Calix Limited (CXL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for dialing into Calix's half year '26 results webinar. A heads up that this session is being recorded. I will hand over shortly to Calix's MD and CEO, Phil Hodgson; and CFO, Darren Charles, who will run through our half year results and then address any questions you may have. To ask your question, please use the Q&A box at the bottom of the screen, or you can e-mail it through to investor relations at calix.global and I'll relay it to the group. Without further ado, I'm pleased to hand over to our presenters.

Fantastic. Thanks very much, Christineh. We can jump down to our statements around acknowledgment of country which I don't know if some reason is becoming less trendy to do these days, but it's part of who we are. So we're going to emphasize that. We acknowledge the First Nations people and the traditional custodians of the land in which we live and recognize their deep ongoing connection to the land. And we pay our respects to elders and leaders, past, present and emerging and extend that respect to all First Nations people. We also want to talk about social inclusion. It is very important and a core part of our values with respect to inclusivity. No one should feel unsafe at work. And lastly, sustainability. It's central to who we are at Calix, solving global challenges in industrial decarbonization because as we say, Mars is for quitters. So just emphasizing who we are. Just moving on then to the next slide, which is all about who we are as a business because this is all about making great businesses as well. And if we have a look at the different lines of business that we've been developing over the years, magnesia is one of those that we'll talk a bit about in this half year results session. The magnesia business is really starting to perform very well for us. We think it's a reasonably large addressable market. And that market is expanding as we replace caustic in wastewater treatment with our unique magnesium hydroxide product derived from our core platform technology. And so looking forward to updating on how our magnesia business is growing. Also, of course, lots of happening in commercial milestones in our what we call sustainable processing lines of business, where the core technology is being used is a new type of kiln or furnace in iron and steel, alumina and lithium. And so you can see some pretty big addressable markets there. Certainly iron and steel, one of the largest decarbonization opportunities on the planet alongside cement and lime. Alumina, very significant opportunity there. And lithium, a little smaller niche opportunity, but still nonetheless a good upside value opportunity for the business. And then lastly, but not least, the parts of the business that are being focused around cement and lime and carbon dioxide removal, that's what we call our Leilac part of the business, low emissions intensity lime and cement. And some interesting applications emerging there just over the course of the half year that we're going to be talking about as well. So lots of shots on goal here, some pretty big market opportunities, and we look forward to updating you on the progress with our commercialization over the course of the first half year. But before I do that, let's just jump to the numbers. So I'm going to hand across to Darren to take us through the half year's numbers. So over to you, Darren.

