I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Michael Ahearne, CEO. Please go ahead.
Kia ora, and welcome everyone to the SkyCity FY21 Result Investor Call. Firstly, I'd like to kick off by recognizing the local iwi in the locations where we operate. Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei in Auckland, Tainui in the Waikato, Ngāi Tahu in Queenstown, and also like to pay respect to traditional landowners, the Kaurna people of Adelaide Plains. Great to be presenting to you this morning, as the chief executive of SkyCity. I've been in the role now for just over nine months. It's been a really busy period, but enjoyable period. As a business, we've had many challenges over the past year, but certainly we're dealing with those in a very progressive way and I'm feeling very positive about the business as we look forward. Today, we're actually presenting to you from our homes and not in our boardroom, given the ongoing COVID lockdown in New Zealand.
Regrettably, SkyCity is well-practiced in responding to COVID-19 disruptions, and our teams across New Zealand immediately swung into action about a week ago. SkyCity Auckland, as you probably know, has been confirmed as a location of interest due to a customer attending the site the weekend before last and testing positive. We also had an employee test positive as well. That's resulted in about 400 of our employees deemed close contacts, and they've needed to self-isolate and get tested. Of course, we're working very closely with the health authorities to support them in the processes around contact tracing. As you can imagine, we've done a very comprehensive deep clean in the areas where that guest was and where that employee was. Today, with me on the line in Auckland, in her home, is Julie Amey, our Chief Financial Officer.
Callum Mallett, our Chief Operating Officer of New Zealand, is also with us. Ben Kay, who's well known to you all, the General Manager of Strategy and Investor Relations. David Christian is dialing in from Adelaide. David's our Chief Operating Officer for Australia. Callum, Ben, and David will be available for Q&A, and between myself and Julie, we will handle the upfront presentation. Our FY2021 presentation was released obviously this morning to the stock exchange, and is as usual, a comprehensive document. I'm going to take the document as read and hence, between myself and Julie, we'll focus on the key themes or observations over the period and leave time for Q&A. Turning to the key features of FY2021. A few comments from me. Look, firstly, I would say it's another challenging year for SkyCity. COVID, obviously, a key feature of the year.
Overall, I think the group delivered a solid performance with group normalized EBITDA and NPAT at the top end of the guidance we provided in early June. When I think of the quality of the result, we're reasonably pleased with that, given the operational challenges during the year. Probably the standout performer from a business point of view, has been the domestic gaming business, the resilience of that business, particularly when we're at alert level one in New Zealand. As noted in the presentation, FY21 group EBITDA was well up on FY20, 25.5% up, and around 83% of the FY19 like-for-like comparative. Look, a pretty good result given the operating environment and disruptions that we had, in particular, the long period of lockdown in Auckland and a significant period at Level 2 as well.
Clearly, an immediate priority for me as CEO has been to refresh our strategic plan, implement new management structure, bed down the team, and in addition, navigating through the uncertainty of COVID-19. To this end, I'm delighted to have secured some key management appointments over the period, and in particular, Julie, who commenced as CFO in May 2021. It certainly feels like longer than that for me, and I'm sure it does the same for herself. And Callum and David, we've two very strong and capable operators who've been with SkyCity for a long period of time. Recently, we announced the appointment of Nirupa George as Chief Corporate Affairs Officer. Look, really feeling good about the team that I have in place, leading the business forward. Obviously, during the year, key component was Adelaide expansion.
Opened on time, on budget in December, in a pretty challenging environment when it opened. A really exciting milestone for the organization, completing that project. It's now a world-class integrated resort or integrated entertainment facility. It's performed pretty well since we've opened, albeit that performance has been curtailed more recently by the closure in late July in this current financial year. On the NZICC and Horizon Hotel project in Auckland, reinstatement is progressing post the fire, a bit slower than we expected. We have a program, an updated and actually a comprehensive program from Fletchers that delivers both of those now in 2024. As has been well-documented, we've had to respond to the AUSTRAC enforcement investigation in Adelaide and managed heightened expectations from regulators across all our jurisdictions, both from a host responsibility and AML compliance, and I'll discuss this later in the presentation.
Look, I'd also highlight, look, our balance sheet is in a really strong position, I'll leave Julie to walk you through that in due course. I'm now going to ask Julie to make some more detailed comments around the FY21 Financial Performance, then I'll come back and update on group strategy, our strategic initiatives, and some matters relating to ESG. I'll hand over to you now, Julie.
