Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Vector Limited's conference call and webcast to discuss the company's financial and operational results for the half year ended 31 December 2025. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation, followed by a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I must advise you that this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to hand over to Vector's Chair, Doug McKay, who will take you through the call. Please go ahead, Doug.
Thank you. Tēnā koutou katoa. Hello, everyone, and welcome to this presentation. I'm Doug McKay, Vector's Chair. Today, we're going through Vector's results briefing for the half year ended 31 December 2025. Joining me on the call for the first time as our Group Chief Executive is Chris Blenkiron. Pleased to have you here, Chris. We have Chief Financial Officer Jason Hollingworth. We'll start the presentation with comments from Chris on overall financial performance, then Jason will look at the detail. Chris will then talk about the outlook for the next six months, and then I will come back to talk about the dividend. After that, we'll be happy to take your questions, and I'll now hand over to Chris to start the presentation
Thank you, Doug. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining the call. It's great to be speaking with you for my first market update since joining Vector in December. I'll start off by setting the context for these results. The new regulatory period, known as DPP4, began on the first of April 2025. At this time, the Commerce Commission increased allowable revenue for all electricity distribution businesses in New Zealand. The changes support the investment that's needed for the country's energy transition. Also, keep in mind that the gray bars on the slides show the impact of businesses that have now been sold, and continuing operations are shown in blue. This is to allow for easy year-on-year comparison. With that background in mind, I'll talk through some of the top-line results. Vector's group financial performance for this half year has been strong and in line with our expectations.
Revenue for Vector Group is up 14%, driven by higher electricity revenue. Higher revenue has flowed through to an increase in Adjusted EBITDA to NZD 240 million. This is up 19% over the same period in 2024. Adjusted EBITDA excludes capital contributions, which are paid by new customers for their connections to the network, and is how we currently ensure that growth pays for growth rather than costs of growth being spread across all Auckland electricity consumers. Net profit after tax was NZD 113 million, down 4%, with the higher Adjusted EBITDA offset by lower capital contributions. Gross capital expenditure was NZD 223 million, down 15% on the prior period. However, we do expect capital expenditure to be higher in the second half of the year than it was in the first.
In terms of regulatory quality measures, we include SAIDI minutes in our quarterly operating statistics, which were released last month. SAIDI is how electricity distribution businesses are measured by the Commerce Commission for the duration of power outages on their networks over a year. At this stage in the regulatory year, which finishes at the end of March, we are within the regulatory limit. Our focus is on making sure every dollar we spend produces the best value possible, and keeping our charges, which are around a quarter of the total power bill, as affordable as we can. I'll now hand over to Jason to go over the detail behind these top-line results.
Thank you, Chris. This slide shows the segment contributions towards the adjusted EBITDA figure. Adjusted EBITDA from the electricity segment was up NZD 48 million, reflecting that HY26 was under DPP4 and HY25 was under DPP3. Earnings for gas were flat on the prior period. Other includes VTS, Vector Fibre, Equalise, which offers cyber services to other lines companies, and our group eliminations. It also includes a NZD 9.3 million loss on sale from HRV, effective on first of August 2025. This next slide, net profit after tax was down NZD 5 million or 4%. This is down on the prior period, with the higher adjusted EBITDA being offset by the factors shown on this slide, including lower capital contributions, fair value movements on financial instruments, and tax.
Gross capital expenditure has decreased from the comparable 2024 period to NZD 223 million, and you can see here some of the detail. Net CapEx, after deducting capital contributions, was down at NZD 126 million. Capital contributions were down at NZD 97 million. The slide on group debt shows that our debt levels have remained flat, with gearing at 37%. The next slide, we now look at the segment performance, starting with electricity. Adjusted EBITDA for electricity was higher, as previously mentioned. The higher impact from pass-through costs is a transmission charge as we collect on behalf of Transpower. These have increased because of Transpower's own revenue reset that repriced transmission at the same time as distribution. We pass transmission costs on and recover them via our revenues.
