Brickworks Limited (BKW) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternnon, ladies and gentleman. And welcome to the Brickworks analyst briefing for the year ended 31 July 2024. With me today is Grant Douglas, our CFO; and Megan Kublins, Executive General Manager of Property and Development. Grant joined Brickworks in 2011 and was appointed CFO in 2022. Among a range of senior positions held over the years, he played a key role in the establishment and growth of our North American operations. Megan has been with the company for 23 years, managing all aspects of our property business. She has been instrumental in establishing and growing the property trust, including fostering the strong relationship we have with Goodman. Before getting started, I'd like to acknowledge and give thanks to Lindsay Partridge, who recently retired as Managing Director after a remarkable 39 years of service to Brickworks, 25 as leader. Lindsay made an extraordinary contribution to the Brickworks into the wider Australian building, construction and housing industry. On a personal note, I'd like to thank Lindsay for the guidance and support he has provided to me since I joined the company as a young graduate 25 years ago. Moving on to today's agenda, I will start by providing an overview of our results and key achievements for the year. I will then provide an overview of performance for our Building Products operations and investments. Megan will provide an update on the property division, and Grant will then take you through the financials in more detail. I will later return to discuss the outlook for Brickworks. We will then be happy to take any questions at the conclusion of the presentation. We continue to make steady progress on improving workplace safety. The total recordable injury rate has decreased to 9.7 in FY '24, down from 10.7 in the prior year. The sustained decrease in injuries has been achieved through disciplined implementation of safety management systems and procedures, together with the behavioral leadership and safety training programs. Across our operations, there were six lost time injuries during the year, one in Australia, in line with the prior year and five in North America, down from 10 last year. The improvement in injury rates across North American operations is particularly pleasing. This continues to be a key focus as we seek to ensure safety outcomes are reduced to levels comparable with our Australian operations. At Brickworks, we understand our long-term responsibilities and the impact and influence we have on the environment, our customers, employees, communities and shareholders. We take great pride in manufacturing our products in a sustainable way, and we integrate sustainability and innovation into product design, resulting in greater energy and resource efficiency over the operational lifetime of a building. We recognize that our manufacturing process is emissions intensive, and as such, we are focused on leading our industry in reducing emissions. In Australia, carbon emissions have followed a general downward trend with a 56% decrease compared to FY '26 for Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. Our progress in this area is supported by our product redesign, increased use of recycled materials, utilization of renewable bio energy such as sawdust and landfill gas in some of our kilns and capital investments into modern fuel efficient production processes. Within our property business, we aim to be leaders in sustainable industrial property design and development. A number of significant achievements are outlined on the screen and further details are provided in our sustainability report released today. Our efforts are being recognized externally, such as by proxy advisers, Sustainalytics, who recognized Brickworks as ESG industry Top Rated in 2024 within the Asia Pacific construction materials category. Whilst we've made significant progress already, we are committed to achieving more. And in FY '23, we announced a new carbon target to achieve a 15% reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Turning now to our financial performance. As we announced at our half year results, we incurred a significant noncash devaluation within our Property Trust during the first half and a small loss on the sale of the M7 Hub state. And as we announced earlier this month, we have recorded a noncash impairment within our Austral Masonry and Brickworks North America business units as part of the year-end review. Grant will talk more about the impairment later. This all has resulted in the group recording a statutory loss of $119 million for the year. The property devaluations are also included in our underlying results. This resulted in underlying NPAT and EBITDA both declining significantly to $61 million and $157 million, respectively. Pleasingly, EBITDA increased across our Building Products operations in both Australia and North America. Net debt increased by $29 million to $682 million, with gearing increasing slightly to 20%. The screen on the slide provides further detail on underlying earnings across the group. The property revaluations, a large positive in FY '23 and a large negative in FY '24 distort the relative operational performance across the two periods. Last year also benefited from the sale of Oakdale East Stage 2 into the Industrial Property Trust delivering a significant profit. Excluding the impact of property revaluations and property sales, group EBITDA was $387 million, down 4%. Across the operating divisions, Building Products Australia EBITDA was up 2% and Building Products North America was up 9%. Within property, net trust income and development profit was relatively steady compared to the prior year. Investment earnings were down due primarily to a lower contribution from New Hope Corporation to Soul Pattinson's earnings. We now have 27,500 shareholders, which is almost 3x as many as 5 years ago. We believe in providing returns through dividends and are proud of our long history of dividend growth and the stability this provides to our shareholders. Therefore, I'm happy to announce that the Board has declared a final fully franked dividend of $0.43 per share. This is an increase of $0.01 or 2% compared to the previous final dividend. The record date for the dividend is 5th of November with payment on the 27th of November. As shown on the screen, this year represents the 11th year in a row of increased dividends, and we now have maintained or increased dividends for the last 48 years. In addition to dividend growth, we have achieved long-term returns for our shareholders. Based on the share price at the end of the period, the company has delivered total shareholder returns of 11.7% per annum for 25 years, incorporating both dividends and share price appreciation. This means that $1,000 invested in Brickworks in 1999 would be worth over $16,000 at the end of the period. Performance over a range of periods is also shown on the slide, with Brickworks performance matching or exceeding the index over all time frames. Our strong shareholder returns are supported by long-term asset growth. Our assets include investments in Soul Pattinson's and FBR with a market value of almost $3.4 billion. Property Trust with a net asset value of just over $2 billion. Building Products operation in Australia and North America with net tangible assets based on book value of $532 million and three parcels of land held within building products that are identified for potential development. Based on an independent market valuations, these development sites have a current asset value of $219 million. So adding this up and subtracting our net debt of $682 million, the total inferred asset backing is currently around $5.5 billion. On a per share basis, this equates to almost $36 per share. On the right-hand side of the chart, we have reconciled this value with the balance sheet net tangible assets per share of $19.42. The key difference is due to the balance sheet, not recognizing the full market value of development land and our investments as well as deferred tax liabilities. Turning now to our divisional performance. Looking first at Building Products Australia. Residential commencements continue to decline during FY '24 with the total starts of 155,700 for the year being the lowest level since 2012. Nationally, detached house commencements were down 10% on the prior year. Across the states, the steepest decline was in New South Wales, down 22%; with the other major East Coast markets at Victoria and Queensland, also down by around 10%. Multi-residential commencements are also down by 10% in FY '24 with broad-based weaknesses across all major states. The decline in multi-residential starts has been driven by a 50% fall in high-rise apartment construction over the past 5 years. This segment has been severely impacted by higher interest rates and the approximate 40% rise in construction costs since the start of the pandemic. These cost impacts together with government levies and taxes have made apartment construction unfeasible in many areas in the major capital cities. The decline in high-rise residential construction accelerated in the second half, particularly in Sydney, and has had a significant impact on our Austral Masonry sales, which have a high exposure to this segment. Nonresidential building activity has varied significantly across the country with increases in Western Australia and Queensland, offset by declines in Victoria and New South Wales. The decreased building activity resulted in a 12% decline in revenue to $646 million. EBIT was $41 million for the period, and EBITDA was $102 million, up 2%. An increase in EBITDA margin was achieved, driven by the implementation of price increases and productivity equipments across most operations. However, the Austral Masonry margin was adversely affected by the decline in demand and lower plant utilization particularly at the new Oakdale facility in Sydney. We have implemented a range of restructuring initiatives to remove costs as we move through the cyclical low. These initiatives included the consolidation of Austral Bricks and Austral Masonry into one operating division, a restructure of Bristol Roofing and a rightsizing of divisional support functions. In total, these initiatives are expected to deliver annualized savings of $15 million. Over the year, headcount in our Australian operations was reduced by 139 staff. During the second half of the year, the commissioning process at Plant 2 in New South Wales was substantially completed. This represents a significant milestone for the company, following 5 years of hard work with the project having commenced in 2019. The plant is now operating at design capacity and will surpass any other brick factory in Australia in terms of automation, fuel efficiency and output. Building Products North America's key regional exposure is in the Midwest, the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic. Combined, these three regions make up around 91% of total sales revenue. There is a broad end-to-end market exposure with the nonresidential segment making up 39% of sales, detached houses 41% of sales and multiresidential 19% of sales. During FY '24, there has been a decline in nonresidential and multi-residential activity across the country. This was most severe in the key Northeastern region, where nonresidential activity was down 27% year-on-year and multi-residential activity was down by 13%. A surplus of multi-residential construction following the pandemic in 2021 and 2022 led to an oversupply in this market and a subsequent decline, while nonresidential building is stalled despite resilience in some pockets such as the education sector. By contrast, there was relatively strength within the single family residential segment, where building activity was up 19% nationwide, albeit this is not the core market for our products. Brick sales volume in North America was lower during the period, due primarily to a significant reduction in sales to the oversupplied Southern home builder market, mostly in Texas. Despite the decline in sales volume, revenue of $442 million was relatively steady due to a combination of price increases and mix shift towards higher-value products. EBITDA for the year was up 9% to $43 million. Last year's result included a $7 million profit from the sale and leaseback of a retail outlet, and this year's result a $300,000 profit on the sale of a surplus quarry. Excluding the impact of these property sales, EBITDA was up 29% and EBIT up 113%. Margins continue to improve on the back of price increases and improved factory utilization following the completion of our 5-year plant rationalization program. However, the slowdown in building activity across the core markets has delayed the full realization of the efficiency benefits that we expect to deliver from this program. The Rocky Ridge plant in Maryland is in the final stages of recommissioning and we will produce a range of molded bricks specifically tailored from the U.K. market. The first shipments to the U.K. as part of our supply agreement with brick ability for 10 million bricks per annum are now underway. Turning to investments, which includes a 26.1% interest in SOL Patts and a 15.3% interest in FBR Limited. Investments delivered an underlying contribution of $137 million for the year, down 13%. During the year, normal cash dividends of $86 million were received from SOL Packs, up 15% on the prior period. The combined market value of our investments was $3.383 billion at the end of July, up by 8% or $263 million. Our shareholding in Soul Patts states back to 1968, Soul Patts part is now Australia's leading publicly listed investment house with a broad asset exposure, as shown by the chart on the left. Soul Patts has delivered outstanding returns with annualized total returns, including dividends of 12.6% per annum for the past 25 years. This represents outperformance of 4.2% per annum versus the ASX or lots. I will now hand over to Megan to talk through our Property division.