Ngā mihi , Michael, tena koutou, good day to everyone listening in. It is great to be able to speak with you today on the Financial Performance of our SkyCity Entertainment Group. As Michael has already shared, we're quite happy with the FY21 financial performance, particularly given the challenges that our business has faced during the year. Of course, this includes our Auckland properties being closed for 29 days and spending quite some time operating within tight restrictions. Also Adelaide having around six months of restricted working due to COVID-19 operating levels in South Australia. You can see the full scale of the COVID-19 impact on our operations in the FY21 Investor Presentation that we shared with you.
Obviously it's quite pleasing for us to have been able to navigate through the FY21 challenges so well, and let's face it, based on where we are today, this is our new normal. It is important that we continue to embed our management of COVID-19 into our daily operations and decisions. With that in mind, I wanted to share that one of the reasons behind our resilient performance in FY21 has been our ability to constantly review and refine our operations, to ensure that we continue to maximize the value that is available to us for the things in our control. Of course, closely manage those things that are not in our control, and so that we can minimize those downside threats. I will speak later, as Michael said, about the financial resilience of the group.
Before I speak more about FY 2021 financial performance, I did want to acknowledge that we are also very mindful that while it has not been an easy year for us, it has also not been an easy year for you as our shareholders. I did want to take this opportunity as well to thank you all for staying with us and engaging with us through this period. It is important to us that you see the same pathway that we see to enable you to also make well-informed decisions. The engagements that we've had will, of course, continue into FY 2022. Coming back to the presentation. As you will see from the presentation that we shared, and our core business, which is our domestic gaming, has performed well in FY 2021.
This is particularly our gaming machines, which in Auckland are about 5% up on a like-for-like basis with FY19. This, of course, gives us some comfort as well over the effectiveness of our post-COVID operating model that we have in place. For Auckland, overall gaming revenue was up 11% on the prior year, and you will see from the presentation that our casino has been able to progressively bounce back quickly from lockdowns and respond quite well to the restricted working conditions. As you'll appreciate, this has not been easy for our frontline team, huge credit to them for their personal and professional resilience throughout the year. When we've been open, the visitation in New Zealand has been quite impressive. We are very happy to have been able to continue to provide a great experience to our customers despite some of these restrictions.
You will see this through new products that we have in Auckland and Hamilton. Of course, our premium customers have been able to enjoy our new VIP facilities in Auckland as well. Clearly with borders closed or closely controlled, the tourism parts of our business, including the Sky Tower, have continued to be quite negatively impacted. Our Auckland hotel's profitability is around 30% below last year and around 50% below our FY 2019 levels. This is not a great performance for us, but it is also really good to see that Kiwis are taking the opportunity for staycations and treating themselves. There are certainly days when we are at full occupancy in our hotels. If I move to food and beverage and New Zealand outlets, overall, they are broadly at EBITDA breakeven for FY 2021.
I want to reinforce that while that is not in itself ideal when we look at it in isolation, we do have an integrated business model in the Auckland precinct. Our hotels and our food and beverage offerings remain very important to us as they further enhance the end-to-end experience for the customers. During FY 2021, a key focus for us was to be able to financially sustain our non-gaming business segments in order to retain this important value proposition for our customers. These non-gaming aspects of our business really do complement our casino operations. Moving on to Hamilton. Michael's already mentioned it, but this business has really shone through in FY 2021.
We've seen a 24% increase in revenue against the prior year, and we're all very happy with the level of consistent growth that our team in Hamilton has managed to secure for the group. Either through the operational performance and the changes that we've made to the floor, but also capitalizing on the growth in the Waikato regions. Similarly, for Queenstown, as a key international tourist destination that clearly suffers when borders are closed, our team in Queenstown managed to capitalize on the local and domestic tourism that is available, and they have delivered a 10% increase in revenue against the prior years. Moving on to Australia, we are all very proud of our Adelaide offering and what the team in South Australia have managed to achieve.
Many of you will not have had the chance to see our property yet, but I have, and I can say it's quite impressive. The growth and the financial performance in FY21 was strong, with revenue about 50% up on a like-for-like basis when compared to the pre-expansion levels. EBITDA margins in FY21 reaching around 20%. This is all despite some quite prolonged operating restrictions due to COVID. The Adelaide team have successfully completed the expansion project on time and on schedule. Since opening, we have continued to fine-tune the property, including refining the post-COVID operating model there. Of course, ensuring the successful opening of the car park. This trajectory is really pleasing to see for us, and we do feel confident that our guidance on post-expansion EBITDA does continue to hold true for Adelaide.
Staying with Australia, our international business is of course based from there, and it won't surprise you to see the significant impact from the closure of the international borders, from the volatility around interstate travel, and of course, limitations across the trans-Tasman bubble. The IB team are really focused on this and clearly looking at cost optimization across this time. They're also taking the opportunity to further strengthen the processes and practices of this part of the business for us. If I move on to the online business, you now have, for the first time, seeing a full year of financial performance, which again, continues to highlight that this reinforces our belief in the value from this channel. The SkyCity brands and the great product offerings that we have on our online casino have really been key enablers for this performance.
