% year on year or 51% since FY2018. Following an external review of our leading safety on our group-wide safety and wellbeing strategy, we have refreshed our roadmap to incorporate the key recommendations that were identified. We've included a continuous improvement focus to strengthen PGW's safety and wellbeing leadership capability. PGW is committed to protecting our natural environment for future generations. We're aware of the changing focus on farming and increasing pressure on the sector to operate in an environmentally sustainable manner. Many of our activities are designed to support more sustainable farming practices.
Our overall strategy and framework for environment reporting is evolving, and we have a range of initiatives in play to assist in achieving those purposes. Of growing importance is the need to further understand and evaluate PGW's impact on the environment, and we recognize the need to report our environmental footprint, in particular our carbon emissions. We have established a working group to develop an inventory of PGW's emissions, and we've engaged Toitū Envirocare to assist us on this journey. The outputs from this work will support the development of PGW's environment and sustainability strategy and will assist with setting environmental goals and reduction targets based on risk and opportunity. The board have made two changes to the membership during the year. David Cushing retired from the board on the February 23rd, 2021, having served as director and chair of the audit committee for the past two years.
The board has acknowledged and thanks David for his excellent contribution as a director during this period, and I personally thank David for his support during his time on the board. Dr Charlotte Severne recently joined the board as an independent director on the June 18th, 2021. PGW has experienced strong operating cash flows during the year. It has benefited from good operating EBITDA performance and a focus on working capital management, in particular our receivables. This focus has seen PGW's overdue debtors balance continuing to trend at historically low levels, with our book in very good shape. Capital expenditure of NZD 6.8 million was NZD 2.3 million lower than FY2020 and was impacted by slowing and implementation of projects as a consequence of COVID-19 related disruption.
Our net interest-bearing debt was approximately NZD 6.5 million on June 30th, 2021. This is the lowest recorded in over a decade, excluding June 30, 2019, when the proceeds from the seed's sale were held in trust. Based on the strong full-year earnings, the board has declared a fully imputed final dividend of NZD 0.16 per share. The dividend will be paid on the October 4th, 2021, to shareholders on PGW's share register at 5:00 P.M. on the September 10th, 2021. This will effectively bring the total imputed dividends paid for the year to an impressive NZD 0.28 per share. I'm sure all shareholders will be delighted with this. Turning to the outlook for the FY2022 financial year. As a business, PGW is clear about its strategy for driving growth. We're providing our customers with sector-leading expertise and innovative solutions for our farming and production needs.
We look to lead the market through specialist knowledge and technical expertise of our people. We do this through investing in their capability and identifying and bring to market new products that we source and provide proven return on market conditions. Our customers value PGW's technical offering. We see this as a distinguishing service, and we continue to develop and foster. Our strong balance sheet allows us to contemplate earnings accretive growth ambitions, both internal and external. The rural outlook is positive for the sector with strong farm gate and commodity prices. Robust demand is expected to continue for lamb and sheep meat, and cattle prices are anticipated to remain high. There is confidence in the dairy sector, with a positive outlook for next year with solid payout predictions. Longer ahead, the board is confident that PGW is well-placed to continue to grow.
We recently undertaken an internal review of our PGW strategy and have reset our group objectives and priorities we are rolling out through the business currently. This exercise has served to confirm the number of key themes that are continuing to drive the improved performance of the business. Key to this is the continued focus on the technical expertise of our people, technical offering that differentiates us from our competitors. There does remain a degree of uncertainty globally and increasing geopolitical risks as new variants of COVID-19 emerge. Implications from the pandemic will continue to impact mature markets and global supply chains. PGW is committed to supporting our customers through these ongoing challenges, and it's demonstrated that it can do this effectively and profitably.
We would hope to be in a position to provide further market guidance with our expectations of FY2022 year at our annual shareholder meeting in Hawke's Bay in October. Our 2021 annual report will be available on the Stock Exchange website under our PGG Wrightson ticker and our website as at the end of September. Finally, on behalf of the management team, I would like to extend our sincere thanks to our customers, suppliers and shareholders, and most of all, our staff for the continued support of the company. That ends the formal part of the presentation. I'll now open the call to questions, and I'll hand the call formally back to the operator. Thank you.
As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound or hash key. Your first question comes from Guy Hooper. Your line is open.
Yeah. Good morning, team. Congratulations on what's a strong result. I guess my first question is just around the supply chain disruption. Could you possibly give us a bit more color on how that's affecting you? You talk about helping farmers lock in seasonal requirements. Is that creating a pull forward? If so, where is that, a pull forward in sales or is it a pull forward into the level of inventory that you're holding?