Thank you, Mark. Strong demand is continuing to drive growth in market rents for industrial property, particularly in Western Sydney. Rental income across the portfolio during the year was up 9% to $163 million, driven by lease renewals and new developments. This was offset by the sale of the M7 Hub in January, which impacted rental income in the second half. Higher interest rates and debt levels resulted in an increase in borrowing costs. After including this, net trust income was $98 million. Brickwork's 50% share was $49 million, down marginally on the prior year. A highlight of the year was the completion of seven new facilities at Oakdale West, providing around 69,000 square meters of gross lettable area. This included the completion of facilities for Misk, EBOS and Luxottica. These completions resulted in a development profit of $75 million being recorded. A noncash devaluation of $215 million was recorded on Property Trust assets in financial year '24, reflecting an increase in capitalization rates across the portfolio to 5.2%, up from 4.1% at July 2023. The majority of capitalization rate expansion was incurred in the first half, with conditions stabilizing over the past 6 months. In the most recent valuation completed in June, a positive revaluation of $18 million was recorded with market rental growth more than offsetting capitalization rate expansion of 17 basis points. Including the revaluations in property sales, Property delivered an EBITDA loss of $110 million for the year compared to a profit of $506 million in the prior corresponding period. The total value of leased assets held across the Property Trust was $4.5 billion at the end of the year. The Trust also holds a further $872 million in land that is currently under development. After including borrowings at $1.4 billion, total net asset value is $4 billion. Brickworks' 50% share is just over $2 billion. Gearing within the trust was 26% at the end of the year, up from 21%. The gearing within the trust increased following the devaluation of the portfolio and the sale of the M7 Hub, with the sale proceeds being distributed to Brickworks and the existing debt maintained within the trust. Additional borrowings were also used to fund the ongoing development activity at Oakdale West. A key highlight for the year was securing development approval for our Oakdale East Stage 2 estate, and the start of construction at this site, including a cornerstone facility for Amazon. A photo of construction progress for this 58,000 square meter facility is shown on screen. This building is due for completion in the third quarter of calendar year 2025. As one of the few large shovel-ready estates in Western Sydney, strong demand exists for the next available site, which will accommodate a 38,000 square meter facility. The remaining 155,000 square meters of gross lettable area will be released progressively as earthworks and servicing is completed. Given the strong demand, the estate is expected to be fully built out within 4 to 5 years. Development opportunities are also being pursued in the Brickworks Manufacturing Trust. During the year, a 13-hectare site adjoining the Rochedale brick factory, was purchased by the trust. When consolidated with adjacent surplus land at the Rochedale site, the area could provide 22 hectares of industrial land delivering up to 115,000 square meters of gross lettable area. This project is currently in planning stages with the aim of lodging development applications in 2025. An indicative master plan is shown on screen with the new development opportunity shown in the foreground. The existing brick plant and the JV industrial state are in the background. Over the last few years, land supply challenges have also been exacerbated by increasing construction and finance costs and a range of planning and approval issues. All of these factors have driven up rent for industrial property in Western Sydney by 80% in the past 3 years. We estimate that the current passing rent within the JV Trust is 31% below average market rent. Including the Brickworks Manufacturing Trust, the current annualized rent across our portfolio is $180 million. At current market rates, the rent potential of the Property Trust assets, once fully developed, is around $341 million. This includes a mark-to-market rental uplift on current leased assets of $72 million. In addition, the existing development pipeline will deliver around $90 million in new rents. This includes $16 million from the completion of Oakdale West to be realized over the next 6 months; $56 million in rents is expected from Oakdale Stage 2, this will be realized over the next 5 years as this estate is built out; and $18 million in rent from the development opportunity at Rochedale that I just discussed. Looking more closely at the significant mark-to-market rental opportunity of existing lease facilities and the expected timing of this uplift. The chart on screen shows the lease expiry profile of the Industrial JV Trust. This shows that at least 30% of the uplift can be achieved within the next 5 years. This is the sum of the dark brown columns on the chart within that time period, representing vacancies and leases that do not have extension options and rental caps. As such, these leases should revert to market rents at the end of the current lease term. An additional 18% of leases expire within the next 5 years, but have an extension option with a rental cap. The uplift on these leases will depend on whether the tenant exercises the extension option. I will now hand over to Grant to run through the financials.