There are also higher OpEx costs in the period, linked to increased maintenance activity and also higher digital costs. Total electricity connection numbers grew by 1.3%. Looking at gas, adjusted EBITDA for gas distribution was flat at NZD 24 million. There was slightly higher revenue in the period, offset by slightly higher costs. Gas distribution volume was down 4.5% compared to the prior period, due to lower demand from the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors. There has been a 0.4% in total gas connections over the period. These results are consistent with our most recent forecasts for the gas network, which were published last year in our Gas Asset Management Plan. We have recently submitted on the Commerce Commission's DPP4 Draft Gas Decision.
This is the five-year reset for gas distribution networks, with the Commerce Commission's final decision due in May 2026. We welcome the Commerce Commission's intention to continue to accelerate depreciation, given the heightened uncertainty over the long-term nature of gas in New Zealand. Given the difficulty in accurately forecasting gas volumes for the next five years, which is a fundamental input into setting a price cap, our submission advocates for a move away from a price cap to approach that would share volume forecast risks between both the network owners and consumers. The Commerce Commission is still considering its final decision, so we don't yet know what this will mean for consumer prices. Pipeline costs are just one component of a gas bill, however. Most forecasts show that over the long term, these will rise.
That's why we're advocating for a managed transition and making sure we recover costs fairly now. This also means keeping the gas network safe and reliable while it's still in use, and planning for decommissioning when these pipes reach the end of their life. Next slide looks at Bluecurrent. Our investment in Bluecurrent continues to outperform in line with our expectations. Year-on-year, Bluecurrent has increased its revenue, resulting in higher EBITDA, and this is flowing through to higher distributions. In this period, we received NZD 26.6 million of distributions in relation to our 50% shareholding. I'll now hand back to Chris.
Thanks, Jason. For the 2026 full year results, we are forecasting Adjusted EBITDA to be within our guidance range of NZD 470 million-NZD 490 million. We are now forecasting gross capital expenditure within the range of NZD 500 million-NZD 540 million. This forecast represents an increase over our full year 2025 capital investment, and at around NZD 500 million, shows our commitment to significant investment in Auckland's critical energy infrastructure. We're forecasting capital contributions within the range of NZD 180 million-NZD 215 million for the full year. We've tightened the ranges for gross capital expenditure and capital contributions because we now have greater visibility of project timelines through to the end of the reporting period.
Thank you to all of the Vector people, our field partners and suppliers, who work incredibly hard for our customers and who delivered these results. We know that for our energy system to be at its best and most affordable, the whole sector needs to coordinate well and work in concert with each other. We're committed to doing this to support the region's role in our national economy and to help our country meet our energy aspirations. I'll now hand back to Doug.
Thank you, Chris and Jason. The board has determined an interim dividend of NZD 0.125 per share with no imputation. Now, that brings us to the end of our presentation, but just before we move to questions, I'd like to thank Chris and his executive team, and everyone else at Vector, plus our field service providers and call center, for their hard work over the period to deliver for Vector customers and shareholders. Chris, Jason, and I are now happy to take any questions.
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 speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Grant Lowe with Jarden. Please proceed.
Oh, hi, team. Can you hear me okay?
We can, Grant. Yep.
Oh, great. Thank you for the presentation and, welcome, Chris. Just around, a few for me, the electricity business was a beat on my numbers at both revenue and EBITDA, so I think the revenue was up circa 28%, which is a touch higher than the mark uplift that I was expecting. Were there any sort of one-offs in that result in terms of inflation catch-up and the like that we've seen in the past?
Yeah, Grant, there is still a wash-up balance that we were able to recover in this period, so that is in there as well. That's coming to an end 'cause it, you know, has a two-year lag.
Yeah. Okay. And do you have that number to hand as to roughly how much that was?
I don't have it to hand, but I can look it up and get it to you, yeah.
Okay. That's great, thank you. Okay, now that's good. And then, just the... So the guidance has been held, and we've also got that NZD 9.3 million loss in there. With guidance being held, was that guidance already factoring in the NZD 9.3 million loss and the wash-up balance that, yeah, going into that number when you set the guidance at, at the full year?
Look, I think to be honest, probably not, Grant, so I think we're at the probably higher end of that number. That loss turned up after we set that guidance, so... Yep.
Yeah, okay.
But it's drop this in there, yeah.
Yeah, so the wash-up balance was probably 9, that's calculable. But effectively, is this effectively a NZD 9.3 million upgrade to the guidance range?
