If I may briefly explain what I talked about, I started off by mentioning the shining cuckoo bird, the bird that jumps from branch to branch looking for the strong, firm branch to stand on, and in that way being able to make a difference. The tree being Seeka, the branches through Seeka to make the tree vibrant, healthy, fertile, and a high producer of the fruits that the tree bears at this time of harvest. I acknowledge all those people who have passed. Condolences and our thoughts go out to all who have lost loved ones. I come to the living and welcome all of you, the ipurangi, the internet. To all of you who are watching this afternoon, welcome, welcome, welcome. And lastly, I introduce the Tumuaki himself, Mr. Michael Franks, Kia ora tātou.
Thank you, Turi. Welcome to everybody to this analysts briefing for our audited financial results to the end of 31st December 2023. The first year that Grant Thornton have audited our results, I'd just like to pass my thanks on to them for the work that they have done in supporting the company get our results confirmed, as well as acknowledge the work that our own finance team have done and get into the numbers. Turi, also I'd just like to compliment you on your open. Also yesterday, Turi, blessed our harvest. We're underway this year. We have got our red just sort of trickling into the sheds right now, and we expect to head into gold at some point next week.
As I talk about last year's financial results, I'll also give you an introduction to where we think what we think is going to happen this year. Of course, we've got our annual shareholder meeting happening on the 18th of April here at 2:30 P.M., at 360. There will be a webinar for that as well. We will also give shareholders and stakeholders an update then about how the harvest is progressing and what the numbers look like and all important the volumes. The things that we'll talk about today in terms of the agenda, we will run you through and just remind you about our strategy, our short-term strategy for the moment, and the company values. We'll give you an overview of 2023. Really no new news there.
You'd be surprised if there was, but no new news because it's really talking about last year's harvest and volumes, overview of our financials, an introduction to our capital management, talk you through each of the operating segments of the company, talk about the new climate change disclosures that the company has made, and give you some insights as the early outlook for the current financial year. Our short-term strategy is outlined in front of you now. Firstly, is to deliver operational and financial excellence to our growers and shareholders. We do that through excellent planning, being rigorous in our planning and curious about the things that as we work through our operational planning, being very disciplined in the execution of our plans and delivering excellent fruit quality to the market and our marketer, predominantly Zespri. Our second short-term strategy is to focus on and improve our financial performance.
Last year, quite simply, the volume of fruit that we transacted through our infrastructure business wasn't enough to even break even, and we've recorded a loss. We have used this as an opportunity to reinforce a low-cost structure. We proactively and in an early sense reduced our capital expenditure to within and slow it down below depreciation. We are now focusing on lowering our debt and to achieve adequate returns on capital and in saying that, adequate returns for the risk that we take in the capital that we have employed in the company. Financial performance is very much the foremost target we've got for improvement in the current year. Thankfully, the volumes that we think we're going to handle look a lot better than what they did last year. Of course, we want to optimize our post-harvest capacity.
We want to automate where it makes sense and where it delivers efficiency and delivers us a return on capital. But we want to optimize every space and every lane that we've got. And of course, alongside that, given that we've got the infrastructure in place, we want to build revenue streams around the side of our infrastructure so that if we've got vacant capacity, capacity that we can utilize, contract packing for other crops or things that we can do to earn new revenue streams that provide complementary services or products, we'll go and chase those. Finally, one of our assets, our byline Select Excellence. Our aspiration is to deliver excellent service, produce, and value to our stakeholders and returns to our shareholders. And so that's what we are focused on doing, and that is our short-term strategy as agreed with our Board.
One of our values as a company actually is depicted in our motif, and the motif is all about each one of these arrows pointing in and pointing out is a brand attribute, a value that we're chasing. Of course, safety always. We're running across 12 packhouses, more than 400 orchards in New Zealand, seven orchards in Australia, and two packhouses there. We want to be safe always right across the whole spectrum where we're working. We care about the health and the long-term welfare of our people, our land, and our communities. And in relation to the land and communities, we were in front of the EPA this week talking about the continuing use of hydrogen cyanamide, which is important. Our business is founded on relationships. We connect the world with sustainable fruit production. It's all about relationships, relationships with our growers, relationships with Zespri, relationships with our consumers.
We want to have inspirational people. In this company, people need to be able to achieve their career aspirations and their life aspirations. We are passionate about what it is we do. We are professional fruit handlers and professional fruit growers, and we are passionate about the service that we deliver to all of our stakeholders. We want to be, and we aspire to be, independently ingenious. We want to be curious about what's happening around us, and we want to think outside the square. Our current drive in the business is to simplify, to render down the complications in our operations to that which is most simple and delivers us the outcomes we want and returns value to our stakeholders. We are obsessed with quality. Last year, our quality statistics were excellent. Our fruit loss statistics low, our offshore fruit quality exceptional.
