Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your first speaker today, Mr. Grant Webster. Thank you. Please go ahead.
Brilliant. Thanks, Desmond. Well, thanks everybody for attending, and welcome. This is a great opportunity for us to present what we see as a momentous result for THL. I'm joined here today by Luke Trouchet, Nick Judd, Amir Ansari, Steven Hall, and Nick Foss as well. So the process for today, we're gonna go through the results at a high level. We know that you can read all the numbers, but they will take some explanation. We won't present every slide that we sent out this morning, so the webcast does have an abbreviated version. There'll be the standard opportunity to have questions at the end, and then we're gonna do something a little bit different.
For those that want to stay, we're gonna have Steven Hall work through the review of all the purchase price accounting adjustments, 'cause there are a number of interesting points through all of that. And then we can have another Q&A session at the end of that for those who want to as well. But to kick off, I'd like to say a huge thank you to all of the THL crew across the globe, who created this very special result, and in particular, those that have pulled this together from the finance team and the rest of the teams. We've got a incredibly complex result, as you know, and I think it's been very, very well presented. And we've got an excellent annual report, integrated report as well, for you to, to work through.
So, we actually have five different numbers that we're dealing with when we're talking about the report, but the stat figure is the obvious one, NZD 49.9 million. That's obviously the one that we should be focused on from a reporting perspective, but we also have the pro forma numbers that we're interested in as well, and we'll break those down as well. And that ranging from that NZD 77 million through to the NZD 80.1 million and excluding the acquisition costs. The disclaimer, we don't really need to go into any detail, so we'll move into the executive summary. So, as I mentioned with those five numbers, we'll leave that to Nick Judd to talk about shortly, and he can go through those in detail. But that statutory number is NZD 52 million up on the prior year.
We are resuming dividends at that NZD 0.15 per share for the full year, so that's just over the 40% payout ratio, obviously within the new range of 40%-60%, and Nick will cover off that new policy as well. There were record results in most areas of the business, and we'll cover those from a division perspective. Return on funds employed is a critical metric for us here at THL, and with a result of close to 16%, we see that as very impressive in what is still a recovery year. You've got to remember that FY 2024 is the first full year of Apollo and THL combined. We are inherently positive about our opportunities for growth in FY 2024 and beyond. We'll cover that more in the outlook detail later on in the presentation.
But now I'll hand over to Nick to provide us with the financial overview. Thanks, Nick.
Thanks, Grant, and good afternoon and good morning to all on the call. As Grant has touched on, there are many numbers that we have presented this year, so that hopefully you'll be able to understand our result, and you can get a sense of how well we've delivered against historic trends. I thought it would be useful taking some time to talk through these in a bit more detail, as even for someone who likes numbers like myself, this is definitely an overload. The first number is the stat number, which includes 7 months of Apollo results in the 12 months of Apollo results. Pretty straightforward. The second number is the underlying profit numbers, which include the impact of the acquisition accounting, and this is also presented on a pro forma basis, which is the third set of numbers.
These two sets of numbers will form the basis of the underlying comparatives, which we will use to compare against next year. Numbers four and five are similar to these numbers, but they are a comparison to guidance which was provided in February and reaffirmed in May. They exclude the impact of the acquisition accounting, which the numbers were not known at the time when the guidance was set. I will talk more about the actual numbers shortly. However, I would now like to touch on some of the huge number of highlights that we have achieved this year. To run through this slide would take all the call and more, but it truly has been a transformational year for THL. The merger with Apollo saw us not only list on the ASX, but achieve the highest market capitalization in THL's history.
It was not the only significant acquisition, with the remaining 51% Just go also being acquired, along with the addition of Transcold and Fairfax to Action Manufacturing. The merged entity delivered a record underlying net profit result when compared with both companies' combined historical performance. There are many other highlights across the business, as we made progress on synergies, integration, digital initiatives, our Future-F it goals, and continued key streams of work to build back better as a business from the pandemic. So moving back to the numbers, and starting with the statutory number. There were a number of one-off items that we have adjusted for in our underlying performance for the year. We obviously spent more than we hoped in getting the merger completed, with an additional NZD 5.8 million in costs for THL in FY 2023.
This was offset by a tax benefit from the recognition of some transaction expenses that had been reclassed from non-deductible to deductible. There were one-off revaluations of the original holdings Just go and Apollo, which were recognized at the half year. A similar revaluation for the tranche two shares that we received from Camplify 12 months after completion of the sale of Mighway and Share a Camper. Once these were all taken into account, we ended up with an underlying number of NZD 47.8 million, which we'll talk further about on the next slide. On a 12-month pro forma basis, this includes the five months of separate Apollo trading, or including, sorry, the five months of our separate Apollo trading, our underlying NPAT was NZD 77.1 million. Again, this includes the acquisition accounting impact.