Thanks, Guy. A couple things there. Firstly, we haven't seen a pull forward in sales. What we've seen is a pull forward in customers signaling to us their product volume demands and the timing of need. That's allowed us to work with suppliers to ensure that product is in country at the appropriate time. In most situations for our products, we do have a couple of alternative sources of supply. Once you know the demand, you can actually work through as to what those logistics are. Customers don't like to see product stored on farm any earlier than they actually need it for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because potentially some cash flow implications for them. There's security issues on farm. More importantly, there's actually regulatory issues around how much volume that they can actually store on farm as well.
Whereas our store network can manage that a bit more effectively because we're set up for that world. How it's played out for us is that we're seeing price increases for shipping costs, and we're seeing logistical challenges. Product that may normally take three to four weeks from the shipping out of the Asian markets or the U.S. markets is taking 8-12 weeks. That means we're having to plan more from a logistical perspective in that regard. Our inventory at the moment, we're holding more inventory than we were at the same time this time last year. Guy, and that we have budgeted that into our cash flows. We're not exceeding those expectations right at the moment. We're there or thereabouts of what we thought would happen. The spring demand, particularly our rural services business is ahead of us.
This is an active watch and brief for us. On the outward supply side, of course, in our wool market, we're a direct exporter of wool. It's a matter of us working with supply companies. We have seen supply disruption. Wool is least perishable. Critical supplies, we could work a bit easier on that space. Of course, we're not in the processor end for meat production, so that would be a question best directed to the meat companies in that space. Hope that answers your question, Guy.
Yeah. No, that was great. Good amount of detail. I guess just on those, cost pressures are a pretty common theme across all industries, particularly labor and freight rates. How are you seeing this and what sort of, I guess, pricing power do you have? I guess there's a bit of a follow-up, how is the sector as a whole absorbing those cost pressures?
We are going like all sectors. There's a point that comes where you get able to absorb costs. We are going to see costs move up in the sector. That's not a surprise. Having said that, we do have two strong national competitors, that operate in the marketplace against us. They do operate a cooperative model, and the cooperative model does have a focus around price. They will equally keep us honest in that space, Guy. I guess in reality, the message is there is going to be price pressure, but I'm probably not going to detail a whole lot around technical market positioning of our pricings. You probably understand that.
Yep. No. Perfect. Thank you. I guess just one more from me, on the working capital. There was a reasonable increase, in payables. Can you give any more color around that?
Going to turn that question over to our CFO, Guy.
Yeah. Thanks, Guy. Look, I think as Stephen said, we are conscious of our inventory levels and probably are holding them a little bit higher than we would normally under normal circumstances, having Guy. We have got a bit more, in terms of payables. That's really probably the main reason. We've actually got quite a lot of, obviously, accruals in there as well. That's the main reason payables probably a little higher than previous years.
All right. Thanks, Peter and Stephen. I'll leave it there.
Thanks, Guy. Thanks a lot.
Your next question comes from Tina Morrison, New Zealand Shareholder.
Oh, hi. I have three questions. I'll just roll them all out. The first, I just wanted to clarify if the NZD 0.28 dividend for the year is a record. I wanted to know if you have considered paying back the wage subsidy. I'm interested in your view on carbon farming.
Thanks. I'll just take the better ones.
Sure.
The first question was.
NZD 0.28.
the NZD 0.28.
I think from at least my time, Tina, here at PGW, it's the highest I've seen, apart from, of course, the capital return to a shareholder, but that would be the highest dividend I've seen from PGW. Julian Daly, our Company Secretary, has been here longer than me, but I don't recall seeing anything for an annual period from my time here as well. Yeah.
Okay.
We'd have to go back through all the records, Tina, to actually absolutely verify that, but certainly in the time that we've been here, it's the highest we've seen.
I've been a wee bit longer, but that's my recollection as well. Apart from the capital redistribution at the time of the seed sale.
Which, of course, isn't a dividend, but it is a return to shareholders.
Also, you have to assess that against since the consolidation of our share register. It's the largest dividend since the consolidation of our share register. I think the answer is yes.
Thank you.
That answer the question for you?
Yes.
The second question was around the consideration for the wage subsidy repayment. Yes, that was considered by the board. That was a discussion that the board did have. Their position is that we're not going to repay the wage subsidy. I could leave the answer at that, but I won't. The logic to that is that PGW, in terms of, we're a bit technical about this, we made an assessment around the requirement for a 30% reduction in earnings, revenue per se , and we made our assessment after we'd actually seen that reduction. We did not pre-assess. We made the assessment after the reduction had actually taken place. We only took the subsidy in respect to our business units that were closed during that period. Those business units were our livestock business, our real estate business, and our wool business.