Thank you, Megan. As Mark mentioned, the underlying group EBITDA, excluding revaluations and land sales was $387 million for the year. The underlying EBITDA was $157 million after including a large noncash property devaluation, the loss on the M7 sale. After depreciation and amortization, the underlying group EBIT was $66 million. Total borrowing costs were $79 million, and there was a tax benefit of $74 million. This resulted in an underlying net profit after tax from continuing operations of $61 million. Significant items decreased net profit after tax by $178 million, and I'll discuss those more in more detail in a moment. In addition, discontinued operations contributed an after-tax loss of $2 million for the period. This primarily relates to closure costs within Austral Precost. The table on the screen shows the significant items in more detail. We recorded a noncash impairment of $135 million net of tax based on AASB 136, impacting the carrying value of intangibles, right-of-use assets and plant and equipment. This consists largely of the impairment we announced to the market earlier this month in relation to the Austral Masonry and Brickworks North America businesses. Both of these businesses have been impacted by a deterioration in building activity in key markets during the past 6 months and a weaker short-term outlook. This has resulted in a delay in the expected realization of efficiency benefits associated with recent major investments and plant rationalization following scale back production in response to the lower demand. Both businesses have also been impacted by higher unit costs that are yet to be fully recovered by price increases. In the case of Austral Masonry, this includes land tax and raw materials, while in North America, unit labor costs are up by about 12% on the prior year. Other key items include restructuring and site closure costs of $11 million net of tax, primarily related to employee severance payments associated with our restructuring activities within building products during the year. Plant relocation and commissioning costs of $10 million associated with the new Horsley Park Brick plant in Sydney and the Rocky Ridge plant in North America, $11 million in legal costs, $15 million cost in relation to deferred taxes on our Soul Patts holding, a $16 million benefit representing our share of significant items related to our holding in Soul Patts and other costs primarily related to advisory costs and IT-related items. Turning to cash flow. The total operating cash inflow for the year was $104 million, up 7% from $97 million in the prior year. Although higher, cash generation was adversely impacted by the significant plant commissioning and restructuring costs, higher borrowing costs and an increase in working capital. In addition, $117 million in gross sales proceeds received following the sale of the M7 Hub Estate from the Industrial Property Trust. This is reported as a sale of investments within investing cash flows. Capital expenditure of $73 million was incurred, including the final stages of construction of the new brick plant in Sydney and major projects at Rocky Ridge and Adel in North America. Dividend payments of $101 million were made during the year. As Mark has mentioned, we have made significant investments in recent years. This has included four major acquisitions to establish a strong position in North America. To support our North American entry, we have selectively invested in facilities to upgrade and enhance the efficiency of our rationalized plant network. We've also made significant investments in Australia with the construction of Australia's most advanced brick and masonry plants. Importantly, the Brick plant investment at Horsley Park in Sydney brought forward the release of valuable land at Oakdale East to extend the Property Trust development pipeline and meet strong tenant demand. During the 5-year period between FY '19 and FY '23, average capital expenditure across the business was around $100 million per annum, was the major plan -- with a planned major investment program now largely complete. Capital spend is reduced in FY '24, and we expect a significant further reduction in spend in FY '25 and FY '26. Looking now at a range of key financial indicators. Net tangible assets per share was down 3% over the period to $19.42. This reflects the statutory loss and dividend payments made. Shareholders' equity decreased by $179 million to $3.4 billion, which represents $25.09 per share. Net debt increased to $682 million, up by $29 million over the year. Taking into account the reduced equity, balance sheet gearing increased slightly to 20%. Covenant gearing, as defined by bank facility agreements is 15% and remains well below the covenant level of 40%. I'll now hand back to Mark to discuss the outlook.