I think we're at the top end of that guidance. It puts us at the top end of that guidance. We're now saying, you know, it would have been at the top end of the guidance. We've held the range, but I think if we hadn't had the HRV situation, we would have probably been guiding to the top end of the range rather than sort of leaving the range as it is.
Yeah, okay. I guess, okay, no, that's useful. And then just around the dividend payout, it was a touch lower than I had in my forecast. I was forecasting 13 versus your 12.5. Appreciate it's a free cash flow measure, but obviously, if we just think about the EBITDA for a second, you know, that's up quite materially. How did the board go about thinking about setting the 1H dividend, and then, you know, what are the sort of swing factors around for the full year, given what we might expect to see there?
Yeah, it's good, it's a good question. To be honest, we didn't pay any attention to, and we haven't with the interim, in terms of its percentage relative to the 70% of the policy. And I understand from Jason this morning, it's lower than that.
For the half result.
For the half result.
The half-
Yeah, we don't look at the half-
Yeah
- in that respect. It's the full year that we will pay consideration to the 70% minimum. So,-
Yeah
- we don't have any reason to think we won't be, you know, well within the range at the year end. Look, part of the, part of the decision-making was what was it last year in the interim, and what should it be this year, given EBITDA is strong, as you say. And so we uplifted it by NZD 0.005, and we sort of thought, well, that's a good indication of how confident we feel about the way things are tracking. But if you looked at it strictly versus the policy, but we don't think about the half year in that respect, we could have gone a bit higher, but no, we haven't.
Okay. So I guess, I mean, my full year is, you know, NZD 27 versus the NZD 25 last year, based on a free cash flow calculation. I guess what I'm hearing is that, yep, it was a touch low on the free cash flow side of things. If everything sort of plays out, you know, with respect to guidance and everything else, you know, would it be reasonable to assume that there is a slightly stronger uplift in the second half, if everything plays out according to plan?
If everything plays out, yes, it will. Yeah. I wouldn't necessarily agree with you, the 27, but you're at the top end of what I'm thinking of as chairman anyway. I'm not speaking for the board at the moment, but we'll see.
Sure. Sure. Okay, yeah, indeed. And then last one for me. Just, I think last year you'd provided guidance on Bluecurrent distributions. Do you have any thoughts on that? I see we've got the half year figure of NZD 26.6. Do you have a full year figure in mind?
We do have a number. I don't have it on hand, but you could see the year-on-year sort of increase for Bluecurrent, for, you know, period-on-period. So I think that we expect that to continue into the second half. So I think last period, we got NZD 23.4 million. This period, we're getting NZD 26.6 million, so an uplift. So I expect that to continue as they continue to deploy meters.
Yeah. Okay. No, that's great. Thank you very much.
Thanks for your questions. Very good.
Your next question comes from Andrew Harvey-Green with Forsyth Barr. Please go ahead.
Morning, Doug, Chris, and Jason. Just a couple of questions from me. First one, just looking at the electricity OpEx line, there was a reasonable increase, I guess, relative to first half last year, but even relative to the second half last year. Is that should we be thinking, is that the sort of the normal half year run rate for OpEx on electricity going forward, or are there some sort of one-offs in there that might pull it back for the second half and later periods?
I think there are some one-offs in that, Andrew. I don't think it's necessarily coming down, but I don't think it's gonna keep lifting at that rate. There has been, I guess, an increase in our maintenance spend in this half that's probably gonna continue, with some change in standards and just some extra activity that we've been doing. We also have a couple of large projects underway that have to be, under these new accounting rules, now have to actually be expensed rather than capitalized. So our digital costs are sort of running at a higher rate, which I think is probably gonna continue while these projects are occurring. So, yeah. But it's mainly those two areas that are causing that increase.
Maintenance spend, which is gonna continue, and this lumpy digital spend around a couple of key projects that are cloud-based and therefore have to be expensed.
Yep. Yep. Okay, just a follow-on question around the metering. I noticed, I think, that that's been refinanced, so you've got expecting lower interest costs going forward. All other things being equal, we should expect that to help increase distributions back to Vector from the metering.