Thanks very much, Phil, and good morning, everyone. It really is a great pleasure for me to be able to talk about our first half results for FY '26. And there's 2 or 3 kind of really key messages that I want to get across today. Firstly, obviously, strong revenue growth. That's the first message from the first half. The second message is focused business delivery. And the third message is significant commercial milestones. And I'll talk a little bit about the cash position at the back end as well. But yes, really strong set of financial results in the first half of FY '26. And just dialing in a little bit on those points. Significant revenue growth in our magnesia business. We achieved $15.8 million of revenue, which is up 48% on the same period last year. We've seen significant contribution from sustainable processing for the first time. And we've also earned grants and other income altogether that has delivered a record revenue result. And at the same time, we've done a lot of work over the last 12 to 18 months to kind of focus the organization on the key kind of business delivery objectives that we're targeting. And that's translated into a significant improvement in our operating performance. Net cash used in operating activities was down 65% on the same period last year. So close to $18 million of net cash used in operating activities last year. That's down to $6.2 million this year. Significantly lower operating expenditure in the first half of '26 when compared to the first half of '25, down 30% to $15.6 million. And the business is essentially a capital-light business with very minimal CapEx requirements. So aside from our consolidation of our share of the Midstream project, we spent just $600,000 on CapEx in the first half. So very, very strong financial performance in first half FY '26. I might just go to the next slide, if I can, Christineh. So just drilling a little bit into this snapshot from the statement of profit and loss. As you can see, strong growth in revenue, strong growth in gross profit and strong growth in margins as well, and I'll talk a little bit about that. That top section is essentially growth across the board, except the other income is a little bit lower, but we're really focused on driving revenue from paying customers, products and services. We've also seen significant savings right across the kind of core cost elements of the business. Sales and marketing expenses have come down, research and development expenses have come down and admin and other expenses are down as well. So significantly lower operating costs and focused on delivery and execution against our kind of key operating objectives. The last point that I'll touch on is just the one-off noncash impairment charge that related to the announcement that we made last week regarding our decision to sell our share of the Midstream UJV to PLS. And Phil will talk more in detail of that, to that throughout the course of the session today. But I just wanted to kind of clarify. Over the course of the last 2.5 years, in the profit and loss, we've recognized a noncash gain of just under about $30 million associated with that transaction. What we did last week when we announced that we sold our share in that business in return for $11.4 million of cash is that we've essentially written back that gain that we made over the last 2 years. Again, it's a noncash charge. It's a nonrecurring charge, and it's basically, as I said, writes back the gains, the noncash gains that we recorded over the course of the last 2.5 years. So very strong performance across the statement of profit and loss in the first half of FY '26. So I'll just kind of dig into some of the highlights, if I can. Thanks, Christineh, for moving to the next slide. So continued revenue growth. And you can see that year-on-year, Calix is executing strong revenue growth year after year, both in terms of first half and second half performance. But let's just touch on the first half revenue anyway. So $16.3 million in total products and services revenue, that's up 21% on the same time last year. So that's the light blue bars at the bottom of the stack bar chart on the right-hand side. Our gross margin was 40% in the first half of FY '26. It was 37% in the first half of FY '25. We earned $6.7 million of gross profit in the first half. That's up 37%. But it's important to note that the magnesia business, our gross profit was up 52% on the same time last year. The magnesia business is a very strong growth and margin business that is only kicking more and more goals every year. And I'll talk a little bit about that maybe on the next slide, if you can move to that Christineh. So the magnesia business, incredibly strong performance in the first half. As I said previously, 48% revenue growth over first half FY '25. At the same time, we secured a major commercial milestone that it's important to note had 0 impact in the first half FY '26 financial performance. So we announced in December, I think it was, certainly late in the first half that we've secured a new contract that's worth up to $10 million of additional revenue for us each year with a major U.S. customer. Now unfortunately, we're not allowed to mention the name, but it's one of the largest agricultural businesses in the world. So again, in the first half, they contributed 0 to the revenue or gross profit of the magnesia business in the first half. We've just started delivering products and services to that customer over the course of the last few weeks. And really, it's been a tremendous job by Greg, Doug and the team in the U.S. to get up to speed and begin to ramp sales to that major customer. So we're incredibly excited about the way the magnesia business is performing. We're doing well not only in the U.S. but also in ANZ as well. And we've had renewed and expanded contracts with the City of Gold Coast and Unitywater that's contributed to strong first half growth in FY '26 as well. So what are we looking forward to for the second half and moving forward? Obviously, we want to continue to ramp sales. We're in the process of completing a new manufacturing facility on the Gold Coast -- sorry, on the Sunshine Coast to service Unitywater. Again, it's relatively minimal CapEx though. And we're really keen to kind of continue to demonstrate and deliver continued revenue and gross profit growth in that magnesia business. So I might just move to the next slide. And this one is really all about kind of trying to highlight the focus to kind of discipline -- cash discipline that we've been able to deliver over the course of the first 6 months. So the bar chart on the right-hand side essentially tracks the dark blue lines are our operating expenditures every 6 months going back to the first half of FY '23. And the light blue bars are our CapEx spend every 6 months going back to the first half of 2023. You can see there, if you look at the bars on the far right-hand side of this chart, significantly lowering our operating costs every 6 months and also lowering our CapEx spend as well. So in first half FY '26, our operating cost is down to $15.6 million, and that's down 30% on $22.3 million that we spent in the first half of FY '25. We're really focusing our business efforts and our business performance on a few key large addressable markets that represent best value for shareholders. And Phil will talk more about that as we move forward. I'll touch a little bit about the CapEx spend as well. And whilst the line there says the capital expenditure reduced to $7.1 million, the actual amount of CapEx that went out of Calix's accounts was $600,000 in the first half. $6.5 million of the CapEx spend that's been recognized in the account is our share of the spend of the Midstream UJV and its spend on completing construction of the Midstream project. We did not actually tip any additional capital into the Midstream project in the first half of FY '26. So what we're saying there is our operating expenditure is tracking down and lower. And we really need to -- we're really now a minimal CapEx spend business and are resorting to this kind of capital-light business structure. So just the final slide for me. I think it's a final slide for me. It is the final slide for me. So before we made a rather large announcement last Thursday that Phil will talk to, one of the key takeaways from my presentation today was the first statement on that second line there. We expect to be cash flow neutral in calendar year 2026. And that's driven by -- of a number of things. Firstly, we expect to see continued strong revenue and gross profit growth. Secondly, we've clearly done a lot of work around focusing and streamlining our business, our teams and our operations. And that's paying through into reduced net operating cash flow. We also expect to see significantly reduced CapEx requirements moving forward as well. In addition to that, in calendar year 2026, there will be several one-off payments, including government grants, ARENA, which we previously announced last year. We expect to deliver -- receive a second cash payment for Rio Tinto. Both of those are obviously subject to project milestones being achieved that we believe we are in hand and we're on track to deliver. And we're also due to receive some significant R&D tax incentives from the U.K. government. So that was my key takeaway. Strong revenue growth, focused business delivery and a cash flow neutral FY '26. And that was before we announced last week that as a result of our plan to sell down our share in the Midstream project, and it's still subject to final documentation that we're working with our partners, PLS, on. In addition, we'll now receive a further $11.4 million of cash in the calendar year 2026. So in terms of our cash position and our liquidity position, calendar year 2026 will be a very strong result for the company. So strong revenue growth, strong gross margin growth, operating cost base and focused delivery and minimal CapEx, cash flow neutral before incorporating the $11.4 million. It's a very strong financial position that the business is in after a great set of results for the first half of FY '26. I'll now pass back to Phil to talk a little about some of the commercial milestones of the business.