However, I do need to point out that within this number, there were two impacts of accounting adjustments to the pro forma from the half year results. Firstly, an incorrect exchange rate was used to translate the Apollo five-month earnings into NZD, and this has the impact of adding an additional NZD 1.2 million to the five months' earning. Secondly, the 51% of the Just go result for July-September was not captured. The 49% that we owned already was included through equity accounting, but the other 51% added an additional NZD 0.9 million to the pro forma numbers. It is important to note that we are comfortably within guidance, irrespective of these inclusions. Moving to the comparison to profit guidance slide.
This shows the reconciliation of the underlying numbers to the guidance numbers we gave previously, with the key change being the removal of acquisition accounting adjustments that we had to make in relation to the fair value of Apollo assets. Our guidance numbers did not include this impact at the time, as we had not started the work on revaluing the assets. Steven Hall, who will be known to many of you, has been leading this project and has done a great job of working through the many elements. He will talk more about these adjustments after the Q&A is finished, for those that want to stay on the call, to understand this further.
The impact of these acquisition adjustments was a NZD 4 million decrease to NPAT, which, when backed out, gives us a merged company underlying comparison to guidance of 51.8 million, compared with the guidance of above 48 million. Or, on a pro forma basis, including the five months of standalone Apollo trading, 81.1 million, after including the impact of the accounting adjustments previously mentioned, versus the guidance of above 75 million. As I mentioned, these numbers are obviously to give confidence to the market that we achieved our guidance, but they, they will not be numbers that we use in go-forward presentations. Skipping to the dividend slide. We're very happy to be in a position to start repaying dividends to our shareholders, and we thank those of you that have stuck with us through the last few COVID and COVID-impacted years.
We will pay a NZD 0.15 dividend, which represents the full dividend for FY 2023, as no interim dividend was paid. This totals around NZD 30 million, pre the Dividend Reinvestment Plan. The key dates are outlined on this page, and it will be imputed at 100% for New Zealand shareholders and franked to 25%. We will also be offering a DRP for participating shareholders with a discount of 2%. The payout is in line with the updated dividend policy, which targets a payout range of 40%-60% of underlying net profit after tax. This lower rate reflects our fleet regrowth that needs to be undertaken, among other factors.
Our future dividends will be split 30%, 70% between interim and final dividends, which complements the significant spend we incur in the second half of our financial year, as we purchase fleet for the Northern Hemisphere summer season. Moving on to capital expenditure for the year, and it's really pleasing to be able to show that we are well and truly back into fleet growth mode. A significant step-up in gross capital expenditure occurred in FY 2023, and this will continue as Grant will touch on further, shortly. Proceeds from fleet sales held to similar levels as strong margins continued throughout all regions across most of the year. We expect that net CapEx will be in line with this year's number. Now, turning to our funding arrangements.
We've continued to invest reasonable time into our funding arrangements as we look to simplify and decrease lender margins wherever we see opportunities. We recently concluded the refinancing of our syndicated bank facility with a step-up in support from ANZ and Westpac, our long-term lenders, to a NZD 250 million facility. We're very thankful to them for the strong support that they have provided to the merged entity. Pleasingly, also after year-end, we've removed another four smaller lenders and the last of the COVID loans that was associated with our UK business. We certainly enjoy taking out any reminder of COVID from our business. Our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio has come back significantly across the year, as you would expect, with the strong EBITDA growth we have delivered.
We are certainly not immune from higher interest rates, but we are laser-focused on using every opportunity to reduce rates where we can, and are now set up to be more selective as we refleet, to ensure an optimized cost of funding. Our effective interest rate has decreased, as we have utilized more of the syndicate bank funding, where our line fee is incurred. But the comparison in this slide does not really do justice to the overall lower rate that we now incur for Apollo debt that was acquired through the merger. We are well on track with the synergy expectations for this area, which are included in the cash synergy target. This provides a good lead-in to the integration and synergy slides. We continue to make good progress against all synergy areas, as evidenced by the table included in the presentation. We are ahead of expectations.
Previously, we expected implementation costs and synergies to be a wash in FY 2023, but we have delivered a net NZD 2 million cash benefit. There are a couple of key items that I would like to call attention to.... All properties are now consolidated. We still have a couple of leases to exit, but we are making good progress with this and ahead of initial expectations. All fleets are now being sold through our retail networks in Australia, and RFPs are underway in key spending categories and will be concluded in coming months. In addition, there are two areas that we've done further work on.
We've sized the North American fleet synergy, and we expect that this will kick off into FY 2024, with financial benefits of $1 million-$1.5 million, showing from FY 2025, and an expectation that this number will grow meaningfully over time as the new fleet plans flow through. Brisbane Manufacturing is now part of the Action Manufacturing fold, and we have started considering what further opportunities this may bring. As a result of this change, we may be slightly slower to deliver the bill of material synergies, but we believe that this will deliver further certainty around the achievement of this target. We have included a slide on our synergy tracking methodology, which we have presented previously.
It is important that stakeholders understand that the further we will get from when the baseline was set, the harder the tracking becomes because the counterfactual has become less and less relevant, especially in an inflationary environment. Board and management seek to get confidence about how we are tracking to our targets using three measurements. One, we calculate the actual synergy savings where we can, e.g., property costs. Two, we will look at key metrics and other P&L indicators where costs may be variable related, e.g., tire cost per hire day, et cetera. And three, we will look at our bottom-line NPAT results and forecasts.