Thank you, Grant. Our investment in Soul Patts is expected to continue to deliver a stable and growing stream of earnings and dividends over the long term. Within property, market conditions appear to have stabilized over the past 6 months. Structural trends towards e-commerce and the digital economy will continue to drive demand for our prime industrial facilities for many years to come. We are focused on meeting this demand by continuing to identify opportunities within our portfolio to expand our development pipeline. Our Building Products business in Australia and North America is facing challenges in the short term with subdued building activity across most of our key markets over the next 12 months. As such, we are planning temporary plant closures throughout FY '25 to undertake maintenance and control inventory. Looking beyond the short-term weakness, we are well placed to deliver strong returns when market conditions improve, following our recent planned investments, restructuring and portfolio rationalization activities. Following a period of significant investment, our short-term priority is to maximize cash generation. With our diversified portfolio of high-quality assets, Brickworks is well placed to meet any future opportunities and challenges and continue to deliver good performance for our shareholders. Thank you very much, and we'll now turn over to our operator, Ashley, for any audio questions. Thank you, Ashley.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Daniel Kang with CLSA.

Just perhaps an opening question for Megan. Look, just looking at your development profits, it's been fairly consistent over the past few years at $75 million to $78 million. Just wondering if you can give us a steer as to how we should be thinking about the contribution likely in FY '25 and going forward.

Really, the development profit is not a regular thing like the rent is. So it just depends on how many developments we've actually got reaching practical completion at the time. The good news is, is that we have. We're finishing up on Oakdale West, but we're rolling into Oakdale East. So for the next at least 4 years, we're expecting that there should be development profit coming through from that development.