It is certainly good to have an online alternative for New Zealand customers when our land-based casinos are in lockdown. Given the volatility of the past couple of years due to COVID restrictions, we continue to measure ourselves and our performance against the full year 2019 baseline. We remain very focused to exceeding these performance levels as quickly as possible. As you will see from the graphs that we shared with you, we do still have a gap, quite a significant gap, which we are very focused on, but we do see a credible pathway to achieve this, even while we are navigating through our current COVID lockdowns. Finally, before I hand back to Michael to talk about group strategy and CEO priorities, I did want to speak about cost. Cost continues to be a key measure of operational efficiency for us.
You will recall that we managed to take out some NZD 40 million of fixed costs in response to our initial COVID lockdown. Of that, we have brought back around 25% of that into the business to support our opening hours. I also wanted to highlight that on the back of it, of course, there's pressure on spend from inflation around labor costs and other pressures that are coming to us and many other businesses across New Zealand and Australia on the back of the COVID economy. It is an area that we will continue to remain vigilant in order to ensure that we continue to optimize our spend across both operating cost and capital cost, and of course, as a key value lever to our operational excellence pillars. Michael, back over to you to talk a bit more about the group strategy and your priorities. Thanks.
Thank you, Julie. Look, our refreshed group strategy was announced at the time of the interim results, and as flagged, prioritize the focus on the core business, executing the major projects in Adelaide and Auckland, and delivering on the omnichannel opportunity and efficient allocation of capital. I'm pleased to say, look, we've made progress during FY21 against those priorities. Specifically, I'd call out the ongoing management of COVID-19, and the operating environment, and we've seen the measures that we've put in place and how we've dealt with it has allowed positive local gaming activity when we are open. We've seen the benefits of those new assets that we invested in, particularly if I think of the VIP areas in Auckland as an example, or some of the investment that we've made in upgrading Hamilton gaming floor, seeing that work well.
Cost execution, as Julie mentioned, cost execution is at the heart of driving operational excellence, and that's been executed quite well over the course of the year. The Adelaide expansion completed on time and on budget. Now the car park now online and been integrated. Getting beyond COVID and getting that property now, realizing the benefits that we know it can is absolutely our key focus as we move forward. In relation to working with Fletchers, NZICC and Horizon Projects, look, we have received a comprehensive plan from Fletchers, probably the most comprehensive plan we've had for a long time on that project. We now expect the completion of the Horizon Hotel in early 2024 and NZICC at the end of 2024.
There is significant work taking place on the ground with well over 300 workers on site every day, or well up to moving to level four, we had that level of workers on site every day. We remain comfortable with our contractual position with Fletchers. It was really positive to receive and secure the long stop extension from the New Zealand government. That has been now extended out to December 2027. Our intention is to get this finished in 2024, it is good to have that long stop extension up our sleeve. We do not have any change to the expected total project cost from a SkyCity's perspective to the around NZD 750 million guidance that we have had now for quite some time.
In relation to our online casino, I think the year and the performance has been very encouraging and certainly if I think back to when we looked at the original business case for this, way ahead of any expectations we had two years back from when we were looking at this initially. NZD 9 million EBITDA, 45,000 customers, it's been a really positive feature, I think, of our results. A lot of work goes on with GiG and actually making sure we have a very high-quality product. For example, we have about 1,600 games live, and they're very actively renewed. We are very conscious about complying with the regulation that does exist in New Zealand, and the restrictions around marketing, whereas anybody else, the other offshore operators that are operating in New Zealand, we don't believe are largely complying with those.
Our position is the same.
Big hurt for us as well. On that note, I'm going to hand back to Michael, who's going to give more of an update on the current trading situation and outlook for full year 2022. Thanks, Michael.
Yes. Look, in regards to recent trading, look, the local business in New Zealand, up to the recent closure, was performing really strongly with trends consistent with what we saw in the fourth quarter. Really positive local gaming activity with EGM performance continuing to be really resilient, and the Hamilton and Queenstown businesses performing well. Even our non-gaming business actually had come out of the blocks pretty positively, benefiting from strong domestic tourism and weekend holiday activity. Negligible IB and interstate activity due to border closures as you'd imagine. With Adelaide, look, Adelaide has reopened in a staged manner with the restrictions on capacity and social distancing requirements. Performance is gradually improving post the reopening. Online, performing consistently with the PCP, and as you can imagine, we've seen an uplift in activity since the New Zealand properties closed on August 17th
In terms of outlook, however, given where we're at with Auckland and our New Zealand business is currently shut, and the change of operating circumstances and uncertainty we have on the very near-term outlook on COVID-19, we're unable to provide earnings guidance for FY22 at this time. Look, it remains under constant review. With that, I'm just going to pause us here, and I'm going to hand over to the operator for Q&A.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speaker phone, please pick-up the handset to ask your question. As a reminder, we ask that questions are kept at one to two per question and to re-register if you have any follow-up questions. Your first question comes from Larry Gandler with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Michael, Julie, thanks for taking the questions. Good morning.