There's no surprise that we saw a 30% reduction. That was in the first wage subsidy period, not the second one. We did not take the wage subsidy in respect to our retail or our shop network or our corporate functions. We also kept all employees employed within the business, and we paid people 100% of the wage entitlements through that period, in full, on time. As a result of that, we met the definitions that were set out, the criteria that were set out within the program of work. Also, there was no dividend declared to shareholders for that particular period as well. As a result, the board certainly wouldn't object. Your third question was around carbon farming. Can you perhaps expand just a bit more on that, if you wouldn't mind?
I think I know what you mean but perhaps expand a wee more.
You might have seen in the news recently, the Beef and Lamb report about carbon farming. What they're talking about there is the sale of whole farms for carbon offsetting. Not about farmers putting some of their farm into forestry, but the sale of whole farms.
Yeah.
Going into forestry for carbon offsets.
Yes. Okay. I thought that's where you were coming from. Thank you for the clarification. I've got a couple of views there. Firstly, decisions that people make around their private properties, that's the decision that they have to reflect on. That's not a decision position that PGW could take a view on. Having said that, we would acknowledge that there has certainly been a movement in our land into forestry, and we've got data around that. That was, as you set out in the Beef and Lamb report, and we've seen that report and been through that. We're seeing that impact on our business. That's changing the number of animals that our livestock business is available to transact. There's an impact on us from that perspective. There's a flip side impact, of course, in that will result in carbon reduction.
There's a positive and negative in that space. PGW's view, though, is that we'd like to see that the land use types in terms of classes of land are not the higher quality ones. I know that the government has put in some thinking and work into that area. We have seen, of course, not all rural production land has moved into carbon. We have seen movement of land into horticulture. That's nowhere near to the extent of forestry, of course. There is a benefit to PGW in that space for our Rural Supplies business.
Okay, thank you.
Your next question comes from Christian Bell. Your line is open.
Yeah. Hi. My first question was just, how much of the revenue growth or sales growth, 8% this year was from market share gain? If you're able to give a sense on that.
I can't give you a number on that. I can't give you a specific number on that, Christian. Pretty loose, Christian. Can you leave that question with us, Christian? We'll try and come back to you on that one, okay?
Okay. Well, could you roughly say 50/50 between that and other things or is it?
I would like to come back to you on that one, Christian.
Okay. Then just talking about future growth.
I need to split it across the retail businesses and so on, yeah. Sure. Carry on?
Yeah, cool. Do you expect to see similar market share gains, say, in FY 2022 as you did in FY 2021? How are you actually, where is the growth going to come from in the future?
We're continuing to see market share gains, Christian. We're seeing market share come from pastoral ag, and we're seeing increased profitability come from the movement to horticulture. The reality is horticulture crops are more profitable for PGW than we would see from pastoral farming. As you see more production area in kiwifruit, cherries, avocados, et cetera, that is driving profitability of the business.
Okay. Is that like-
Yeah.
Oh, sorry.
Grapes, sorry. The grapes are the horticultural sector.
So would you-
For example, it was predicted there's around another 5,000 hectares of grapes to go into Marlborough over the next couple of years, for example. That was announced just recently.
Okay. There's the combination of market share gains, plus within the horticulture, you've got the underlying market is actually growing itself at the same time.
Yes. Yeah. A hectare of kiwifruit versus a hectare of pasture land is considerably more beneficial to PGW in the horticulture space.
Okay. A bit of product mix as well.
Yeah. Correct.
Okay.
That's why I'm just a bit low. Your first question is just a bit challenging question.
Yeah. No, sorry. I didn't fully expect you to put a specific number, just a rough guide, because the tone of the commentary that you put out, it seems like the main driver of growth was market share gains. I was just trying to get a sense for how much of it was actually attributed to that versus other forms of growth.
The main driver is market share, but there are other, which is why we put a position in the statement that there are these underlying things going on as well.
Okay, cool. No, understood. Just on the M&A stuff, how would you actually expect to pay for that? Actually, firstly, before that, when you're thinking about M&A, could that be something as large as the Farmlands, or were you thinking of something much smaller? How would you actually pay for that? Just noting, probably, you've got your restrictions around leverage from your GO products and stuff like that.
Yep. Firstly, you need to have a willing seller. I'm sure the shareholders in Farmlands may have a view about whether they're willing to sell or not. There are also competitive constraints in that space. Our M&A has a couple criteria around it. Firstly, that it needs to be within our sector. From a rural sector perspective, that's our lane. That's what we're focused on. Second criteria is, and it must be New Zealand based. Our ambitions are totally focused around the New Zealand space. The third point is that it must be EPS accretive in terms of driving value to shareholders from day one. To your question around funding, we would do a combination of our immediate areas of focus are through our current banking facilities. We have also got options outside of that. The current thinking is off our current balance sheet.