Got it. Okay. And perhaps a question then for Mark in terms of North America. You made a comment that single family is not a core market for the North American business. Do you see this as an area of growth opportunity for the business?

Yes. I mean single family, most of the brick consumption for single-family is down South. I mean, the American market, it's on average is -- it's about 8 billion bricks a year. 6 billion bricks are consumed in the south and most of those bricks go into housing. As you're aware, we're right across the Midwest, the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic areas where brick is traditionally not used as much in housing. And in fact, out of our eight plants, two of our plants only in Adel and the one at Lawrenceville and Virginia are actually geared for housing that low-cost plant. So we're in the architectural premium space, and we demand much higher margins than they get down south. But that being said, when the market goes above 300,000 starts, it was amazing in Texas alone, there's not enough bricks to supply and then we start supplying out of our plants in the Midwest of, [indiscernible] out of Iowa. So it is an opportunity for us. If we are looking at further acquisitions, which we're not at the moment, then certainly, you'd look to leverage off our experience in Australia and get into the single sort of family space.

Excellent. And I just don't want Grant to be -- just last one, if I can, for Grant. I don't want him to miss out. Wondering if you can give us a steer on your expectations for depreciation, CapEx and net borrowing costs in FY '25?

Yes. So look, I mean, I think as we've flagged, we're certainly looking to preserve cash and focus on cash generation over the -- certainly, over the bottom of the cycle. From a CapEx perspective, obviously, expecting that to take another step down. I think from a target level, probably around where depreciation and amortization is. So I think we're running at about $40 million this year. So that's sort of probably the step down that we're anticipating with the aim that we certainly through the bottom of the cycle, hold our debt level target to try and reduce it, but the goal is probably through the next 12 months is to hold it where it is. So I think, look, I think debt levels probably stay fairly steady and then interest costs sort of align with that. Obviously, we'll see where the interest rates go over the next 6 to 12 months. We have about 1/3 of our debt is fixed, but yes, probably expected to stay fairly steady.

And your next question comes from Peter Steyn with Macquarie.

May Just ask, Megan, very briefly, if you could give us a sense of your development spend. You outlined very clearly where the incremental GLA is going to come from over the next number of years. But -- and I suppose refer to Daniel's question. But what your development spend is likely to look like that profile over the next few years?

So the main development at Oakdale West is nearly complete. It's actually virtually at the end of that process. So there's no more spend -- capital spend on Oakdale West. So the numbers that are in the gearing of the trust reflects the completion of that estate. Then we're moving on to Oakdale East. The fortunate thing that we did with Oakdale East was actually that Goodman had to match the value of our property with construction amounts as well as the infrastructure. So because the infrastructure was actually sort of less than the value of the property, we ended up with a large amount that is actually being funded by Goodman before we actually have to go out and get a debt facility for that facility. So the Amazon facility, which is a 58,000 square meters that's under construction at the moment is actually being funded by Goodman as part of their equity contribution to that trust. And the next 38,000 square meter, which we're currently looking for a tenant to pre-commit to that before we start it, that is actually funded by Goodman's equity as well. So yes, we'll then go out to the market after that to be able to secure a debt facility sort of for that.

I think, Peter, maybe another way to think about that is obviously look at the final rental uplift that we've sort of put there and sort of think about applying a cap rate to that and ultimate gearing pretty consistent with where we are on the rest of the estate. That will give you a sense of sort of what the final asset value looks like. But obviously, no equity contribution from us consistent with the rest of the development.

Yes, I suppose I'm thinking about development profits a little bit as well. So what you're suggesting is albeit that you're not contributing capital in the early stages of the East development. You'll still be making in-kind development profits by virtue of your contribution of the property to the trust, right?

Yes.

Perfect. That's fine. We can take more detail offline. Grant, just very briefly on the impairments. Could you just step us through it? So looking at the notes, it looks like you've had a pretty material adjustment in the discount rates applied to the North American assets. Presumably, that drove the majority of the change in value there. And then in Australia, one would assume it's a consequence of the restructuring that's gone through masonry business and perhaps a view on its competitiveness in the longer term?

Yes. So look, on the North American one, certainly, the performance of the business in the second half took a step down with the conditions in the market. And obviously, the -- not getting the full benefit of the realize -- not realizing the full benefit of the sort of rationalization and investments we've done there. So we did go through and reassess the, I guess, the sort of 5-year earnings as you do on a available use model, but sort of acknowledging the fact that perhaps earnings have emerged a little bit slower than we had hoped, given all of the challenges that they've been in that market over the last few years. We did apply a slightly higher risk adjustment factor on the weighted average cost of capital. So on the discount rate, which is reflected in that increase that you can see. So look, this kind of a combination of looking at the earnings profile and then applying a bit of a risk adjustment to the weighted average cost of capital. I mean that being said, we still think we've got a very strong foundation in that business for earnings over the medium to long term. But obviously, we've had to take a view as part of the year-end financial close process under 136, which is reasonably strict in kind of the parameters in which we operate. From a masonry business, again, sort of as Mark touched on earlier, some real softness in the multi-res apartments space. And look, it is a very competitive part of the industry that we're in. So again, similar, I looked at the earnings, obviously, you'll see discount rates held fairly consistent there, and it's more looking at the earnings through the value and use model that has sort of driven that impairment. We flagged, I should say, we flagged at the half in our accounts that we've looked at impairments on, masonary at that point in time, and our headroom had really come down to fairly minimal levels and that the core assumptions in the model were very sensitive to any change. So obviously, that kind of stepped down in that part of the market in the second half drove some changes in that model.