Excellent. Thanks very much, Darren. And yes, apart from all of the work that's gone into the financial part of the business, there's been some significant commercial milestones we achieved in the first half of the year as well. So certainly, magnesia, firing on all cylinders, as Darren mentioned, a new contract worth up to $10 million per annum over 3 years with a 2-year extension option, hasn't even hit those numbers yet. So we started delivering in January to that particular customer. And so we're looking forward to seeing the flow-through of those additional revenues on our magnesia numbers. In the iron and steel business, it sort of seems a long time ago, but it was only the last half year that we announced ARENA support of $44.9 million into the ZESTY opportunity, obviously, subject to match funding, which I'll talk about, as well as achieving project milestones. A significant milestone and leg up was achieved when we were able to announce in November that Rio Tinto were joining us in the project as a strategic partner, committing over $35 million in cash and in kind to the project. And so that project is really starting to hit its straps. We do need to go and find additional funding. That will be at the subsidiary level. So we are looking at bringing project financing or capital into a subsidiary. But a lot of key planks falling into place for the iron and steel opportunity, which is enormous and very relevant for Australia, obviously, as well, but certainly applicable around the world in terms of the decarbonization of that industry, responsible for 8% of global CO2. Also in -- again, just in the last 6 months, the first half year of this financial year, we're able to talk about and announce the partnership with Norsk Hydro, who run the largest alumina refinery outside of China. That work is underway. We're expecting over $1 million in materials testing and development work that we're doing right now with Norsk Hydro. And so that work has commenced, and we look forward to updating everyone as we progress through all of that testing work. And ultimately, what we're really trying to do is start to develop the technology into the alumina industry. So a very important partnership and some nice early revenues coming in from there as well. On the lithium side, obviously, as Darren mentioned, last week, we're able to announce a bit of a deal restructure with Pilbara Minerals. We acknowledge it wasn't received that well by the market. But let me explain why we think it's a great deal. Certainly, we see value. The value that we see in the cash upfront that repays us our capital, if we net that off against the potential license fees and you risk those license fees from PLS and the risk, of course, it's subjective when will the plant at full scale be erected and when and how big, all of those things are part of the risking process. But we saw good value in upfronting those license fees and giving Rio -- giving, sorry, PLS a royalty-free license moving forward to develop. We still have access to upside there as well with 20% of any royalties applied to a third party. And there's 0 risk. This is important to emphasize. The commissioning process, the process of running the facility with the current volatility in lithium markets, you need a pretty big balance sheet to take that on and PLS is the right partner to do that. So restructuring the deal is a sensible thing to do, and it strengthens our balance sheet. And that's important for everything else we do, not only just in terms of continuing to develop these other opportunities, but also the strength of the balance sheet in things like raising capital. If we're looking at raising capital into a subsidiary for the iron and steel business, for example, certainly a strong balance sheet helps as you contemplate those types of efforts and negotiations. So the other thing that's really important about a deal is speed, moving into commissioning and demonstrating our first electric calc at scale as soon as possible. And again, with PLS and the balance sheet that PLS have able to move that forward, then that was certainly another key factor as well is to get this technology demonstrated at scale. So there's lots of good reasons why we did that deal. And so hopefully, over time, people will come to realize it was a pretty smart strategic move. It's a good deal for us as well as a good deal for PLS. It was a win-win. So the lithium, we're proud of that deal, and it will bear itself out in terms of value for our shareholders. Leilac, lots of progress on Leilac as well. We've completed the pre-FEED study for the Zeta project. That's a lime calciner project in South Australia, supported by some grant money from the Australian government. And so that project continues to progress nicely. And then, of course, recently, just a month ago, we were able to announce a study with a group called Frontier. Frontier is a collective, if you like, of some of the largest American corporations such as Google, Stripe, Shopify, who have committed to forward purchase over 1 billion tonnes of CO2 to offset their emissions. And this particular contract worth over USD 0.5 million is about testing of our technology to decarbonize lime and other carbonates. And it's for the use of those in what we call ocean alkalinity. So in terms of offsetting shipping emissions or offsetting CO2 emissions, if you can add carbonates into the ocean, which, of course, is also a natural process been going on for billions of years, then that actually helps the ocean absorb some of the CO2 and create sea shells or create carbonate rocks like limestone in the ocean. So it's like an ocean form of direct air capture, potentially much cheaper than on land direct air capture. Exciting potential new market for us in Leilac. So lots of commercial milestones were achieved in just the last 6 months, which on top of the significant advances we've made on the financial side of the business puts us in very good shape. If we just move on to talk about our individual projects. Thanks, Christineh. So just in terms of ZESTY and the project with ARENA and Rio Tinto, obviously, securing that strategic partner in Rio Tinto is a very important part of continuing to progress that project. We