The third of these will become more and more important as we go through FY 2024, because our tracking against many of the synergy buckets becomes less and less effectual, and our NPAT numbers will provide the best guide to achievement as we go forward. I'll now pass back to Grant to talk through some of the latest trends we are seeing in key areas and regions.
Thank you. Thanks, Nick. Right, let's get under the hood and talk about the rental yields trends. So the rental yield performance has been a key part of our recent stories, and it's probably the most queried area of our performance from an analyst and investor perspective, and indeed media as well. Likewise, as it is for you, it's clearly a high priority for us on a weekly basis within the business, for the revenue managers, the chief operating officers, and obviously all the relevant execs as well. We feel this focus is providing rewards today, and it will do for some time to come. We also know that the majority of the improvements come from the shoulder and lead time management, as opposed to just increasing high season pricing.
We know that eventually we will see some declines, but we've had no indication that pre-COVID yields will return. No indication. Those days appear past. The chart is illustrative only, and it provides you information as we did in previously providing a similar slide at the Investor Day, that shows you how we see it today. But the key is, within all of this, that we have confidence in where we are, and we have confidence in the future from a yield perspective. Looking at fleet sales margins. If yields were the number one area of commentary, then sales margins is probably number two. And importantly, the trends here are in line, again, with our expectations. There is two focal points that we have been talking about: margin dollars and margin percentage.
With the higher cost vehicles, we do expect margin dollars to be higher than historical as we return over time to historical margin percentages. The North American situation in particular, we'll discuss shortly. The key for vehicle sales right at the moment is that volumes on a global basis have, in total, remained broadly in line with the expectations, but again, North America's an element that we need to talk about in some detail, where volume is starting to decline to some degree in the market. And globally, we are seeing RV market has declined, which you can see in all the public reporting of the RV market on a global basis. Margin dollars will fall as fleet renewal pushes through over the coming 2-4 years.
We are depreciating our vehicles appropriately, and Steve will discuss the approach that's been taken from a fleet perspective when it comes to those accounting adjustments after the Q&A session. It's a key item in those adjustments. Looking at our global fleet position, we are up around 550 vehicles. The focal point here, again, we'll talk about North America, is you can see the graph there, if you look at 2019, FY 2019, did have the Apollo vehicles in there, which were divested at the start of COVID. So there are a few key points when it comes to fleet. The first is that shortages from both a supply and shipping perspective have continued, so we do have a lower starting point than what we anticipated. The second is the North American situation, where we are being more conservative.
This all relates to our expectations for FY 2025, where previously we'd stated we would be around 10,000 vehicles, and we now dropped that by 500 to 9,500. So as I said, the first point around that's the shortage in shipping, the second is North America, where we're being more - a little bit more conservative, and then the rest of the market, it's staying in line with where we thought we would be. So again, that's only a 5% reduction in fleet, and overall for us, it's really important that we ensure that supply stays slightly behind demand, and that we maintain that opportunity from a yield perspective. We're still a long way from what you would call as normal or the pre-COVID levels, and we still see that there is definitely growth opportunities moving forward. Let's talk about the North American sales market.
So in May, we stated that we were in a late season, and we expected a deferment, not a loss in sales. The reaction to that news, in my personal view, was overly cautious. Ultimately, the USA market did achieve our expectations. Canada did, however, fall short, but within that, we did put 100 vehicles in Canada back into the rental fleet to maximize the demand that we saw in late bookings, which has continued right through this high season, and indeed has driven a record result from a rentals perspective in Canada. Since that time, yes, we have seen demand for new motorized decline. Yes, we know that demand for new towable has also been down, but used is not as severely impacted.
The largest issue that we see in the market is still that dealers have full lots with new towable product and some new motorized products. But we continue to drive volume broadly in line with our expectations. Yes, on the downside, but certainly not severely. What I'd also remind everyone, that we do have a very young fleet age in North America. We can be flexible with our model. And the long-term trend in North America, in our view, still remains exceptionally positive. When you think about the macroeconomic challenges, we've still seen a lot of people review the market and tourism in general, and ask the question: What are those impacts, both from an economic perspective and an inflation perspective? There's three key messages that we'd reinforce and deliver. The first is that tourism is definitely remaining resilient. People want to travel.
They're clearly forgoing other items of expenditure so that they can take their short-haul or long-haul trip, and we do see long-term demand remaining positive in tourism. The second is, yes, absolutely, costs are increasing, as Nick talked about, but we do see in our business that we have the synergies to deliver, and that is clearly an item that is different to both other industries and other players within the tourism industry. So for us, it's certainly a balancing item when it comes to cost increases. And the third for us is that we do have fleet increases ahead of us and a strong yield situation for rentals. We expect fleet growth. That's gonna increase our earnings and increase our optionality. And as we said before, we do see yields broadly being stronger than what they've been historically.