It would depend on how big an opportunity was, of course, Christian. Our funding lines at the moment are NZD 130 million. We've only got net debt of just over NZD six and a half million. That's expected that rises in the seasonality. As we go through spring, obviously that goes up quite a lot. It would depend on how big a size it was in terms of the target.
Do you have kind of a target size range? Would it be NZD 100 million, NZD 200 million or something like that?
No, I don't think we have a specific target number, if you like.
Yeah.
That we're looking at. It's about the opportunity, not about what we spend on it. It's really sort of logic, good strategic fit, potential bolt on or bigger. It's got to have that strategic fit. Some of the cash is not burning a hole in our pocket. We've been looking at the right thing. As Stephen said, it has to be EPS accretive from day one.
Okay. Cool. Does your GO-STOCK product financing sort of put any restrictions around that, or is there not much mentioned?
No restrictions, Christian. We obviously want to grow our GO product range as well, and that's part of our banking facilities. That's all factored into our thinking.
Okay, cool. Just on the GO products book , what was the reason behind the flat growth ? They were basically flat. Was it?
Yeah, good question. If you go back to this time last year, Christian, two things have gone on. The country was a degree of uncertainty around what category COVID looked like. There was capacity constraints within the meat processes. There had also been a significant drought within the North Island. Forward a couple of months, there was still, whilst there was confidence in the sector, there were prices lifting, et cetera. There was still capacity constraints, that drought was starting to make itself evident for a second season, particularly in the North Island. People were reluctant to take on board animals on farm from a feed perspective, knowing that they may be constrained in that space, not being able to necessarily get processing out on the other side. That resulted in some reluctance to take on additional animals and therefore fund them.
Have you seen a change in that in FY 2023?
As we've come through the last couple of months. Yeah, as we've come through the last couple of months of the year and into FY 2022, we've seen the demand increase.
Okay, cool.
You know, practical on-farm stuff.
Okay, cool. Just on the dividend, just wondering why was it so high? Was it a bit of a catch up for not paying a final dividend last year? Will it go back to normal levels going forward?
The dividend reflects the strong operating performance of the business, also reflects our strong balance sheet. We want to certainly reward shareholders for their continued faith in the business. As you know, we didn't pay a dividend last year, Christian. The dividend reflects the underlying performance of the business on any given year. Last year, our results didn't allow us to do that. This year they do. In terms of what we do going forward, we'll make those decisions based on the results that we see from the business. We've obviously got a budget, in and around that. It's too early to predict what that's going to look like.
Just because, at 28% this year, it's more than 100% payout ratio.
Well, we wouldn't say EPS is about NZD 0.30 this year, Christian.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Oh, I understand.
A little less than 100%.
Yeah.
I understand your point, though. Yeah.
Sorry. Yeah, my calc was based off the operating NPAT . I've sort of taken out the non-operating gains. Yeah, sorry. Okay, and then finally, sorry, just one real open-ended question to finish off. Just on the, like, well, sorry, let me rephrase that. Do you think we're at the peak stage of the ag cycle at the moment, or is there still a way to go?
It is a very academic question. Let me try and answer this. I've been around 30-odd years, in this business for 30+ years. I know that the ag sector comes in cycles. It comes in cycles in two ways, in terms of commodity prices and weather conditions play their part. Those factors are always there. Currently, we're seeing strong commodity prices. We're seeing predictions in the dairy payout space that it's going to lift in the FY2022 year, versus the FY2021 year. Fundamentally, demand is strong there. The New Zealand Inc story is still in demand, although getting to marketplace can be a challenge for our exporters. In the short to medium term, all the factors that I'm seeing, and we're seeing underlying investment in, I should say underlying investment in the land going into horticulture. We're seeing strong demand for rural properties.
That tells you that from an investor perspective, there is good demand there for properties, because they see confidence in the sector. Certainly, in the short to medium term, I'm confident about the sector. I see that, generally speaking, we've had a warmer winter than normal. We've had, generally speaking, some good rainfalls across the country, so that's encouraging. Beyond that, who knows? In the short to medium term, certainly I'm confident about the sector, and I think others are as well.
Awesome. I really appreciate that. That was all my questions. Thank you very much, guys.
Thanks.
There are no further questions at this time. Please continue, presenters.
Thank you all. If there's no further questions, just one last chance for everyone. Thank you all.
Once again, if you need to ask. Go ahead, presenters.
Well, thank you all. Thank you for your time.