continue to target equity raise or project financing into a subsidiary, similar to the way we did the Leilac business back in 2021 when we got investment directly into that subsidiary. Certainly, having a strategic on board like Rio is a great catalyst to enable that process to continue. And so we're continuing to target that sublevel funding and to move into an FID decision point this year. So good progress there. On the ZEAL, we've talked about, which is the Zero Emissions Alumina, we talked about Hydro and the work we're doing there, Norsk Hydro, we've secured that paid test work, and that's underway now. So right now we're getting paid. We're doing lots of work from the materials center across from the Alunorte refinery in Brazil. On the lithium, I've talked about the Midstream project. Construction was complete on budget. The commissioning process is in PLS' hands. But as part of the deal we did with PLS, we're going to be paid at market rates for engineering and testing work as we would with third parties as well. And so the commissioning decision is with PLS there, and we await that with interest. On the Zeta project, we've got the grant funding, as I mentioned, we've moved through pre-FEED, and we really like to progress that project again through some equity or financing at the project level or into Leilac group to enable that project to proceed. But that's a nice little project for us online in South Australia. Lime is no small part of the market either. It's about 1/10 the size of the cement industry, but it's still bigger than, say, the alumina piece. So lime is a very important industry for us. It's important for making aluminum. It's important for making iron and steel. And it's obviously a very important industrial chemical. So good to see that project progressing. On Leilac-2, we continue to have issues around permitting and financing that project. There is no clear line of sight to resolving that time. So we've talked before about potentially delaying or a potential delay of that project. It is now delayed having moved into this calendar year with no clear line of sight to resolving the permitting around there. And so we are continuing to progress that. And over the course of the first 6 months, we were progressing that. And we'll continue to do so. And as soon as we can get some line of sight to that timing, we'll update the market. With respect to Leilac full-scale, the work with Titan, the work with MLC, unfortunately, we still haven't heard back from the U.S. DOE. So they promised to get back after the summer of last year, the U.S. summer of last year. And I guess with everything else that's happening in the U.S., they sort of haven't looked at this yet. But we obviously continue discussions with Titan, with MLC, with numerous other players. The pipeline still remains nice and full, over 85 projects. We're not trying to seek more projects, but some of those projects, obviously, we're looking to see if we can convert elsewhere as well, given the U.S. is stalled a bit at the moment. And similarly with Heirloom. Heirloom, again, is one of those projects that was under review from the Department of Energy. But the new work that we're doing on the frontier piece, which is also about CO2 mitigation, in this case, in the ocean via Ocean alkalinity, that particular piece of work is a carbon dioxide removal piece of work, which is moving forward nicely for us. So some projects moving forward really well. Others are a bit delayed. A bit of a mixed bag, but that's why we've got so many shots on goal. It's because some move, some don't and then move. But rest assured, there's a lot happening. And for some of these really big opportunities like iron and steel and alumina, things are going really well. Okay. If we move forward, just to a summary. Thanks, Christineh. So just in summary, obviously the financials we're very pleased with. The magnesia particularly hitting the ball out of the park, nice gross profit, getting a really nice focused business now with the OpEx and minimal CapEx. And so the strength in our financial numbers is really starting to help us and will continue to improve and help us down the track. The commercialization, which has been achieved on top of all the changes we've made in the business has been outstanding. Obviously, we'd like to really emphasize the move ahead with ARENA and Rio Tinto on the ZESTY part of the project, which is -- ZESTY part of the business, which is a really interesting project into a huge potential market space. But also, of course, Norsk Hydro with Alumina, a great partnership that's working really well and a good deal for us with the Midstream project. And as Darren was mentioning around our cash position, we expected neutral cash flow this year as a result of all of those activities that we had outlined and an additional $11.4 million back onto the books gives us -- puts us in a really strong position from a balance sheet perspective, which helps across all of our projects and all of our activities. So just in terms of outlook around commercial milestones, obviously we want to continue with the magnesia revenue and gross profit growth. That big contract we won aren't in our numbers in the first half year. It's going to be really great to see those starting to flow through into the numbers for the second half of the year. Obviously we want to progress ZESTY towards a final investment decision, which includes the financing, the remainder of the financing part of the business, possibly through an equity raise into a subsidiary company there. With ZEAL, complete the test program with Hydro and hopefully move into a pre-FEED piece for a demonstration in alumina, complete the Leilac Frontier paid studies and get the material testing complete and there's second and third phases that may flow from that should we be successful. And lastly, we obviously want to continue to progress the Leilac Zeta project for lime in South Australia towards FID as well. So hopefully, that gives people a good idea of where we're at in the first half year in terms of financials, in terms of commercial milestones and also what we're looking at for the remainder of the financial year. So on that note, I'm happy to open up to questions.