So despite that economic climate, we are inherently positive about the broad outlook for this business. We're gonna skip over the responsible management slides that were in the core business and the divisional performance summaries. So you can look at those at your own time, and we'll move on to the divisional performance overall. Firstly, return on funds employed. Again, an area that you've Just got to watch how this has been calculated based on the average funds and the pro forma results, but you can look at the details. It's all on the footnotes and clearly explained. The reality is, we're very pleased with the New Zealand and Australia results, who've delivered record ROFE results. The tourism business, a reminder that it's a low capital requirement for us.
It's the highest ROFE in the business and represents that incredibly strong operating leverage and overhead leverage that we have in the business. So as international tourism returns, we see that business just improving. That's an incredible result with over 60% ROFE. USA, Canada, and the UK all reflect different challenges, but challenges that we've had in fleet supply, including, and really importantly, the late delivery of fleet for the calendar year 2022 peak season. That had an impact of reducing peak earnings, but also increased the funds employed for holding that incremental fleet over the winter period. We also, in that first half, had to have a holdback on sales in some areas because of that inherent uncertainty that we had in sales... And, fleet supply, sorry.
Action Manufacturing also delivered a very positive return on funds result, and we expect that ROFE to improve moving forward as supply chains normalize, and we can get back to a more lean approach to stock holdings, and as we work through the additional stock that was held due to the relocation of motorhome manufacturing from Albany to Hamilton. Let's quickly go through the divisional results. Have a look at New Zealand to start with. So I want to discuss these on a 12-month pro forma basis, so that we can get a reasonable comparative and understanding. So for New Zealand, that NZD 52 million turnaround in EBIT shows the ongoing potential in this business. Vehicle sales were down 36%, but that was us, again, holding fleet for rentals in a challenging supply environment.
That's certainly reinforced by the average margin per unit, which was still over NZD 30 thousand. Fleet growth of 391 is quite simply not enough, and we would have preferred to have more, and we would have preferred to have more for this summer as well. It will take a few years for us to reach those pre-COVID combined levels... Demand in this market remains strong, and whilst, yes, yields will drop at some point in the future, we're certainly seeing still strong results for the business today. New Zealand still has great growth options as well. A simple example is the opening of the Palmerston North location, and other regional opportunities that may sit in front of us as well. Similarly, in Australia, a pro forma EBIT of AUD 50 million, up AUD 43 million, is a very impressive EBIT result.
Rental recovery was great, 150% up with good yields. We are certainly going to look at the way that we report the Australian segment, and we will look in the future to have rentals, retail, and manufacturing reported separately. But for now, they are all as one. Margins have remained positive in this business, and they've been managed very effectively across each market. Manufacturing volumes were positive and produced around 20% more than the prior year, again, at good margins. And with Action combining with the Brisbane factory, we see that there are great opportunities for further synergies than we had originally expected, and just efficiency of the way that the businesses operate, and definitely some good product development opportunities into the future as well. We see lots of growth opportunities for Australia.
In terms of the USA, we covered the key points around the market and in general, but just a reminder that the FY 2023 results did reflect that shortage of fleet in calendar 2022. That those vehicles arrived late in quarter 2, and again, they were held over winter, which did increase our costs, our depreciation, and interest, and clearly that fleet was underutilized over that period. The peak season for calendar 2023 are up shy of 200 units. Revenue was increasing, but to be honest, not really where we want to be for this business. It's a business that has more potential than what we've realized in the last few years. The market conditions have not been great, but we want to be better than that.
We do realize that this performance, this business performed exceptionally well during COVID, and was indeed our largest profit earner. But we're really gonna watch carefully what happens in calendar 2024. We are gonna be looking for growth, and on top of that, as Nick talked about, we have North American fleet synergies that will start to come to fruition from next year. Moving on to Canada. This is the first time that we've got a detailed report for Canada from a THL perspective. It's an exceptional team up there in Canada, and Luke and the team have managed, over the last few years, that transfer from an owner-operator business to a group-owned international business very, very effectively. They're managing the rental opportunity in Canada exceptionally well. Yields up 20% on pre-COVID, holding market share well from what we can see, and looking for future growth as well.
When you look at the sales market, it is really hard to understand, in the comparative numbers, exactly where we should be. We held sales because of shortages over the last couple years, but what we've seen in just recent times is that we have struggled to get the units through and out, given the rentals demands, and given that, in the US, we've managed to get ahead in some of what was previously CanaDream's customers. We do have an expectation that we're still gonna be able to move the volume that we expect over the coming period, but we'll have to see just exactly how the market responds to that. The season that we've been through from a rentals perspective, has been certainly very positive, and the opportunity in this market is for us to continue to maximize those opportunities while addressing that sales situation.
Long term, it again remains very positive. In the U.K. and Europe, I don't need to go into too much detail, but again, the numbers don't really represent what underpinned a good management performance, or indeed what we expect for the future. What's happened there is a strange situation. It's sort of a combination of what we've seen in other markets. Like the USA, there was a shortage of fleet last summer, and thus, the funds were too high over winter, impacting return on funds. While like in New Zealand, we actually had to hold back sales in H1 to see whether the fleet was actually going to arrive. Like in Canada, the fleet sales are sort of all over the place right at the moment, so not really an indicator of the market.