Morning, Larry.
Okay. How you doing? Thanks. Michael, first question on the Is2, on the Horizon Hotel, that delay seems quite extensive. My understanding was the project is already topped off and you're working on the inside. Can you just maybe give us some of the steps that remain to complete the project?
Yeah. Look, the issue there, Larry, is that the infrastructure is integrated to the NZICC, and particularly the roof. All of the infrastructure sits on top of the roof. You cannot operate it effectively without that in place. When they've done the detailed project planning and they looked at a variety of different ways, was there another way around it, the only logical path was to go on the original plan. That's pushed out the timeline to early 2024, unfortunately.
Okay, understood. Thanks. Next question on AML. You mentioned, I think, a review was completed in New Zealand in May. I'm just wondering if you can contrast the New Zealand approach to the Australian approach. One of the areas that we analysts are concerned about is source of funds and the diligence required there in Australia versus New Zealand. Just wondering if you can contrast the two countries and how they're approaching it.
I wouldn't say there's any significant difference, really. There's some minor technicalities in difference in relation to the requirements. Our approach is to take the higher standard. We're doing a lot of work in Adelaide, as you can imagine, at the moment. Where we see a higher standard, we will apply that.
Okay. It seems like the higher standard is you'll get a declaration of source of funds and some evidence to that. I think that's the approach Crown is taking.
Yes, that's right. Now, there's obviously different thresholds. Depends on where you apply that threshold, but yeah. No, that's the approach.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Desmond Tsao with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi, Michael, Julie. Thanks for taking my questions. My first question is just on slide 12. As you highlighted, very impressive trends through Adelaide since the expansion completed. Just keen to hear your thoughts just around, I guess, a bit more detail around EGMs and as well as the non-gaming trends on that chart. Then I see also you've put a comment there that you've taken about 9% share of the EGM market there. Keen to also hear your thoughts as to whether there's an aspirational target in mind as to the percentage of share you could potentially get in that market over time.
Look, what I would say in relation to EGMs, we're reasonably pleased with the early progress that we've made in EGMs in the half. I would characterize it. It's a market that's growing rapidly. I think the growth in the final quarter for the market was about 20%. It's a market that's growing really rapidly, which is a good thing, and that's been driven by the adoption of bill acceptors. Our product has gone down pretty well locally with VIPs. Look, with the car park coming online, we see plenty of upside there. In terms of aspiration, double digits. We definitely have double-digit aspiration in the long term. I can see no reason why we're not getting into 11%, 12% market share.
In relation to the non-gaming, maybe I'll get David to comment on if he had anything else to add to the EGMs and anything else, if he wanted to add something in relation to non-gaming. Obviously, the Eos Hotel is a very large part of that. David, did you want to make any remarks there?
Thank you, Michael Ahearne. If I could just make one comment about EGMs. We're actually growing 3 x the rate of the pubs and clubs in Q3 and four. As Michael Ahearne indicated, the whole market's growing just above 20%, which is probably also due to banknote acceptors or no doubt due to banknote acceptors coming online. With EGMs, too, we've been operating with 1,030 gaming machines. As of September, we'll be going up to our full complement of 1,080. We've got another 50 machines coming online in our expanded VIP space. We're hoping that that, combined with the car park and easier access, will give us stronger growth as we get back to the double-digit market share that Michael Ahearne just alluded to. With regard to non-gaming, the primary benefit at the moment of non-gaming has been in some of our bars and also Eos.
Of course, Eos, we have great trouble at the moment because the borders with New South Wales and Victoria have shut several times during the year and are currently both shut, and they're our core source markets for Eos. However, we are making sure that we actually market the product locally, and we're getting very high occupancy on weekends and yielding very strongly. We're getting an average daily rate just over NZD 500 on Friday and Saturday nights now. We're still very bullish about Eos as well. As the warmer months come on, I'm sure our bars are going to do significantly well as well. Thanks, Michael.