Our goal is to drive that quality obsession as one of our brand attributes. Finally, growing sustainable futures is our sustainability goal. It is about making sure that our activities have a beneficial effect on the environment and not a detrimental one. In introducing that brand attribute, we have gone a long way with our sustainability drive. We've got clear goals. We've got clear targets. We have a sustainability-linked line. We're well down the track of working towards and changing what we do to improve our environmental impact. Looking back on the year just gone, 2023, a year, well, it was a hard year right across the horticultural sector. You just don't have to look at our results to see how tough it was. Very tough and probably capped off 30 tough months with COVID and weather events affecting the business and labor restrictions.
Our volumes at 29.8 million trays packed where we make our money, predominantly packing kiwifruit in New Zealand, were well down, 42 million the year before. So below the break-even point, it's a fact. We're impacted by multiple severe weather events. The winter of 2022 was very mild. It was very warm. It was very wet. Kiwifruit plants didn't head to senescence. It didn't go to sleep, didn't get the winter chill they're looking for. We had frosts. We've had hail. We had Cyclone Gabrielle. So all of those impacted on our production and volumes through in 2023. Kiwifruit volumes were very low. The yields were low. Hayward conventional yields below 7,000 trays a hectare and gold below 10,000 trays a hectare. These are numbers which we haven't seen in a long, long time. Both New Zealand and Australia were affected.
When we realized that we were facing a loss, we proactively engaged with the banks early so the banking syndicate knew what was coming ahead of us, and we worked with them, and we got their support early. We suspended our dividends to minimize our cash going out. We restructured the company to lower costs, and every part of the company was reviewed. We have delivered NZD 3 million in annual cost savings through that process, in a process where everyone was dealt with due care and respect as we actually reviewed. We put in place a captive insurance company. That captive insurance company has seen 65% of our insurance portfolio placed in the international market. That has avoided NZD 1.2 million in cost increments that we would have had if we hadn't taken that step.
We slowed our CapEx, and in doing so, we have prioritized the money that we're spending to make sure that we have not got deferred maintenance in critical areas, particularly in electrical switchboards and plant rooms. There is a renewal process underway in the company to make sure that we have prioritized our capital spend to the right place. We did deliver external financial operational performance, albeit on a reduced volume. It'd be pretty unhappy if we didn't. We had low onshore fruit loss, 1% for gold and 0.64% for Hayward conventional. Excellent. We had the best offshore quality performance as measured and reported by Zespri, and our orchard gate returns to growers were among the highest. And so in terms of an operational perspective, I think we can be quite satisfied with what we've done.
Our company has a mix of highly automated machines and manual graders, traditional grading technology, which actually proved to be quite useful when we had distressed lines needing to be packed, sorted, and put away into cool store. We have got a highly automated machine at KKP as good as you'll see. We've had automation upgrades at Oakside and Seeka Gisborne within the capital expenditure, the rest of which of our packing suite, let's say, is balanced. We will sensibly invest in automation where we can see value return and payback and benefit for our growers and financial benefit for our shareholders. Our forward focus is all about profitability. Our forward focus is about getting the debt statistics back into a normal range.
If we have the year ahead of us that it looks like it is, we'll take a giant leap in that direction in this 12-month period. We are driven to maintain our excellent operational performance, and we are pushing now and focusing on earning our risk-adjusted return on capital employed. The environment we operate in now is far more risky from a climate perspective than what we've had in living history. And so even though we're in El Niño at the moment, it won't be that long before we swing back to La Niña. And if and when that happens, the company needs to be in a position where it can cope with any shocks that might come.
The current harvest that we're looking at at the moment, the Hayward volumes that we have in front of us from the crop estimates are confirmed as best as we can through technology like Fruitometry, look to be high for Hayward conventional and back to average for SunGold, which means good. And so both of those look better in terms of volumes and certainly much better than last year. The company's been through its normal preparedness processes. It's been through its normal planning processes. It's been through its normal operational setup yesterday to ensure that we got the systems, the personnel, and accountability right across the company to make sure that we deliver a good result in the year and harvest that we're heading into. Oh, something's gone wrong. Just the button stuck. How's that? So good. Just give me one minute. I'll go back. Right.