Like we've talked about in other markets, there's a whole lot going on from an acquisition basis as well. Indeed, the acquisition of the 51%, that was remaining Just go, and the merger of Apollo, and inclusion of Bunk as one, has created a number of areas of change. When we look to the future, however, we see that calendar year 2023 high season is very positive from a rentals perspective, and the supply situation from a fleet perspective is definitely improving, and we see synergies coming into that business over the coming period as well. So growth, rentals growth, and sales recovery alongside synergies is what the future's about in that business. Quickly moving to Action, a very positive year, and which was a challenging one in many, many circumstances.
Supply perspective, factory moves, labor market, inflation pressure, and the activity connected with two acquisitions throughout the period as well. The EBIT pre-eliminations is nearly 70% up, with volume up 48%, so the outlook again remains inherently positive. The non-RV demand remains very strong into calendar 2024, and our outlook is indeed more positive than what it's been, because again, we see that the chassis supply situation is improving over the coming 12 months. RV production is increasing in line with our expectations, and again, a better chase of supply with greater alternatives, giving us a real opportunity... and some real synergistic vertical integration with Transcold and Freighter, and then obviously, the further synergies with Brisbane as the businesses all come together as one.
Tourism, as we've said, a real opportunity for us in this financial year, FY 2024, to get back to those pre-COVID levels and hit around that NZD 12 million EBIT number. It's entirely in sight with what we see from an outlook perspective and airline capacity coming into New Zealand. Low capital requirements, the ROFE for this business, over 60%, which, as we've talked about, EBIT margin in FY 2023, over 25% in a recovery year. It's not a management distraction, this business. We get great connection with the broader tourism industry and have a lot of lessons along the way for the broader business. These businesses are good for THL today. From a group support services perspective, it's fair to say that it's challenging to really assess this at the moment.
There is a chunk of costs which are deeply embedded within the Australian segment, in the way that Apollo's reported them historically. So this gives an indication on a THL to THL comparative kind of a basis, but the reporting in this area will improve moving forward. Let's quickly go to the outlook. So we know what we must do from a business perspective. We must execute on the synergies. We will grow, but we'll grow smartly. We need to be aware of margins, both from a rental yields perspective and sales perspective, and we need to make sure that we deliver on the growth expectations that we have.
In what is an environment that will see vehicle sales margins coming back as expected and clearly indicated, and yields in some time coming back in rentals, balanced by those synergies, fleet growth, and broad market opportunities that we see as a business. So from a THL perspective, we are positive about the broad outlook, and we're exceptionally positive and pleased with the result of the year that's passed. Thank you all very much for your time. We will open up, Desmond, to questions from the group. We can see that there's a few already lined up.
Certainly. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, please press star one one and wait for your name to be announced. To cancel the request, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. First question comes from Kieran Carling from Craigs Investment Partners. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Congratulations on the strong result. First one from me is just around your guidance commentary. Just to get some clarification, and perhaps a little bit of a steer of where we're heading in FY 2024. Would it be reasonable to assume that including the NZD 4.4 million in ATL acquisition costs, you expect underlying NPAT in FY 2024 will come in above the NZD 77.1 million pro forma NPAT delivered in FY 2023?
So there's, there's a couple of things there, Kieran. So we, we haven't provided a guidance number for FY 2024. We've indicated that we'll give more information at the annual meeting, both about FY 2024 in general, not saying that we'll give an exact number, and obviously our, our medium, long-term growth aspirations as well. So, so we're not gonna get drawn into a number for FY 2024. We'll just wait on that. The second point that I'd just probably clarify, the NZD 4.4 million that we've talked about is the purchase price accounting adjustments, as opposed to acquisition costs. To clarify that, and again, Steve will talk through some of the detail behind that, shortly.
Okay, understood. Just on rental yields, you know, looking very strong in Australasia, for the upcoming peak season, can you just provide us with a bit more color on what you're seeing in terms of utilization levels across New Zealand and Aus? Any changes in booking lead times that you're seeing versus pre-COVID levels? And then just perhaps touch on, you know, any visibility you have on yields following sort of February, March next year.
Yeah. So, in terms of utilization, so broadly speaking, we're hitting the kind of utilization numbers that we want to be hitting. We are short of fleet, so clearly as we move into peak periods, that means that we're, you know, we're hitting maximum utilization. Now, that doesn't mean that winter you hit maximum utilization, obviously. So utilization is heading in the right direction. Across USA, Canada and UK, where those vehicles arrived late, clearly, that meant that our utilization over the winter period was lower than what you would have expected if those vehicles had arrived earlier, and we'd been able to sell the vehicles we wanted. So we should see... we will see utilization improvements in those three markets.
From a lead time perspective, we're still not in a clear trend perspective at the moment. What we are seeing is lead times move around a little bit more, yet you get situations like Canada, as we talked about, has had a really strong late booking window for this high season, more than what we expected. So there is no clear trend that we can compare to at this point in time. Things are still moving quite significantly. From a yield perspective, we've given some really good indications, I think, and that goes through to the peak season. It is too soon for us to start speculating on where yields will end up post-February, March 2024 for New Zealand and Australia.