Just a reminder that to ask questions, you can use the Q&A box at the bottom of the screen or you can e-mail them through to investor relations at calix.global. And although you can use an anonymous function here so it's easier to keep it all in one spot. There's been quite a few questions come through, and we've got 30 minutes left on the clock. We'll get through them as quickly as possible and as many as possible. So I'll start with the first one. "How much revenue do you expect the new magnesia customer contract to deliver in second half '26?"

So it's going to be run rating at about $10 million per annum. There's always a bit of ramp-up. We're expecting that ramp-up as we start supplying to be a couple of months, a few months. So once we start to hit our straps, we should be run rating at that full contract value in the second quarter of this calendar year. So yes, it's not going to be the full 10 in the last half of this year, certainly not that. But yes, we're looking forward to seeing how quickly we can ramp that up and get those revenues flowing through. So we won't give a number, but it certainly will hit, the commencement of that contract will certainly hit our numbers for the second half of this financial year.

Okay. "Are you continuing to pursue new water contracts in the U.S.? If so, can you comment on what the pipeline might look like?"

Well, absolutely. This particular contract that we just secured, there's multiple opportunities of this scale in the U.S. And one thing to keep in mind is these contracts often take some time because the volume is contracted, typically they're contracted for several years. And so it takes a while to convert. We've got a very good record in terms of retention. So once we won a customer, we tend to keep them. So customer churn is very low. So it takes a few years, but the customer churn is low. Once we've won a customer, we tend to be able to keep them. But there are several customers been working on for quite some time as well. So we are obviously targeting some of these big accounts, a similar scale, of which there are quite a few. But there's also lots and lots of smaller accounts as well. And some of those are typically shorter cycle times between when you approach a customer and when you convert. So we're really concentrating around the geographic areas that we've now got all of our plants. So if you recall, we had 4 plants originally, we built 2 more, one down in Texas and one as we move across the Midwest into Wisconsin. And so we're continuing to expand geographically. And as when potentially we start to get anchor customers in new regions, we will look at additional plants to help support that region and take out cost. So yes, it's absolutely -- it's a strategy that we'd formed some time ago. It's bearing fruit now because the cycle times have taken a reasonable amount of time, but it's bearing fruit now. But look, I wouldn't discount Australia either. We're at a certain level in Australia, running about $4 million here in Australia for quite a while. And that business in Australia is starting to grow quite significantly as well. Same phenomenon. It takes a while to get into some of these larger accounts because of the time period under which they're contracted. But having been successful with Unitywater, having been successful on a retender with Gold Coast, 2 of the largest accounts in Australia, and there's multiple other opportunities in Australia that we're looking at as well. So it's not just the U.S., we still see upside in Australia. So hopefully that answers the question, Christineh, yes.

Yes, it does. I'll pivot to ZESTY. "So are you confident that you will have project investment and have moved into FID for ZESTY by the end of this financial year?"

Certainly it would be great if we did. What adds to a level of confidence is if you see where capital raises have been successful in the private space, in the venture capital space, it's because there's been a strategic. It's been tough in the markets in the impact fund land for sustainable technologies. Everyone acknowledges that the last 2 or 3 years has been tough. But we have seen deals done successfully, and they're done successfully when there's a strategic involved. So getting Rio and doing the strategic partnership, the joint development arrangement with Rio is a really good indicator to me that we can capitalize on that momentum to execute that strategy. I can't give you a definitive time. Two reasons, one, I shouldn't. And the second is it just puts commercial, I guess, it gives commercial advantage to counterparties who might be dealing with. But we want to get this done as quickly as we can. So we're working hard at it.

Okay. "You're emphasizing how capital-light we are going to be. Does this include the ZESTY project too?"

Absolutely. So certainly we're going to be building a demonstration facility. So some may argue that's not capital-light, but it certainly is compared to a full-scale facility. We're going to own and control this. Sure, there will be investment coming in the project level or even into -- as equity into a subsidiary, but that will be minority stakes. We'll own this facility. And so yes, with respect to capital-light, we'll still need to invest a little bit of capital to get the technology demonstrated in a few of these different industries. So iron and steel is one and cement is potentially another one. But yes, capital-light is -- remains the business model. We do see that licensing and royalties is the best way forward for the technology to scale and be deployed quickly.