In terms of the group financial performance, I had a sticky finger. I don't think it was me. The group financial performance, revenue of NZD 300 million is down from NZD 348.4 million. That's all about volume. Revenue's down 14%. Our EBITDA are at NZD 26 million, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortization, a surrogate for cash flow from the operating business at NZD 26 million is down from NZD 46 million the year prior, so down 44%. We've recorded a loss before tax of NZD 21 million, and the range was NZD 20 million-NZD 25 million in our guidance. So it's a tough pill to swallow. We've booked a loss. NZD 14.5 million is a loss before tax, down from the NZD 6.5 million profit after tax the year before.
But in a COVID and pandemic environment where labor was very tight, and our expectation is that the current year is heading back to a normal environment, labor is certainly freed up. The volumes look like they're rebounded. Return on capital employed is negative 2%. But the tangible asset backing per share at NZD 5.71 is where it is at, asset backing per share, as confirmed by valuation, and those numbers are audited. In terms of the trends and financial performance, just to show you, our revenue balances down in 2023. Our hope that it'll go back to a normal trajectory in the current year. Net profit after tax, it's all about heading back into profit. Our total assets are around NZD 549 million. We do expect to stay that reasonably stable because we are investing around depreciation or behind depreciation in terms of our investment book.
In terms of operating performances, you can see here in terms of orchards, orchard EBITDA, NZD 1 million really reflects high costs and higher costs of growing, lower yields, particularly in the Hayward book. And so while we're getting record per tray returns, actually, we're growing per hectare, and the yield, the number of trays per hectare, we're down, low. And so that's what impacts on orcharding. In terms of post-harvest, it's all about the volume. It's all about less than 30 million trays packed and down from 42 million the year before. Seeka Fresh is a highlight. Business has been going well. It has traded well. It's recovered after COVID, those two years before really impacted by COVID. It has built new channels to retail.
It has made good, it's got a good service and a niche service in terms of providing its customers with product that they want at the right price. In terms of Seeka Australia, fully integrated business, that business has suffered like ours has with climate and COVID. However, at the last stakeholder update, we gave the shareholders and stakeholders an update and insight of what we think happens next in Australia. Our mission now is to deliver that. In terms of capital management, in terms of the balance sheet, NZD 7.1 million increase in capital employed in FY2023. We're at NZD 518.3 million total capital employed. We've got NZD 3.4 million increase in biological assets, which is the crop that we've grown. We expect to harvest this year. We have an NZD 11.9 million increase in property plant equipment, which is our normal capital spend.
And look, we've got a negative we've got a reduction in inventories and water rights. We sold some water shares during the year in Australia. They are excess beyond what we needed. And funnily enough, in Australia, having been predicted that we're heading to drought, it's rained. And so we've hardly used any water in Australia, full stop. So that in itself is intriguing. And I'm sure the farmers in New Zealand would echo that sentiment. It's just continued to be wet here. I see the questions are popping up. I'll answer all the questions at the end through the CFO. In terms of our bank debt, NZD 172.4 million in bank debt at the end of December. So it's a NZD 25 million increase in December 2022. We're within our limits.
We have got a syndicated 5-bank funding line in place with the Westpac New Zealand, Westpac Corporation Australia, ASB, BNZ, and Rabo. We thank them for the support of the company and their understanding earlier in the year. We thank them for their proactive responses to us when we've needed them, particularly earlier in 2023. We have secured a sustainability linked line, which we entered into in June 2023, just under NZD 21 million a debt line. It included covenant release through to December 2024. That sustainability linked line penalises the company if we miss sustainability targets and provides us with a rebate if we achieve the targets we've agreed and can negotiate with the bank. We have secured an additional NZD 20 million debt line through to July 2024.
But that is solely because we advanced money to growers through the harvest, and the volume looks like it's going to go up. And so to keep up with the increase in volume coming through the business, we have to have a slightly bigger debt line to cope with it. We have a small amount of assets held for sale, NZD 3.2 million, and they remain being marketed. Earnings per share is negative NZD 0.34. That's just a simple function of the loss divided by the number of shares. There's no dividends being paid. In the 2023 year, we had the little hangover dividend that came over from 2022. And the asset backing is NZD 5.71, so significantly in advance of the current share price. If I go into each of the segments, which I will do now, orchard operating revenue is up 7%.