I think the information that we've given there gives you a really good indication on the coming peak seasons for all markets.
... Okay, thanks for that. And then just last one from me, for now. Just in the U.S., on that, on that slide, it references an 11% decline in total fleet sales volumes. And average fleet sales margin was down by $7,000 on the PCP. Can you please explain or talk through how this only results in a sale of goods decline of 3% year-on-year?
You're on the USA slide?
Yes. Yeah, slide 31.
We'll...
Yeah.
Just, I'll just have a look at the numbers that you're talking about in detail, but they certainly should all add up. And maybe we'll come back to that question, Kieran, and open up to some others.
Okay, no problem. Thanks for that.
Thank you for the questions. One moment for the next questions. Our next questions comes from Andy Bowley from Forsyth Barr. Please go ahead.
Thanks, operator. Morning, guys, sorry, afternoon, guys. A couple of questions from me. Just sticking with the rental yields slide for the time being. Keen to get a sense, in terms of the commentary there, we've got growth in Australia, we've got growth in Canada, we've got strong growth in New Zealand. What does strong growth mean, Grant? You've singled New Zealand out. What does it mean? We've, if you look at the line above, we've got, I'd say all of those numbers are strong, and the weakest is 20% up in Canada. But what does strong growth mean for, you know, Q1 to Q3, FY 2024 for New Zealand?
So the main thing there, Andy, is that it's still a timing perspective. So, we sort of said this at the May period, and a little bit at the half as well. Because New Zealand was late or the last market to open from an international border perspective, it didn't have that same growth. So when you're looking at this H1 for FY 2024, we're seeing strong yield growth over last year, because we had only just opened and hadn't really sort of got a handle on where the market was, and what was happening from that perspective. I won't put a number on it, but again, you can look at the relativities.
I'd reinforce the fact that, and probably annoyingly for you guys, there is no indicator of any kind of metric on the axis on that chart. So it is illustrative only, and it is focused on those phases. And yes, New Zealand's still, because of that run rate, situation, still has strong growth into this half in particular, but I won't put a number on it.
But so if we weight the various markets across, from what you can see today, relative to what you've achieved in FY 2023, we should expect, you know, reasonable growth in yields for the year ahead. That... is that a fair assumption?
Yep. Yes, it is. Yep.
Yep. Okay. And you haven't seen any evidence of yield declines in any of the market segments in any of the regions?
No. We've started seeing yields in the U.S. to be in line, and obviously there's the odd period and odd product, and those sorts of things. Where it's come back a little bit, or we've chased utilization a little bit harder, so forth and so on. But no, we haven't seen any inherent large declines or anything of significance.
Okay, good stuff. Just lastly from me, there's a few moving parts in the balance sheet for the year ahead. Where do you see net debt getting to at the end of FY 2024?
The number that we've put in the release.
Could you?
We didn't put a number in the release, Andy.
You did or you didn't?
No, we didn't. Sorry, I'm being facetious. Apologies.
If we gave you that, you'd be able to triangulate earnings with the other data that we've given you. So there's a net CapEx number in there, which has guided to NZD 160 million.
We're not providing a net debt forecast at this point in time, Andy.
Okay, fair enough. Okay, thanks, guys.
Thank you for the questions. Next question comes from-
Just, just one second, Desmond, and I think we'll just come back to Kieran's questions.
Oh, yeah, sorry. Kieran, back to your question regarding why the sale of goods revenue is only down 3%. That's because the cost of fleet are actually higher, so the proceeds per fleet sale stay up, even though the margin has come back proportionately greater than that. So that's just what we've been talking about, about the cost of the vehicles coming through.
Of course. Yeah. Brilliant. Sorry, Desmond, just back to the questions.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Ben Wilson, from Wilsons Advisory. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and, yeah, congratulations, team on, yeah, excellently managing, a complex environment and delivering a strong result. Apologies for all the questions on yields, but just one more one from me, if possible. Just interested, you have talked about the shoulder season, demand, should be structurally higher. So as I understand it, the period between winter and summer and between summer and winter, just wondering how that is playing out or has played out now that we're exiting, the Australasian, winter and the Northern Hemisphere summer. Have you seen, sort of higher bookings and higher yields as expected across the regions?
Yeah. So yields are holding up through those periods. And again, it's both in those periods and through peak as well, that we've talked about the lead time management. So as you know, traditionally, yield curve is very much a curve steepening from, you know, up to 12, 18 months out through to the last minute peak... What we're seeing is that that has remained a lot flatter, and that's, again, shoulders included, it's that early booking yield that is driving a lot of the yield improvement. And that is, as I say, continuing in all markets at those periods of time.
Great. Thank you. And just one slightly more left field question. I noticed on the Maui website, I'm not sure if this is new or not, but I think Maui is available in South Africa. Can you just comment on, is that a sort of a new expansion for you? And if you have any sort of additional regional expansion plans?