Thanks for the additional color. Second question, just on slide 23, the near-term strategic priorities. Are these, I guess firstly in order of priority and then maybe focusing a bit more on the second point, just returning to FY19 level earnings. I appreciate there's obviously uncertainty with the current lockdowns, but can you perhaps give us a sense for when you think you could potentially get back to those levels? Is FY23 realistic? If I just look at your FY19 earnings, I think there was NZD 40 million out of EBITDA from VIP. To the extent that that potentially comes back, how should we think about the pace at which you could, I guess, get back to those levels? Should we think of online casinos providing offset, or should we think that you guys could return to that sort of earnings profile for VIP?
Yeah, sure. Look, the first question, they're not really in any order. They're all pretty important. Getting back to the 2019 earnings, look, the reality was if we weren't locked down, if we didn't have a lockdown and we were open for the full year in Auckland, we would have been pretty confident we'd get back to that FY 2019 earnings in the year that we're in. That's how I'd answer that question without any meaningful IB business.
Okay, got it. Thanks, Michael.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Sacha Krien with Evans & Partners. Please go ahead.
Morning, Michael and Julie. I've just got a question on your covenants. There's a comment in the presentation saying you've got sufficient headroom because of this amber testing period. Just wondering if you can clarify whether that includes a scenario where you're shut in New Zealand for the whole of the half. Secondly, you've mentioned you're discussing options around FY22 covenants. I guess I'm wondering if you can provide any sort of color on at what point you're going to need to talk about potential capital raisings, or is that pretty much off the agenda?
Why don't I hand over to Julie on that question.
Thanks, Sacha. Thank you for the question. It probably won't surprise you, our stress testing of our covenants is very comprehensive, and I would say it's probably much more comprehensive than the worst case scenarios that you might be running as well. In that regard, we do think that we have quite a bit of opportunity and headroom before we have to be looking externally or looking at equity raising. That is largely because of the work we've done over the last 12 and 18 months to get us to this position. We have modeled quite prolonged lockdowns, and of course, the bit that's missing for us, which will become maybe a bit clearer over the next couple of weeks, is the length of a lockdown, but also what a Level 2 might look like for us.
We do believe that it's not going to be exactly the same as the Level 2 that we've experienced before, so it is important we get that information as well. The other thing we're looking at before we look externally is, of course, our own resources and what we might be able to do to cover some of this off as one of our pathways. It is a little bit early, but at this stage, I do think that we have a bit of time before we are having to take any sort of form of very serious action. Over the next few weeks, as I mentioned, we'll get a lot more clarity on what New Zealand lockdown looks like. Thanks, Sacha.
Okay. That's all for thank you. Just my second question very quickly, just on Adelaide car park margins. It looks like they're about 16.5% in the second half. Just wondering how you're thinking about those going forward and medium term, noting you've got some car park costs coming in.
Look, we're thinking about the 20% mark. That's about where we're thinking Adelaide should be in a normal sort of operating environment.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from David Fabris with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Michael. Good morning, Julie. I've just got a couple of questions. Just, can we flush out those comments you made around the cost control. How should we be thinking about margin expansion versus pre-COVID levels in the New Zealand domestic businesses, please?
I'll get maybe Callum or Julie to help. The changes, if you look at the operating model, the changes we've made are largely a combination of labor and how we use labor resource, how we open and operate, the opening hours we run, and marketing costs. They're the major areas of costs and we've seen us be pretty effective there. When we look forward, we do have some cost pressures coming against that, particularly in the labor cost side, and we've recently announced that we're moving to a sustainable wage for our frontline employees. We think we'll be able to offset, or at least partially offset that with some price rises in food and beverage and some other measures as well. Maybe I might get either Julie or Callum to make any other comment on that.
Thanks, Michael. It's Callum here. Look, absolutely as Michael has described, there are new operating models across all of our New Zealand operations. Without repeating what Michael has said, those areas remain a key focus for us as we move forward, even when we get hopefully back into a post-COVID world. It's unlikely that we would go back to operating our businesses in exactly the same way as we did pre-COVID. Then overlaying that obviously is that revenue growth from our higher margin businesses. As you've seen, significant strength in the local EGM market, then certainly as the likes of hotels bounce back and the Sky Tower, which are both high margin businesses, that will help us maintain the margins that we're at despite, as Michael points out, cost pressures escalating.
Got you. Appreciate that. Just a second question from me. On slide 31 in the pack, you talk about progressing sales of certain non-core assets. Can we maybe talk about the level of proceeds you might receive from these sales and possibly the timing, please?
Maybe Julie, did you want to cover that?
Thanks, Michael. We have a couple of assets that you would have seen, probably even last year, that have been for sale, and we're just finalizing those two assets. That's Little Mindil, which is the land that's in Darwin, and our LPL business here. The sale proceeds from that is an alignment with what I think we disclosed last time, which is in total for both of them, around NZD 13 million. On the back of that as well, of course, we are constantly looking across our portfolio of assets, the non-core assets, to look at opportunities to see whether they stay within our strategy or whether we should be divesting those as well.