Phil, I might just add a couple of comments there, if I can. So I think maybe one way to look at this is capital-light at head company level. So Phil talks about raising capital at the subsidiary level. So the ZESTY commercial demonstrator will be financed through a combination of direct investment from impact funds, significant grant, $44.5 million from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, which we're very thankful of, been great supporters. And obviously a significant contribution both in cash and in kind from Rio Tinto. So at the ZESTY project level or at the ZESTY subsidiary level, it will require capital, but we will target raising that money at that level and not at Calix headstock level. So Calix headstock will be a capital-light business model. The money for those commercial demonstrators needs -- will and needs to come into the subsidiary at subsidiary level and be supported thankfully by grants, strategic partners and industry participants.

Okay. Next question is, "Will demo plans in partnerships or JVs be required in each product type prior to commercial licensing arrangements? If so, is Australia the preferred location for demo plants?"

Yes. As Darren mentioned, where we need to put demo plants in and typically for the larger industries where they want to see at least single tubes in operation or bigger, so for those very large opportunities in iron and steel, cement and lime, then yes, we're going to need to demonstrate. Iron and steel is going to be using hydrogen. And so the ability to handle hydrogen at scale and prove that at scale is important for us. So a demo plant is important for that particular application. And then in cement, the ability for a multi-tube unit to be integrated into a cement facility is important as well to demonstrate. For a few of the others, we may not, where there's less integration, where there's a stand-alone opportunity, lime, for example, we don't believe we need to build a demonstration facility. The Zeta project is, in fact, a small commercial facility straight off the bat. And so it's a little bit horses for courses. But as a rule of thumb, let's just imagine the very largest industries are going to require demonstration. And just in terms of preferred location, Australia with the opportunity in green iron is sort of a bit of a no-brainer for ZESTY to move ahead. Iron ore is something like 1/3 of our export income in this country. 96% of that ore is unsuitable for electric arc. And so as the industry decarbonizes, that creates a bit of an existential threat for this country. And so the ability to look at a green iron industry here and the opportunity, if you like, is where we see ZESTY sort of naturally developed. You can see some pretty significant government support. Obviously, ARENA, as Darren mentioned, has been very supportive. But there are opportunities moving forward to help operators of these types of facilities. So various government fund type arrangements and subsidiaries to help get this industry up and running in Australia. Cement and lime, we're in cement and lime. It's not a huge part of our economy. There's a lot of cement production capability in China, obviously, a lot of cement production capability in Europe and Southeast Asia and the Asia Pac region. Even the U.S. is quite a small cement play. It's only 5% of global production. So cement and lime, certainly cement is more likely to be offshore in terms of where we continue to develop that. Obviously, the Leilac-2 project in Europe is important for us. But there are numerous other opportunities that we're developing in the pipeline across Asia Pac and additionally in Europe. So cement is more likely to be offshore. Alumina, as we mentioned, is with Norsk Hydro, the Alunorte refinery in South America, in Brazil is a good spot to develop that particular application of the technology apart from the fact that there's biomass type options to look at energizing our calcination process. There's also abundant and cheap renewable power. So Brazil could be a good spot to progress the alumina opportunity. So hopefully, yes, it gives a bit of an idea of the fact that there's no cookie-cutter approach necessarily to each of these. But generally, a demo for large complex industries will need to be built, but we have the plans to do that via these subsidiary capital raisings, as Darren mentioned before.

Okay. We've got about 15 minutes left and quite a few questions to get through. So I'll keep the next ones punchy. "Will a cut in CapEx spend inhibit your ability to grow?"

Sorry, will a what?

A cut in CapEx spend.

Yes. I'll answer that, Phil. In terms of, I think what we're forecasting is lower CapEx spend moving forward. And essentially, at this point, we've got the platform to continue to grow, particularly in the magnesium business. If we got a kind of massive surge in demand for our magnesia products, we need to have a look at it. But I think the business is generating sufficient gross margin and cash for it to be able to finance any capital requirements it might have to add plants to grow revenue even further. But at this point in time, essentially we've added a customer that's going to deliver an additional 30-plus percent in revenue on an annual basis, and we haven't seen the need to invest material amounts of capital to deliver that. So look, I think we're just saying relative to the spend over the last 3 or 4 half years, where it's been $7 million, $8 million in a 6-month period, we're certainly in a much lower view forward in terms of CapEx spend to kind of continue to drive the growth that we see in front of us.

So next question is, "With the Rio Tinto JD agreement providing $35 million in value and an FID for the demo plant during 2026, how will you prevent a repeat of the PLS situation? If the demo plant is successful, does Rio Tinto have a prenegotiated right to buy out Calix's interest? And have you already locked in the royalty rates for global rollout?"

Yes. So it's a very different structure to the PLS structure. So Rio have an option for equity for the cash part of their investment via what's called a simple agreement for future equity. So -- and they haven't priced that. What that means is that as and when we raise capital into the equity to go build the plant, Rio could convert some of that money into equity in the subsidiary on -- just on metrics such as, well, Calix is investing the $44.9 million coming from ARENA through into that subsidiary on the metrics of adding match funding to there, which outside of Rio's $8 million will be of the order of $35 million or more. And on the metrics of benchmarked technology valuations for green steel or green iron and steel technologies, that percentage likely will be a very small minor percentage of equity in that facility. So in the Pilbara case, we were minority equity participants, and that was appropriate given the ratio, if you like, of capital for our technology versus capital for the balance of plant. But here, we're going to be the majority. Similar to Leilac, we're 93% of Leilac. We're going to be a majority owner in ZESTY. And so it's going to be -- it's a very different deal structure to the Pilbara deal structure.