There are no further phone questions at this time. I'll now hand back to address any online questions.

Thanks, Ashley. Mark Celliers, my name. GM Corporate Development at Brickworks, and I'll just moderate the online questions. [Operator Instructions] There's a number of come through already. The first one for you, Mark, from Owen Cartilage. The Australian landscape is swamped in new metal roots. Is Brickworks selling with tiles?

Thanks, Owen, for your questions. Metal and COLLARD in particular, has been very successful in gaining traction in the roofing market over the last 20 years. Our roof tile sales have been sort of relatively flat for the last year or 2. That being said, there's been a rationalization in the industry. There's three major players on the East Coast, Luton, which were the old Boral assets. Then you have got [ Monia ], which is down by CSR. And then you've got Bristol Roofing, which is obviously our brand. But essentially, there was probably one player too many. We're oversupplied there. Lute unfortunately went into liquidation about 3 months ago. So there's now two players on the East Coast. In conjunction with that, [ Monia ] shut their factory in Sydney and relocated to their factory in Queensland, near Waco. And [indiscernible] through the liquidation closed the factory in Victoria and closed two factories, one at Emu Plains out Penrith and one up in the Central Coast in Wai. So we've seen our roof tile sales pick up substantially over the last sort of 2 months as Lutin depletes the stock to the point where we've actually wound our Dandenong factory up to three shifts to load into New South Wales. So yes, COLORBOND has made an impact. But I think our sales has sort of stabilized there, and I think we've sort of created a good business and a 2-player market we fairly sensible going forward. That being said, we have exited the supply and lay part of the business in New South Wales and Queensland, and that were a part of our restructuring initiatives in January, which has made our division of Bristol a lot more profitable.

Okay. Next question is from Jason Sherwin for you, Megan. The industrial property JV or within the industrial property JV, do you see the possibility of data center development in the future?

Yes, certainly, that's something that we're always looking at. So -- and the property that we have at Oakdale East is really well located as far as power and a number of other infrastructure items are concerned. So yes, definitely. And Goodman is at the forefront of this at the moment, which is great.

Thanks, Megan. Grant, for you. Head coborrowing costs for the year were $79 million on $680 million of debt. This implies 11.5% per annum borrowing cost. Why was it so high this year? And will this come down in future years?

Yes. I think the important point there is that the full borrowing costs on the face of the P&L actually include lease interest as well, so accounting for leases under the new accounting standards. So actual senior debt interest was about $50 million of that $79 million -- or $76 million. We're actually running at an effective weighted average cost of debt of about just over 6% at the moment. So we're not anticipating that to change a lot, but important that, that's actually -- there's two parts to it. There's bank debt interest and lease interest included in that number.

Okay. Another one for you, Grant. The dividend received from Soul now makes up approximately 90% of the dividend Brickworks pays to investors. Historically, brickworks investors have received a 100% payout from the Soul dividend and Property division earnings, but this is no longer occurring. Is this likely to change now the CapEx cycle is finished?

Look, I mean, I think an important part of what we're focusing on the moment, as you noticed that we're looking at reducing our CapEx spend. We've had 5 years of heavy investment on CapEx. We are at the bottom of the building product cycle at the moment. So we are focused on making sure that we're preserving cash and certainly looking at how we can continue to maximize and grow cash flow out of the Building Products business. So I think certainly, over the short term, we're very focused on making sure that we manage our debt levels and manage our cash generation out of the Building Products business. And then obviously, as the market starts to pick up, we'll continue to review as we do 6 months our dividend payment plan and policy.

Okay. There's a couple coming through in regard to Craigieburn, Megan, and also Mid-Atlantic, I think a couple of questions, just looking for an update on future developments. Is there any progress at those sites?

Yes. So our Mid-Atlantic side, in particular, is going quite well. It's actually zoned already for industrial development. So with Goodman, we've actually lodged a development application to be able to develop that site including a 1 million square foot facility. So that's the really big messing sheds that they build in the U.S. So that's going through their local counsel or township as they call them over there. And we're hoping to be able to get full entitlement for that development in 2025. Craigieburn is really a little bit more of a slow burn because we're essentially looking for a rezoning there. We've probably spent the last 10 years trying to look at a residential change for that, but that really hasn't been supported by the local government down there. So we're now actually looking at pursuing an industrial development for that. And now that there's actually been a lot of land taken up in the other areas as far as industrial land taken up that there's now a sort of a focus in the northern area that they didn't have before. So we're getting some support for industrial development on that property. So we're hoping that, that might lead to some sort of rezoning in the next couple of years.