That's a process that is ongoing as a part of a review of our investment properties, but also as a review of our potential OpCo/PropCo type discussions that we're having. Thanks, David.
Yeah. Great. Can I just flesh out that answer there just around the OpCo/PropCo? Can you sort of let us know the thought process there? Because I was of the understanding that OpCo/PropCo wasn't as attractive in New Zealand given tax complications.
Thanks, David. Yes, actually, we are looking at OpCo/PropCo, but it is something that we look at constantly, and I think we've had a lot of conversation about it before, that we will look at this in terms of what the opportunities there are. Of our investment assets, apologies, our investment assets. For our casinos, it is a bit more difficult because we do have two licenses that we need to be mindful of. It is just part of the strategy of where we could release some value that way.
Okay, great. Appreciate the answer.
Yeah, great. That's not something we're seeing as a priority right now. That's more of a midterm review we're looking at. Thanks.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Adrian Allbon with Jarden. Please go ahead.
Oh, good afternoon, team. Just first question, I'm just wondering maybe, perhaps either Michael or Callum, just wondering if you could kind of give us your thoughts on how you sort of see the reopening path for the New Zealand properties. I think there's mandatory COVID-19 app tracing and what you sort of foresee or what you're planning for on the vaccination type front.
Look, I'll cover that off. Certainly, mandatory COVID entry will be a requirement. That is a requirement or was a requirement Alert Level 2 in the past. I think that I'm very supportive of that. I don't think that makes any difference to us. I think it's a benefit. We're doing a lot of work on incentivizing our employees to become vaccinated. I think that's something, a course of direction of, I think all businesses in the future. I think we mentioned earlier on Alert Level 2. There may be some changes to Alert Level 2, what that looks like, may be a little bit different to what it was before. That's still to be worked through. I think there's a little bit of movement there. Look, I think we're waiting to see what government is doing here.
What we do know is we see the resilience of our customers, and every time we go to reopen, it's our VIP customers that come back, and we've really good mechanisms of protecting those customers. That's obviously a substantial part of our local businesses. We'll be doing that again.
Okay, that's great. Just second question, just on slide 41 where you have a breakout of Auckland, and you compare your AGM revenue versus FY 2019 comparative. Are you able to give us like or can you give us a breakdown of visitation versus the improvements you made versus spend?
Well, I'll get maybe Callum. Do you want to sort of give a bit of color on gaming machines and what we've been doing there?
Sure. Thanks, Michael, and thanks for the question, Adrian. Look, obviously they're challenging years to compare, just given the bouncing around of alert levels that we faced, particularly in the Auckland property versus Hamilton and Queenstown during the FY21 year. There's been significant work done both on intra-floor layouts but obviously also the new VIP room. One of the decisions we made under Alert Level 3, when construction could continue on-site, was to push forward with VIP room completion and also the completion of Flare and Food Republic on the main gaming floor. Obviously having the new Black and Ultra rooms available just pre-Christmas was a significant benefit. We've seen still good new product coming out of suppliers in that space. Obviously, a resilient economy is a backbone to it.
To Michael's point, we're very much focused out of each alert level change of having a VIP-led recovery. Before we've worried about the mass market, ensuring that VIPs have felt safe and well communicated with to come back. Thanks, Adrian.
Adrian, just Ben Kay here. In terms of your question around that 5% growth at AGMs in FY 2021 versus the FY 2019 comparative, the like-for-like adjustment there is effectively just adjusting the trading days because obviously we were closed for 29 days in FY 2021.
Due to the fire. Excuse me. It's just aligning like for like in terms of opening days, in terms of that comparison.
Okay, understood.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Justin Barratt with CLSA. Please go ahead. Justin, your line is live. Please go ahead.
Sorry, have you got me now? I think you do. Apologies.
Yeah.
Thanks for your time today. I just wanted to ask, in relation to the NZICC, Michael, I know you made a couple of comments, and apologies, my line has had a few issues today. Could you mention, is the construction there continuing through this current lockdown? If not, if the lockdown does continue for an extended period, could completion of that site be delayed even further?
At Level 4, it's not progressing. No construction can happen at Level 4. At Level 3, construction can go ahead. There's no construction there at the minute. Yeah, look, an extended lockdown obviously would play into the program there. We'll wait and see. Hopefully, this lockdown isn't too long. There is contingency in such as programs. There's built-in contingency generally in it. Obviously a short lockdown could be absorbed, but a longer would be potentially more challenging.
Great. Thanks very much for that. Just quickly, on your online casino, I was just wondering if you could provide a little bit more commentary there. I just note that you've had pretty steady increases in customer registration throughout FY 2021, and you note that you've got stable ARPU. You sort of note also that it's going to be quite challenging to improve on FY 2021 performance. I just wanted to try and reconcile that sort of commentary there.