I think the other question or the other question was around the royalty rates, Phil, for -- in terms of the relationship with Rio Tinto, have we already agreed the royalty rates.

Yes. The answer is in principle. So in the JDA, the royalty rates were outlined, but the full license agreement is being worked on now, which will incorporate those royalty rates. And so as and when -- actually, in the interest of preserving commercial, I guess, leverage in deploying the technology to other parties, we won't be disclosing those rates publicly. But those rates are appropriate royalty rates similar to what you might determine as appropriate royalty rates for technology. We've sort of indicated before that anywhere between sort of 0.5% or 1% of the ultimate size of the market in terms of revenue or value. Up to 10% in some cases might be considered a high royalty rate. There's a range for you. So the total market is $640 billion for iron and royalty rates of 0.5% to 1% at the low end and 10% at the high end would be typical royalty rates for technologies. So yes, it's a very significant opportunity. And yes, we -- our royalty rates that we're working through are within that range.

Okay. There's a couple of questions with Leilac, which I'll combine. "So can you talk to the financing issues you are having at Leilac? Are they related to permitting?" And the second part of that is, "Please explain what the permit issue is relating to and who has the power to unlock the situation?"

Yes. So I'll talk to financing first. We're going through the same thing in the Leilac group as we're going through with ZESTY, which is about finding and working with impact funds and strategics to invest in the Leilac in round 2. So Leilac, if you recall, had investment come in, in round 1 from Carbon Direct who bought 7% of Leilac for EUR 15 million at the time. So we're looking at a round 2 to help raise the capital we need to build the plant to match the funding that we're getting from the EU to enable that project to proceed. That financing, as I've mentioned before, it's been a difficult financing environment. On the ZESTY side of things, we feel that with Rio as a strategic partner, that's going to be well thought through and well thought of. But on the Leilac's side of things, we're hitting the same issues. We want to move ahead with raising around there. We've got some reasonable support from the consortium that we have there who've already committed some funds into the project. But it's a matter of closing out those sorts of rounds. And yes, that's taking longer than we expected. On the permitting side of things, we are dealing with 3 different levels of authorities in Germany. And so the permitting process is complex and long. The submission of fully designed down to the last bolt designs then get followed with inquiries or changes being suggested by different levels of authorities. Some of those changes then change the structure of the tower or the wind loading. And so you've got to go through and turn the handle again. And then so you resubmit and you start a process again and then a European summer happens and no one's around in July, August. So these are the things that are frustrating and slow. And so we just have to work through it, unfortunately. So yes, without a line of sight or an end date, which we don't have from the permitting authorities yet, we feel we can't talk about that project in terms of a time line just at this point. So hopefully, that covers the permitting and the financing side of things on the Leilac, on the L-2 project.

And just a follow-up on L-2. "Is there an option to move L-2 to another site with fewer permitting challenges? How much work has been done in site preparation?"

Yes. Short answer, absolutely. And absolutely, we're working on it.

Okay. Just on PLS, "The announcement of the PLS deal made it sound as though Calix has given the IP away to PLS for use in any lithium project they proceed with. Can we comment on that?"

Yes. When we say given away, certainly, we've sold -- forward sold, if you like, PLS' right to use that LP. And for the price of recycling the capital we put in. So when we look at the value equation, it's whether PLS will go ahead and build a full-scale facility and when will they build that full-scale facility and what license fee would we have got from PLS. We've done all those maths and we've weighted up and risk assessed that. So we still think this is a good deal for us. PLS, if they go ahead and build a dozen full-scale facilities, they'll probably come out ahead on this deal, okay? Good on them. If they go ahead and build a dozen facilities, then that means it's a great technology, and that means third parties are going to have to follow suit if they want to take advantage of the logistics advantages, the carbon advantages and the energy advantages that the technology brings. And of course, for those third-party licenses, we get upside. We're exposed to 20% of any royalties from those third parties. As I say, we think it's a fair deal. PLS has done the heavy lifting on the capital here. In fact, in the end, they've paid for the full facility. We've got no process guarantees. We've got no downside liabilities on commissioning or running the facility. And all we have is upside both in terms of engineering fees, technology and testing fees and any third-party licenses. So yes, it's a balanced deal. I can see how people can see that PLS got some good value out of it. They did. We got some good value out of it, too. So it's a win-win. That's the way we see it.