Sure. So, there is a company that is a franchise operation only, has no legal ownership at all, Tourism Holdings Rentals South Africa Limited, which has Maui, Britz, and Kea. That has been a relationship that's been in place for well over 25 years. The Kea and Maui relationship joined in 2012. And so they've been around for that long. We have obviously contact with them as part of that franchise operation, but no, no direct financial relationship apart from the franchise fees, which aren't significant at all.
Okay. Great, thank you for that. And then maybe just lastly, in terms of sort of the international versus domestic rental profile, are you seeing any sort of change, I guess, with high cost of living, in terms of international travelers sort of dropping off and more domestic travelers as rental customers or no real changes as yet?
So, as we've continued to A, refleet and start to see that in all markets, and B, hit the sort of the high seasons, we are seeing international growth, and domestic has proportionately obviously become a smaller part of the business again, as you would expect. But domestic, I'd have to check for all markets. I'm pretty sure it is domestic is still running at a higher volume than it did pre-COVID. And so we've benefited from that more broadly as a business. But yes, the greater growth rate is absolutely in international as that recovers.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you for the questions. One moment for the next questions. Next up, we have the line from John O'Shea from Ord Minnett. Your line is now open.
Morning, guys. Can you hear me okay?
Yeah, great. Thanks, John.
Yeah, thanks, and well done on the result. Just a couple from me. Firstly, in relation to the pro forma calculation, as we look at it for 2024, can you just remind me how you've gone about doing the ... I can see at the EBIT level exactly how that pro forma has been put together. In terms of interest, what sort of rate assumptions have you assumed for taking the Apollo earnings in relation to that pro forma period? Is it their previous rates of interest or the THL rates, or how have you gone about that?
Yeah, so that's all actual results, John. That's all the FY 2023 numbers. So we've just carried through the 5 months of the Apollo results. So that's their interest that they incurred from July to November.
Yep.
And then we've put those results obviously into the THL results, which was the 12 months of THL, and obviously additional seven once Apollo became part of the merged entity.
Sure.
So effectively, there's no attribution or allocation there. That is just actual results line by line and combined.
Yeah, I just wanted to check. That's what I thought. So therefore, does that mean that there's potentially some, obviously interest rates have moved upwards, as we know, but on a like-for-like basis, does that mean as you, you know, obviously they're taking your debt facilities on board, that there's potentially some savings obviously there?
Yeah, look, it's hard in this market with how much the base rates have moved.
Yep.
Because their rates are obviously set off benchmark rates in each country. And so, you know, everybody on the call knows how much they've moved over the last probably 12, 18 months. So, we have undoubtedly held our interest rates down in terms of in comparison to the rise that's there. So we haven't increased at the same proportion that base rates have, because we've managed to, adjust some of those rates that Apollo had at the top end. And actually, probably the best, guidance I can give you around that is, if you compare the note we had at half year on the borrowings and the financial statements versus the note we have in the results this time, it gives a good indication of some of the top-end rates that we no longer have anymore, in spite of what's gone on.
You know, as I touched on, even, even for us, the effective interest rate has come down as we've more efficiently used the bank facilities that we have, that were sitting relatively undrawn about a year ago. So yeah, we're continuing to look at how we optimize that. We've got a bit of work to do in that space, so that should drive some benefit back to us. But, but you're right, we're, we're not immune, unfortunately, to those base rate movements that flow through.
Sure. Thank you, mate. That answers that one. The second one was around the CapEx and FY 2024. I note that you have indicated a NZD 30 million spend there outside of the net fleet CapEx. Can you just perhaps give us some more detail on what that is, Craig?
Yeah. The biggest portion of that is, and we haven't got anything concluded yet, but is what we need to do in terms of an Auckland property. You remember nearly three years ago-
Oh, yes.
-that we had the fire, and so, there's a ... That we've got to be out of the temporary site that we're in, in basically about 14 months' time. So, there's a couple of plans underway, nothing that is able to be released yet, but that's an expectation that that'll be in there, which is, it's sort of two-thirds of that amount.
Thank you. And the last one is synergies. You hinted a couple of times about, in a couple of different areas, upside the synergies. How should we kind of think about that? Have I interpreted the way you've been talking about it in the right manner by suggesting that synergies you're providing is a minimum number, and as it stands at the moment, you think there's upside to those numbers? Am I interpreting what you're saying correctly or incorrectly?
So, hard to get drawn too heavily into a number, and look, we'll give, again, a bit of a, bit of an update at the annual meeting. But what we originally stated in our synergy numbers didn't include North American fleet. We've given an indication on North American fleet, which is clearly an upside on that side of things. Likewise, we've said that in the UK, Europe, there is material for that business, but insignificant on a global basis, synergies there, which also weren't in that number. And we've said broadly, we're running ahead. So those are the sort of the indicator points that would be saying around synergies. But we-
Yep
... would caution people not to get too far ahead of themselves, 'cause it's already a big, a big number out there.
Thanks very much, guys. That's all from me, and good job. Thank you.
Thanks, John.
Thank you for the questions. We have new questions from the line of Grant Lowe from Jarden. Your line is now open.