Yeah. Look, the reality with our online business, and think of any digital business, and online casinos or online gaming is no different. Really, the engine of growth is marketing, and we're not marketing. We've effectively organic customer acquisition, which is really based on the strength of SkyCity's brand. We're not conducting CRM activity to reactivate customers that don't participate. Effectively that is an artificial hamstring, but we are taking a conservative approach there. Really we're at the organic mercy of what consumers are doing. Hence, why we need regulation here, that we've a level playing field.
Great. Thank you very much for that. Really appreciate it.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Chelsea Leadbetter with Forsyth Barr. Please go ahead.
All right. Hi, team. I guess maybe coming back to one of the questions that got touched on earlier around cost inflation and margin outlook, and so on. I'm just interested, maybe if I focus on kind of New Zealand properties. Obviously, it's been a really strong result for margin expansion. I appreciate some of this or a good portion of this is due to mix around EGM performance. I guess what I'm trying to understand is how I should or how we should be thinking about the margin outlook from here. There's a lot of moving pieces, I appreciate that. Just more on a sort of a medium-term basis. The levels in Hamilton, as an example, is that an abnormal level that we should expect to come back at some point to sort of pre-COVID levels?
Are you suggesting that there is a sustainable long-term benefit here still?
Yeah. Look, I'll answer it. It's complicated because it depends on how far out you go. You've got things coming in there that are beneficial from a margin point of view, hotel recovery, tower, as examples. NZICC will be a low margin business and that'll be dilutive. I think of it, if you go back to FY 2019, and I look forward from there, the initiatives that we've put in place overall should help our margin on a continuous basis, on an ongoing basis, even though there's things offsetting there as well. I see that we've structurally improved our margin from FY 2019 as a result of the changes we've made to the operating model. Giving exact numbers in the future is really difficult to do.
Yep. Okay. No, that's clear. Thank you. Just second question. You speak a bit in the presentation about capital discipline. It's been a consistent thematic through the last few presentations. I'm just interested in your views on kind of optimal capital structure. Clearly trying to think a little bit beyond COVID here in terms of what gearing range you think is appropriate for the business and those type of drivers.
Maybe I'll get Julie to comment on that question.
No, thanks. Thanks, Chelsea, for the question. It's an interesting one because the gearing we have a clear target for our gearing that we want to work within, it really does depend on some of the more strategic decisions that we make around that as well. I don't think our expectation or our targets from that perspective, I think we'll see some going through situations like lockdowns. Of course, you see some short-term changes coming through. Overall, what we have already positioned as our expectations around that are not changing substantially from there. No changes in the pipeline for that.
Okay. Just to be clear, have you published that target? Or are you prepared to talk about that publicly?
Chelsea, just to be clear, what we've said publicly in the past is our long run target for gearing is between 2 x and 2.5 x in terms of net debt to EBITDA, in terms of optimizing our capital structure. That's obviously what Julie Amey's referring to then in terms of no material change to that being our long run target. Bearing in mind, obviously, we've got a BBB- credit rating with S&P, which sets an upper limit of 3 x net debt to EBITDA. Particularly that upper limit is more applicable when we're going through periods of high capital intensity. A long run target for gearing around 2x- 2.5 x is how we view as being optimal.
Great. Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Marcus Curley with UBS. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. I just wondered if I could ask David Christian a question on Adelaide and just understand the importance and the strategy behind the car park availability in the next 12 months.
David, I'll let you answer that directly.
Thanks, Michael, and thanks, Marcus. Yeah. We've got 750 bays in the car park, which is a total of almost 1,550 bays. We are at the moment have very strong take-up with our membership base. We've still got plenty of opportunity with non-members, which we are promoting to. We're taking the attitude at the moment that we have a very low threshold to earn free parking. We want to get people used to parking, know it's there, and activate it. It was really only open to us a few weeks before we shut down. Unfortunately, post-shutdown, we are seeing significant decline in CBD visitation. My understanding from the government as recent as only last week was CBD visitation is only sitting at about 50% of what it was pre-COVID, so 18 months ago.
There's still plenty of upside with people coming back into the city with the car park. With 750 bays, we are absolutely making sure that we can fill them as often as possible. Lots of upside from the car park to come. Does that answer your question, Marcus, or would you like some more detail?
Just to be clear, David, if you think in a normal operating environment, how much of the NZD 750 would be available for the public?
Probably 300-400 of those, which obviously we would prefer to be public coming into our building. There's another 750 on top of that for the public as well.
Sure. What's the minimum spend to get free car parking?