Okay. There's still a bunch of questions, and I just want to warn everybody that we may run out of time. So if we don't get to your question on the webinar, we will ensure that we come back to you directly. The next question will be a quick one. "What is the projected full cost for ZESTY above the ARENA and Rio Tinto JDA contributions?"

I think the brownfield -- sorry, greenfields cost of putting the plant on the ground, Rio -- sorry, Rino is covering $44.9 million at a 50-50 rate. And that includes commissioning and that includes 2 years, support for 2 years of test work. So the project all the way through, including commissioning those first -- supporting -- helping support those first 2 years of test work, we're saying is a AUD 90 million project roughly.

Okay. Related to that, "With Hazer able to produce low-carbon hydrogen for $1 a kilo as compared to 4 to 5 kilos in the techno feasibility study, are you considering teaming up with them to provide hydrogen plant for ZESTY?"

Look, I think Hazer is a really interesting technology. We're obviously speaking to numerous potential hydrogen sources, including Hazer. And so we'd love to see Hazer progress technically. And ultimately, if they can produce at $1 a kilo, that will be a fantastic solution for the industry as a whole.

Okay. Another question on hydrogen for you. "Considering the current delays in hydrogen supply, could you outline how natural gas may serve as an interim reductant for ZESTY and whether this offers advantages over other transitional sponge iron technologies?"

Well, the short answer is yes, absolutely, natural gas, you can reform it. So in other words, you can turn the natural gas into hydrogen with some CO2 that's produced as a result of that. Although it's not a zero emissions or very low emissions iron, it's certainly lower emissions than a blast furnace. So if you can -- it's less than 1/3 of the emissions of a blast furnace route to produce iron and steel. And so as a transition, to be pragmatic, absolutely we'd be considering natural gas or reform natural gas. We're good, we're lucky with ZESTY. It's very flexible in terms of the way it can be adapted to some of those alternate reductant routes. So yes, it's -- we obviously would love to start the plant up on green hydrogen. But if we can't, for whatever reason, then we are looking at these alternatives as well.

Okay. Then I've got 2 questions for you, Darren. I'll combine them. Do you envisage having sufficient capital to meet your needs for the remainder of calendar year '26? And beyond full year '26, do we expect Calix to become cash flow positive?

So an answer to the first question, yes, so putting aside the $11.4 million that we'll receive once we've completed the transaction with Pilbara Minerals, we said we'd be cash flow neutral in calendar year 2026. So hopefully, that answers that question. In terms of the second point of the question -- or the second question, I think the way that I'd answer that is that we have been cash flow positive from operations going back a few years now. We know how to run the business to generate cash and profits immediately. Right now, we think it makes all the sense in the world to continue to invest in developing the technology for large addressable markets such as iron and steel and alumina and lime and cement. That's going to take a little bit of upfront investment in research and development, but we think that makes all the sense in the world for us to continue to do that because applying the technology in those large addressable markets will create significant value for shareholders and for the planet. But from a kind of shareholder and value perspective for the company, we think absolutely it makes sense for us to continue to focus in these large addressable markets which we -- as I said, which we think will generate great value. Now like I said, we could stop all of that R&D. We'd have a very profitable, nice revenue growing business. But we don't think that makes -- we don't think that's the right thing to do right now. We're certainly, as I said, going to be cash flow neutral for FY -- for calendar year '26, sorry, if I said FY, I apologize, but calendar year '26 before we factor in this $11.4 million. So suffice to say, we're in a very strong financial position to continue to grow the business in the areas that we want to, have focused delivery and execution and pursue these large addressable markets in a capital-light way.

Okay. We'll try and get through the last 2 questions submitted during the webinar. "Do you expect that external investors in ZESTY will require Calix to contribute capital to the demo plant in addition to the anticipated free equity carry?"

We'll contribute $44.5 million from ARENA to the project. That's the extent to which we're contributing to the project.

And that's the catch. Obviously, the IP is, it's 100% our IP. And again, as opposed to where we're at with the lithium joint venture where there's a lot of IP associated with developing a new product and a new process for lithium phosphate salt, it's 100% our IP in ZESTY, and that's going to be valued, absolutely.

"And when capital is raised at subsidiary level, does that mean Calix itself won't be required to provide funding?"

Yes.

Right.

All right. Perfect. I'm conscious that we've had a lot more questions come through separately to the webinar. And I'm sorry that we haven't got time to address them, but I will certainly get back to you each individually. But I think we've run out of time. So I might hand over to Phil and Darren for any closing remarks.

Thanks, Christineh. Look, just to really sum up the key messages from the first half year, growth in revenue and gross profit, a focused streamlined business is now delivering on -- and continues to deliver on some significant commercial milestones that were achieved in the first half of the year. And we look to the second half of the year to continue to progress delivery on those commercial milestones while maintaining focus in the business and discipline. So we're very pleased with our first half performance, and we look forward to the second half continuing that performance. So thank you very much, everyone.

Thanks, Phil.