Oh, hi, team. Can you hear me okay?
Yeah, great. Thanks, Grant.
Great. Just a couple of ones for me. Just while you're in the mood to be telling us additional numbers, Grant, is there any guidance on what we think the effective interest rate will be for FY 2024? We say it, it's likely to come down a bit, but any firmer number?
No, look, the, what will continue to happen is obviously with the increased corporate facilities, which now we've got the NZD 250 million, we'll utilize more of that as we, as we go forward. So that brings down the ineffective portion of the line fee, which, which helps out. But, you know, it, it really, it is still challenging just with, as I mentioned, those, those base rates and, and where they sit, so we'll get the flow through of some of that. We also have some fixed rate contracts that roll off, and they'll obviously be replaced. You know, the lowest of those is sitting at 3.2%. I'd love to be able to get a fixed rate back at that level, which we won't be able to.
So, you know, some of the new fleet coming in will come in at higher rates as well. So, yeah, no forecast on that at this stage, Grant, but that's sort of some of the-
Okay.
Yes.
That, that's fine. Can you just remind me, what proportion of your debt is hedged then?
Uh-
Or fixed?
At the moment, I haven't got the number off the top of my head. Let me... Ask me the question, Grant, and I'll come back.
Yeah. Okay, cool. The next one is just around the dividend. I think historically, you had a payout of 75-90, and I appreciate there's a replenishing phase, the lower payout range. But presumably, once we, you know, fast forward three years or so, would it be reasonable to assume a reversion back to that 75%-90% payout?
Look, you, you won't draw us into making conclusions about something that far out. We're certainly, the 40%-60% is what is relevant today. That is the policy that the board has set and approved, and it's the one that you should use as your, your basis for assumptions today. If it was going to be different, we would've, we would've given you a different indication. So 40%-60%, we were sitting today. What I'd just add is that point that we've, we've got the refleet. We obviously still are a growth-oriented company focusing on acquisitions, but also that point around tax efficiency as well. When you look back at it and, you're, you're, you're getting a, a, those proportion of earnings out of North America, coming back and distributing those is essentially a double tax.
So where we should be able to use it for growth, we should use those funds for growth.
Okay. That's understood. If the interest run is, if the... Sorry, the hedged debt, we can follow up on that one, if it's-
Yeah
... easier.
Yeah.
Okay, perfect.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Thanks, team.
Brilliant.
Thank you, Daniel, for the question. At this time, please continue.
Okay, so, Desmond, what I think we'll do is we'll just, as we said for, it doesn't look like there's anyone queuing up for questions immediately. So, we will thank everybody very much, but please remember, we are now gonna stay on the line, and we're gonna have Steven Hall talk through the acquisition accounting methodology and approach, which is the slides that were in the back of the presentation as well. And then we'll have a Q&A on that as well, if you so choose. For those that either aren't interested or feel they've got their head around that completely, well done would be the first point I'd made. But thank you again very, very much for your time.
But we'll hand over to you, Steve, to start to talk us through that. Thank you.
Great. Thanks, Grant. And hello, everyone. I've only got a couple of slides left, so I'll jump straight into it. As part of the acquisition accounting, we've undertaken an exercise to fair value all of Apollo's assets and liabilities. The table on this slide is showing the fair value adjustments that we've made from the carrying values in Apollo's book. I won't read through each of those, but on the next slide, we've outlined which of those adjustments have an impact on operating profit. The two key adjustments are in relation to IFRS 16 and vehicle and vehicle inventory. ... For IFRS 16, we're required to reset the right- of- use asset to be equal to the lease liability as at the acquisition date.
In Apollo's books, the right- of- use asset in relation to the Brisbane factory had previously been written off, so the impact of this adjustment is to increase the right- of- use asset and the depreciation amount that flows through to the P&L. This has an ongoing annualized impact of NZD 2.3 million. The other key adjustment is in relation to vehicle inventory. So for vehicle inventory on hand, as at the acquisition date, we valued them at a mix of wholesale and retail values, which is above the book value. So as those vehicles are being sold, it results in a reduction in the margin that we would have otherwise recognized. The impact of that adjustment in FY 2023 is NZD 2.7 million, and we expect the balance of that will wash out in FY 2024, as outlined in the table.
Finally, it's important to note, also note that the acquisition accounting is still provisional. Under the accounting standard, we've got up to one year to complete the acquisition accounting. We're still undertaking further cash flow analysis to confirm the value and allocation of intangible assets, but the fixed asset values are already finalized and confirmed with the auditors. That brings us to the end of the presentation, so I'll pass back to Desmond and open up for any remaining questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask question, you can press star one one and wait for your name to be announced.
Again, I think, Steve, your clarity on that presentation and what's been included is solved that for everybody, so thank you. Desmond, it doesn't look like anybody's raising their hands. Any other final questions from anyone? Right. Again, thank you very much, everybody, for your time. Really appreciate it. We look forward to catching up with a number of people over the coming week or so, and appreciate your support of THL and the changes that we've been through. Great stuff. Thank you very much, Desmond, for hosting us.
That does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.