At the moment, what we're doing is the minimum spend on gaming is really only one reward point, so it's really only NZD 1. In the food and beverage areas, we're also keeping it very low at the moment to basically just anybody who visits and spends in the restaurants.
Marcus, you can see that the initial strategy is to drive awareness of the car parking facility, and then all of those thresholds will be reviewed and up. Look, I think there's a lot of capacity, not only the 750 spaces that we have direct access to, but the other spaces are available to the public as well. We really haven't seen any benefit of the car park yet. That's all upside. That's how we think of it in relation to Adelaide.
Great. Secondly, just a quick one. What's the current thinking behind you taking the wage subsidy scheme in New Zealand under the current lockdown?
Look, we haven't made any decision on that yet, Marcus. That will be something we'll consider with the board in due course.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Rohan Sundram with MST Financial. Please go ahead.
Afternoon, Michael and Julie. Just a couple from me. Firstly, Michael, I was wondering if you would be able to just share a bit more insight into the DIA review outcome. I take it it's no surprise, but was the feedback consistent with previous reviews in terms of, say, you guys keep doing what you're doing, or are there new items that the DIA is making you look at on this occasion?
Is this the DIA review into online, or are you referring to the AML review?
Into the AML. Sorry, Michael.
Into AML. Look, I think we've a pretty open process with the DIA on improvement on not only AML but also host responsibility. It was a keep doing what we're doing, and there was actually one recommendation on an area that we've refined and improved. Yeah, that's how I'd describe continuous improvement process that we're working collaboratively together on. Okay.
Thanks, Michael. Last one, just a quick one for Julie. Sorry if I've already missed this, but can I just confirm the AML response cost that you're provisioning for, are you planning to expense that? Will that, or won't that be in the corporate cost guidance?
We don't have any provision in full year 2021 for cost, just to be clear. What we are expecting is our outlook for year 2022 that we will have costs. It'll be an expense coming through with maybe a little bit of CapEx for maybe some systems work we will do, but it is largely an expense we'll pick up for year 2022.
Understood. Thanks, Julie.
Thanks.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Wade Gardiner with Craigs Investment Partners. Please go ahead.
Hi there. A couple of questions from me. You've talked about the impact of the current lockdown being NZD 1 million per day. That's under Level 4. Can you give us a bit of color on what you would expect at, say, Level 3 and Level 2? I know you're talking about Level 2 looking different to what it was before, but maybe using that past experience as a proxy.
Look, I can sort of maybe give a high-level cover. Julie, do you want to take that?
Well, just yeah. Our rule of thumb around that, Alert Level 3, we're actually shut down as well. Level 4 and Alert Level 3 are the same. For Alert Level 2, we look at around 50%. Conservatively, we would say it's 50%.
NZD half a million a day.
That is the profitability hurt.
Yeah. 50% versus the Level 1 equivalent, Wade, in terms of what we would expect to earn at Level 1. Level 2 would be sort of 50% of that as a proxy.
Okay. Another question, just following up on the question on online earlier. If I go to slide 13, am I reading that slide right? On the right-hand side, you've got active customers going up quite consistently, yet on the left-hand side, the gaming revenue is essentially flat. Is the left-hand actually an ARPU, or does that just mean that there's a core group of customers who are gaming and the additional that you're taking on is not really having an increase in revenue?
What I would say is that your active customer, that's a cumulative growth there, and you will have customers over time that actually aren't as active as they were in the past. That's a feature. What you're seeing on the left-hand side is just the monthly average revenue in the business.
Right. It does look like there's this core at the beginning that is driving most of the revenue or the average spend per person is actually therefore dropping over time.
Yeah. You have the churn factor with the customers as well. You remember we're only in business here for a short period of time here as well. Ben Kay, did you want to give some color there? You probably put these slides together.
No, look, the chart on the right-hand side is essentially the cumulative actives Wade has identified. The chart on the left-hand side is obviously the actual kind of gross gaming revenue. As some of those customers are active, but some of them obviously do churn, right? There isn't a direct correlation between the cumulative actives and obviously what translates into revenue on a per customer basis. I'm happy to kind of dust it up with you in more detail offline, if that's going to be helpful.
Okay, cool. Thank you.
Thank you. We have reached our allocated time for questions. I'll now hand back to Mr. Ahearne for closing remarks.
Look, in closing, I'd like to firstly thank everyone in the investment community, our shareholders and the analyst group for your support over the past year. That's been really encouraging. Look, I'd finish as I started. While there's many challenges, I think given what you've seen and we've seen in the business in the year and the strength of our balance sheet, we feel confident as we look forward. Of course, over the next week or so, look forward to the engagements that we'll be having with our shareholders over the coming weeks ahead. Thank you all.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.