Might just add a comment on the Mid-Atlantic one there. I think part of the process that we're going through at the moment as well as looking at the feasibility of that site from a development perspective. The cost and style of construction is a little bit different in the U.S. for warehouses. So part of that is really focusing on how we maximize the value out of that site. The model is very consistent with what we're trying to do here in Australia, which is a no equity contribution basis for our property development. So we'll continue to look at that as we move forward.

I think it's important to note that the market in the U.S. is a little bit more speculative, so they don't really secure a tenant before they start the construction. Whereas in Australia, we're really a little bit more risk inverse, and we obviously try and look to secure a tenant before we actually start construction.

Okay. There's three questions now from Williams Scofield at Morgan. The first one, I think we've answered in relation to the trust development pipeline and the capital required. So I'll jump to his second question, which is for you, Mark. Can you please talk through the outlook for CapEx? And what this may mean for free cash flow generation and dividends?

I think Grant sort of covered that in great detail. Thanks for your question, Liam. We've gone through a large investment program over the last 5 years, including our entry into the U.S. The U.S., we've got eight factories there and seven of them we spent substantial capital on bringing them up to the standards that we've got here in Australia. Commissioned out brick factory here in Western Sydney, and we've got a large masonry factory here. So we're in a good position. We've got a great suite of plans where our competitors have not been investing in heavy manufacturing, both in America and especially in Australia. So we sort of see the CapEx spend coming off more so the more depreciation levels over the next sort of few years. And obviously, in turn, it will work its way back into free cash flow, especially into the Building Products business. I mean, our sales, you can see there through the year, the revenue has been relatively flat year-on-year. And just working through a lot of our productivity measures, which is a bit hard when the market is very soft. As you know, such high fixed cost to plants that they either run 100% or they stopped. You can't sort of find the balance in the middle and push the money through to the bottom line. So we're very focused on our free cash flow. It's certainly a metric we used within the Building Products business. And yes, we'll definitely be focused on improving that as we go through the bottom of the cycle.

Thanks, Mark. Just one further question from Liam in relation to temporary plant closures. Where, how long, what divisions?

I think we're seeing you tomorrow, Liam, so we can go into great detail on plant closures. I'm sure we'll take up an hour. But our first one was in New South Wales. I mean, New South Wales has been the hardest hit. You sell that in the starts and it's the forecast improvement in New South Wales is lagging the rest of the state. So we actually pulled off our facility in Western Sydney. We call it Plant 1. It's a sort of 1990 skill and produces about 12,000 homes worth of bricks a year. We had about 30 million rigs in stock, and we've built that up as we transition to Plant 2. So we have pulled that one off, mothball that one indefinitely. That being said, it's still in good condition that should we need to bring it back 1 day, we'll be able to bring that plant back in a couple of months. As for the rest of the plants, most of them are under an EBA. So you can only really shut them down for 3 months at a time before you've got to offer redundancy and then you lose your workforce. And they're very technical operators that we've got. Electricians and fitters throughout those factories. So we wouldn't want to let those sort of staff go. So we'll probably have a rolling series of 2- to 3-month shutdowns. We've got a plant across Australia, and we'll do the same thing across America over the course of the next sort of 12 to 18 months as the market recovers.

Thanks, Mark. Now two questions from Lee Power at UBS. First one for you again, Mark. More color on the commentary around U.S. brick softness and any more detail on the expected length of softness in demand and key drivers?

Yes. I think the softness sort of caught us a bit more by surprise in the second half. I mean, the Midwest and the Northeast markets came off. There's not so much investment around in multifamily. So those projects aren't getting around off the ground. And then a lot of the government, the states are sitting back, waiting to see what's going to happen with the election. So you haven't got a lot of money pouring into sort of the education sector and the hospitals and schools and sort of main markets that we're in. So I think that's taken a pause. That being said, the interest rate cut over there, over the course of the last week is certainly going to spur things on in that investment market. So, I think the U.S. will definitely come back before Australia does. It went off, the market came off before Australia did as we sort of built out through COVID and the first homebuyer grant that we had down here. So hopefully, we'll see things start to pick up as things normalize throughout the middle of next year.

Thanks, Mark. The second question is around cap rates. And there's a few that relate to this topic. So we'll sort of cover them off as one, I think. Megan, just, I think, perspectives on cap rates. Lee's noted that cap rates expanded slightly in the second half, but values increased. Can you talk about how you think cap rates and values might move through FY '25?

Yes. So we're expecting capitalization rates to stabilize, really at the current level. We believe that we've got them at the right level at the moment, which is the 5.2 as our average cap rate. And as we said in the presentation, we actually saw the cap rates stabilized quite well or only soften sort of quite slightly. And as you said that the rental growth actually came through to be able to keep the asset values high.