Yep, they've refinanced at lower interest rates. Their impact number is lower because they've had to write off their arrangement fees from that original facility, but sort of that's non-cash, if you like. So the actual underlying cash flow is better 'cause they've got lower interest rates, I think, by circa 30 basis points from memory, so it's a reasonable reduction.
Yep. Okay, cool. Last question from me was just whether we've got a little bit of an update on the strategic review of the fibre business.
Good thing.
Yeah, Andrew, no real update. That process continues. And just a reminder that, you know, there's no guarantee that the outcome of that strategic review would result in a sale, but the process does continue.
Okay, great. Thank you. That's all from me.
Thanks, Andrew.
Your next question comes from Phil Campbell with UBS. Please go ahead.
Yeah, morning, everyone. Just, just a couple from me as well. I just noticed in the half year cash flow statement, looked as though there was some kind of positive working capital movement. So that was one of the reasons why, you know, if you did do a dividend payout ratio calculation, it was a little bit lower. I'm assuming there's just timing issues around that, Jason, and that will probably reverse in the second half?
Yeah, that's right. There's nothing there that I'm aware of that's, yeah, that's structural. So I think it's timing, yeah.
And then just on the dividend, coming back to this kind of NZD 0.27, I think we've got that in our model as well, and we're assuming that the payout ratio declines from last year. I think from last year, from memory, it was 85%, so we've got that coming down. Just wanted to see if that was still the thinking. I think the rationale at the last result was just some uncertainty around what EA is doing in terms of those capital contributions. I just wanted to check if that was still the thinking from the board.
Yeah, it'll be lower than 85% this time around.
Phil, I think last year-
Got you. That's good.
Don't lock that in because that was a sort of one-off to do with sort of transitioning from, you know, DPP3 to DPP4, and the fact we only had a quarter in our results. So I think we said, "Look, we're paying up at this level," but it's not a... Don't backbake that into your future numbers then.
Mm-hmm. Mm. And maybe just a question on CapEx. Obviously, like, it was a bit weaker in the first half, and obviously you've tightened the range up in the full year, still, still a large number. Is... What's the kind of reason for the CapEx number kind of coming down?
Yeah, Phil, there's a couple of reasons. I mean, one is some customer projects were sort of pushed out. It's always difficult with these lumpy capital projects, as you'd know, to get the timing right. So a few of those have been pushed further out, and that's probably the primary reason. So we do have some confidence going in the second half that that runway will certainly pick up.
Is that, is that data centers or you can't really comment?
We can't comment on the specific projects, but there's a number of them.
And then maybe this last question for me on metering. Noticed that Neil Williams has left as CEO. I'm just wondering if there's any reason for that and whether, you know, you've recruited a new CEO for Bluecurrent?
Not yet. We haven't recruited yet. The Bluecurrent board is managing that process, and we have two representatives on that board looking after our interests, Dame Paula Rebstock and Simon McKenzie. They're in the process of working with a headhunter now to find the right replacement.
Great. Awesome. I just noticed, you may not know the answer to this question, but I just noticed in the IFR, there was obviously one of the Bluecurrent competitors, I think, potentially a transaction happening there. Just wondering if there's any valuation read-through that you might wanna comment on.
Are you talking Plus ES?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, well, look, I can't quote the numbers, but I did remember thinking their expectations on value looked very, very high, but I didn't do a, an earnings multiple or anything. It just... I think it was NZD 3 billion or something. It was a massive number.
Mm.
So, um-
Yeah.
Obviously, we're trying to, you know, be involved in that process. We're interested strategically in increasing our participation in that market, increasing our number of meters, but we'll just have to see how that plays out. If people are at that sort of number, that's a very big number.
Right. And then maybe just very, very last one, just on the Fibre process. Is there any kind of timetable there? You know, when you say we're not no guaranteed of sales, is there any, you know, time when bids are due or where about are we in that process?
There is a timetable, Phil, and, yeah, I think we'll know by year end, you know, whether we've got a transaction or not, and I guess we won't quite know when it completes. It'll depend on what the terms and conditions are, but we'll certainly have, I think, landed a decision by 30 June, one way or the other.
Okay. Great. Awesome. Thank you.
Thanks, Phil.
Your next question comes from Stephen Hudson with Macquarie Equities. Please go ahead.