We've got more orchards in the book, and so therefore more revenue. But NZD 1 million EBITDA is affected by the lower yields, lower trays per hectare, and low avocado returns and yields as well. It's been a very hard year in the avocado market everywhere. We have got NZD 16 million bow wave of investments in orchard developments that are yet to produce. That's not in the year. That's in the life of developing those orchards to where they are. So 68 hectares on long-term leased lands and 97 hectares with long-term supply agreements where we've got co-investors and landowners and funders, including the Provincial Growth Fund in Kawerau alongside Iwi. And so we thank you for that. And at some point, those orchards will come into production, and they're starting to now.
Though the orchards look to be holding a very good crop for harvest in 2024, somewhere between 40% and 50% more fruit than what we handled last year. And so we're looking in that part of our business for a turnaround. It looks like it's there, barring disaster. The volumes look good. You can see there that the SunGold yields on average per hectare in 2023 year were 9,295. That compares to 12,000 the year before. And even then, the 12,000 was low. In terms of Hayward yields, conventional Hayward, 6,730 trays per hectare, down on the 9,650. And in recent years, it's been 12,500. So it just gives you an insight to how tough a season it was growing in 2022 and harvesting in 2023. Those yields are typical, not atypical.
In terms of our post-harvest business, the toll processing part of our business, this is where the hotel is for fruit. We schedule the fruit into our cool stalls or into our packhouses at a rate that we can take it. We gently grind that fruit and put it into a tray and put it to sleep in a cool stall. Hayward volumes are down 36%, and SunGold volumes down 25%. Our EBITDA are at NZD 43.8 million, down 26%, and just lower volumes across all categories. We're looking forward to that number being far more exciting in the current year. It's a toll processing business. If we toll process more, we make more money. And if we toll process below the cost to serve, then we make a loss. And that is exactly what has happened to our company in harvest 2023.
Thankfully, this year, it looks a lot more positive and a lot more successful. The company's well set to handle increased volumes. We've got the new pack line and automation projects at Seeka Gisborne and at Oakside Automation. Of course, we've got the KKP machine, which has just really delivered for us in 2023. And we will use it, of course, in 2024 and try and schedule more fruit there. We've got the network to handle more volumes with less labor. But thankfully, labor availability looks to be very good. Yesterday, in the operational planning meeting, all sites reported that they were there or thereabouts with their staffing numbers. Of course, it does depend on us starting early, and we intend to do that.
In terms of Seeka Fresh, we're marketing the fruit that we don't supply through to Zespri, marketing class two kiwi fruit in New Zealand and Australia, avocados, packing and selling kiwi berries, and is the marketing of Kiwi Crush. Revenue at NZD 20.7 million is up 9% on the year prior. It's actually starting to hit its straps this business. NZD 2.6 million in EBITDA is up 226% and has started the year well again in 2024. We've got growth in our tropical fruits business. It's our importing business where we're importing pineapple, papaya, and bananas. We are adding new categories into the domestic marketing that we're doing, including kiwi berries, cherries, everything else, avocados, kiwi fruit. So that business seems to have a momentum of its own at the moment. Staff in there doing a very good job.
We thank our customers, actually, because we're getting more and more business. That business EBIT, NZD 1.5 million reported year, compares to a loss of NZD 80,000 the year before. In terms of Australian operations, NZD 10.4 million in revenues, down 26%, tough growing condition, tough volumes, tough season. Thankfully, it looks better again in the current year. NZD 700,000 in EBITDA compared to NZD 1 million the year before. So it's there or thereabouts. We've got good pricing and demand for Australian growing fruit. And actually, the volumes look good for the current year. And we have been harvesting and are well through our Nashi pear harvest and European pear harvest. And we're heading to kiwifruit shortly. But the volumes look good. We've got 63 hectares of kiwifruit in development on their way to production.
So NZD 13 million invested in those year to date to date, not year to date, in the years to date. Of course, we're pushing forward with our jujube developments over there and the new red Nashi, which we are growing in Australia. We have been an early adopter for the climate change reporting under NZCS 1 to 3. We've had a subcommittee running for some time, the sustainability subcommittee, which oversees the climate change strategy and reporting. And we have released that report. We consider the impact of three warming scenarios on growing conditions, vine health, and communities. We have considered building strategies to address the effects of climate change, including irrigation, shelter protection, hail netting, and other research and development, new varieties. We've had a 21% reduction in Seeka's carbon footprint in 2023. So we're at 17,987 tons of CO2 from around 20,000 tons prior.