Okay. Thanks, Megan. Just one here from David Farr on dividend policy. Mark or Grant, there's a wide discrepancy between the interim and final dividends. Can the dividend be evened up in future years?

I think that's certainly a historical approach that we've taken. I think as we get our cash positions in a different place, it might have a look. But I mean, it also align with how dividends flow into us from Soul Patts as well.

Thanks, Grant. One for you, Mark. How profitable will it be to ship bricks from the U.S. and sell to the U.K.?

Well, essentially, I mean, that was a great sort of deal we struck with Brickability and they're listed on the exchange in London. We're the biggest reseller of bricks into the U.K. market. The U.K. market 300 -- sorry, it's about 3 billion bricks. This particular company sells 600 million of the 3 billion bricks. So they are very, very large player. They don't manufacture over there. And they're interested in bringing bricks into the country that they no longer make in the U.K. So they are a premium style brick, and we are to strike a deal with Brickability. The name is for 10 million bricks per year, for 10 years. And that effectively underwrite the investment. We put about $15 million into a plant that we bought off Guildon, Maryland to bring that back to life. And -- we're now up to about half the output coming out of that plant, with a view to go to full output in the next few months. So really, there is some good profit in the product going to the U.K., but it's only 1/3 of the output. What it allows us then to do is make the balance for the local market. And that, in turn, will be very profitable. So all up, a good deal, a lot to take up, over factory and commission a factory when you've got sort of 1/3 of the output sold for a decade. So I am excited about that. And by the way, it's just one factor that the Brickability are buying from. There's another two factories in Pennsylvania, one in Summerville and one in Pittsburgh, and they're taking premium products from those factories as well. And we've probably shipped about 300,000 or 400,000 bricks over the course of the last few months.

Thanks, Mark. A question from Ben Rundle for you, Megan. With regards to the Property Trust, how much of the stated future rental growth on Slide 22 is captured in the current valuations?

Well, the good thing about valuations is they do actually pick up a certain amount of that uplift through the discounted cash flow model evaluation. So there is a certain amount of that, which is all starting to come through. So that's really part of the reason why we had the uplift in the $80 million uplift in the second half was because we had a number of assets that were -- that the lease was actually expiring. And so the value of those properties went up because it was closer to actually maximizing that market rent.

Okay. Thanks, Megan. There's a couple of questions, Mark, just in terms of market conditions and the fact that we've seen a 50 basis point cut by the Fed, just in recent days and whether that changes our view on the sort of outlook, particularly in the U.S.

No, I think that was fairly well anticipated to come through. And I think the 30-year fixed mortgage rates over there, a lot of people might wait for the second or third one before they jump in to a home loan. And I think people are just waiting to see what will happen in the election.

Okay. We've got a couple more questions. Just on market share in the U.S., an anonymous question though.

It depends actually where you look at it. If you look at the whole of the U.S., the markets is have between 7 billion and 9 billion brick a year, and we only sort of sold sort of 400 million bricks and you can work it out that way when you look at the whole market. But then if you look at the Midwest, the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic, we're very strong. But then if you look at capital cities themselves, I mean, we sell 70% of bricks in Chicago. Bricks from Glengarry into New York City, where 65% of every brick that goes into New York City. We sell 70 million bricks down there. So it is a little hard to quantify given the so much volume that just goes down in the south into the tax market.

Okay. Question from Jason Sherwin. Mark, is there a chance of an expanded investment division going forward? Or is it likely to stay at the current investments in Soul Patts and [indiscernible]?

Well, yes, I don't think you see any radical shift in strategy from us. We've got the four pillars to the business. We've got our investment arm, we've got our property arm, we've got North America and we've got Australia, surely, we'll continue always to look at opportunities. We're a very innovative company. But at this point in time, there's no radical shift in our strategy or strategy.

Okay. There's a question here, maybe for you, Grant. Why did we lose money on the M7 development?

Yes. I mean I think two points there. One, over the full life of that development, we made substantial is -- we made substantial profit off that investment. I think we -- I think, $150 million over the term. We had it from when we originally completed it to when we sold it. Look, we certainly sold out in the first half for a very small EBIT loss of $16 million on an after-tax basis. It was actually profitable. It allows that we used some capital losses and release some tax liabilities. But importantly, we're able to execute it, quickly get the cash in to provide us a bit of a buffer through the bottom of the cycle. So while it was a very small EBIT loss on it, it also reflected where valuations are moving at the time in the market. So it wasn't subject to an asset write-down or cap rate expansion at the half, like the rest of the assets were. So we are fundamentally sold at that market.

Correct. If we had kept it, then it would have been part of the market write down.

Yes. Okay. Thanks for coming up to 1:00. I think we've covered just about all the questions online and those that we haven't, I think we've sort of touched on in the other questions. We're just go back to Ashley to check if there's any further questions on the telephone.

There are no phone questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Mark Ellenor for closing remarks.

All right. Thanks, Ashley. Thank you, Mark, and I hope everyone enjoyed the new format. And I just want to thank you for your time and your interest in the Brickworks, and have a good day. Thank you very much.