Oh, morning, everybody, and welcome, Chris. All of my questions have actually been posed, but perhaps just a general one for you, Chris. I know it's early days, but I guess I just... And I know we'll be meeting with you, I believe, the first of March, as a community, but any sort of initial observations on the state of Vector in terms of assets, people, and strategic direction, and you know, where you may, I suppose, differ from sort of the prior thinking, I guess?
Yeah, sure. I mean, Simon's left a very strong and good business operating here, Stephen. We've got some very strong people in the right roles doing some really good work. In fact, I think some of the credit that we all get to keeping the lights on and the infrastructure going in Auckland is probably something that we should get. It's in a strong state. In terms of the strategic direction, I've not contemplated any change of strategic direction. The Symphony strategy remains, you know, as focused as it has. I think what we'll continue to do is an ongoing test against, you know, the external environment, whether that's the customer side, the regulatory settings, decarbonization pace, technical, we'll continue to test those settings.
But my focus at the moment is absolutely on sort of disciplined execution on the work that we're doing, as we go into the second half. But it's great to join a great business in really strong shape.
Very good. Thanks, Chris, and look forward to catching up.
Yeah, looking forward to it. Thanks, Stephen.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Grant Lowe with Jarden. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi, team. Another one from me. Just around the meters rollout in Australia, obviously, the regulatory bodies over there have, not sure exactly what the terminology is, but effectively mandated 100% penetration by 2030. Is there any sort of commentary you can give around Bluecurrent in terms of either contract signed or, you know, thoughts around the level of participation in that rollout at this stage?
I don't have any updates, Grant, other than we had a board meeting here yesterday, and Paula was telling me that things are tracking as they had indicated they would be, the Bluecurrent board. So there's no surprises there. There's incremental increases in our metering network. We don't, you know, we haven't had any acquisitions of packages of meters or anything like that in this period, so it's all organic at this point in time, and it's steady.
Yeah, okay. How do you just generally, like, for the market as a whole, how do you see that rollout playing out? Like, obviously, you know, there was a big contract signed here, you know, for the rollout in New Zealand. Is it a similar sort of a process? Is that what you're expecting over the next wee while, and you're sort of actively participating-
Yes.
in those discussions?
Yes. Those contracts tend to be quite long term. So, you know, once you settle into them, you've got a good tenure there mostly. You're not sort of, you know, every year or two into another process on those same contracts. They require a lot of capital investment. They require a lot of systems and process changing, changes and interactions. So, they, it doesn't move around a lot. Once you land them, it's a reasonably settled market.
Yeah. I guess the question I'm sort of asking is, I think, you know, rough guess, there was sort of 5 million meters to go or something. You might tell me that's wrong. But, you know, like, how many... Do you expect to see sort of like, you know, million, a 1 million meters contract for a, a rollout of a 1 million meters signed in big chunks like that? Is that kind of how you expect this to play out?
The retailers typically bundle them up into, you know, reasonably large blocks, Grant, and then sort of tender them out.
Yeah.
We have contracts in place with, you know, the existing retailers, and there are still some contracts being let, but we have a number already under contract. It's competitive, though, as you'd imagine. Telstra, Plus ES are the other two big players, and, you know, these retailers are sort of good at, you know, getting the, getting a sharp price out of, out of the market. So that's it. So we've got a number of already under contract that we're executing on. New Zealand's deployed, so there's not so much going on here. It's really an Australian growth sort of situation, and once you've won those contracts, you still have to execute on them, right?
So there's always the risk that if you don't deliver, because there's a lot of competition for field service people to install all these meters. So it's not... You know, it's one thing is to win the contract, then you've actually got to execute on it. And, you know, we're very sort of mindful of that because you, the opportunity potentially to pick up some extra work if you're the party that's executing well. And, yeah, we're seeing a bit of that going on at the moment as well over there, where some others potentially aren't quite performing.
These contract package sizes are often in the order of 200,000-300,000 m.
That's right.
Yeah. Okay. That is useful. Thank you very much.
There are no further questions. I'd now like to hand it over back to Doug for closing remarks.
Okay, thank you. If there aren't any further questions, we'll end the teleconference and the webcast. If analysts and investors have further questions, please feel free to contact Jason. For the media, please contact Matt Britton, or call our usual media phone number. Thank you, everyone, for joining us.