Of course, some of that is volume related. So our job is to restrict it even with a volume increase. We have got carbon reduction strategies underway in the company, which includes the solar installations which we've put in place. We've got 750 kW of solar now on roofs. We have been retrofitting coolstore gas with new synthetic refrigerants. So if they leak, they don't damage the ozone layer and come with a huge carbon cost. And we continue to focus on waste reduction. So our third sustainability report will be released in June of this year. Sustainability is a real momentum in the company. It's a real initiative. We're passionate about it. We've got a team of professionals working their way through it who focus on it. And they actually got good momentum and good progress. So we're disappointed to report a loss.
We run a hotel for fruit. For a big part of our business, we're a toll processor. It's not all we do, but it's a big part of what we do. So we would say that disappointed that the volumes we handle were below the break-even mark. Thankfully, the 2024 kiwifruit volumes look better. Industry forecast is at 193 million. Importantly, the regions look good, whereas in 2023, Gisborne and Northland and the Coromandel looked poor. Hayward volumes look very good, although there is some shape out there, but it looks good. SunGold is back to normal average, which means good. Australian crop looks excellent. There has been a game changer over there. The team has innovated. They worked with the Australian authorities to get access to a spray, Actigard. We've used that spray predominantly on our orchards.
We've got a much, much better crop set and yield and volume of fruit to handle. In the few areas where we haven't used that product, it's been terrible. So maybe, just maybe, we've cracked it. We've had a wet summer, although it's 41 degrees today, I think. We've had a wet summer. It's been reasonably mild. We haven't had a drought. The crop estimates look pretty good. John Van Popering over there has done a fantastic job, to be honest, with his team. Operationally, we're ready. The labour supply has improved. We've got the infrastructure set for 50 million+ kiwi fruit trays. The health and safety focus continues. Our number one priority is restoring the profitability of the business and getting our debt down. The first thing will lead to a quantum leap in the second. That is the presentation.
I'm happy to take some questions. No doubt there are some because I can see them flicking up on the screen. If they're hard ones, I'll get Nicola to answer. If they're easy, then I'll answer them.
Okay. Our first question is, when will the company be reconsidering dividends?
The resumption of dividends is really a matter for the Board. But management's job is to fight the company back into a position where the Board is able to consider paying a dividend. And so I think the answers we'll see how we go through the first six months. And then we'll have a chat to the Board about the second six months. And it will be determined, I think, by the Board's view and the company's view around its debt loading at that time, whether we've made satisfactory progress in getting our debt down and putting ourselves away from any covenant requirements and getting ourselves to a situation where the Board consider that it's sensible and prudent to pay a dividend. In the absence of that, the prudent thing to do is to repay debt and just hold on for a bit longer.
Our focus is on earnings right now.
So a few questions here from Peter Truman. First one, in the half year to June, we had a negative revaluation. That was reversed at December. Can you comment on why the half year revaluation was reversed at year-end?
You might be best to answer that, Nicola.
So. In June 2023, we don't get valuations performed, but we get advice from our valuers as to what's happening in the market. The advice at the time, back in June 2023, interest rates were rising. It wasn't clear when they were going to start coming down again. Given the specialised nature of our land and buildings, there weren't many sales to support the value of the properties. The indication we were given is that our valuations would be headed down. So therefore, we did a desktop calculation, which came out about NZD 10 million. By the time we got through to December, interest rates had settled. There was an indication that, forward-looking, they would start coming down end of 2024 or 2025. The kiwifruit season had bounced back. Crop volumes were looking good. So there was better confidence in our land and buildings.
Therefore, when we got the official valuations through, they had reversed a similar amount to what was de-recognized at June.
Our next question. In an earlier presentation, there was mention of disposing land and buildings on a sale and leaseback basis. Is that still under consideration?
Yep. So the Board is considering all opportunities to reduce debt. Our first focus is to do it by earnings. We had been investigating a sale and leaseback. And I guess it's still on. But we need to make sure that when we sell a property and lease it back, we're just switching one form of debt with another. And so we need to make sure that the terms of the sale and leaseback are better than bank debt. Otherwise, we're better to stay with bank debt. It's just one form of debt with another. At the moment, we haven't been able to get to a situation where the Board has thought that it's prudent to do that. So we have not done it. But we wouldn't rule anything off the table.
Is there any consideration of a capital raise?
At the moment, there isn't any consideration of a capital raise. It's not on our planning horizon for the moment. We could never say never. We wouldn't rule it out. The Board will consider that at some point. At the moment, there's no consideration of that.
No further questions?
Turi, are you going to close this meeting?
No.
Are there any other questions you should ask them now? Otherwise, I'll ask our Kaumātua Turi to come up and close our meeting down.
Good.
Thank you, Turi. And Turi, honestly, knocked out of the park this week at the EPA. So thank you so much for doing that.