Cedar Woods Properties Limited (CWP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and welcome to the Cedar Woods Properties Limited Fiscal Year 2024 Full Year Results Webcast and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Nathan Blackburne. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to the presentation of the FY '24 financial results for Cedar Woods. My name is Nathan Blackburne, and with me is our CFO, Leon Hanrahan. In this presentation, we will provide an overview of Cedar Woods and the FY '24 year, the strategy and business model that sets us apart. We'll review the financial results, discuss current market conditions, provide some commentary on our portfolio and then discuss the outlook for our business and sector. Cedar Woods is an experienced property development company with a driven team that has proved its success in acquiring and delivering projects over the past 30 years. In our portfolio, we have over 10,000 lots or dwellings in the pipeline, which is made up of 40 projects across Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland. Our products include land estates, townhouses, apartments and commercial developments, and we are known for the quality and sustainability of our developments with many awards for design and sustainability excellence. We have a great long-term track record in growing earnings per share, and we remain growth focused. The new housing sector has a bright future, which bodes well for our business. Government policy is supportive. There is a chronic shortage of supply, which will take many years to address, and our business has good leverage to the country's more affordable capital cities. And finally, our strategy is well proven, and we have a long track record in the disciplined execution of it. In FY '24, we delivered a net profit after tax of $40.5 million and revenue of $386 million from 1,140 settlements. This resulted in a return on equity of around 8.8% and earnings per share of $0.492 up 28% on last year. The Board has declared a final dividend of $0.17 fully franked, taking full year dividends to $0.25. This reflects a payout ratio of approximately 51% of NPAT and a favorable fully franked dividend yield of 5%. Over the year, we contracted sales of 1,201 lots compared to 694 last year. And at 30 June, we held presale contracts with a value of $559 million. This is up on the $448 million in presales for this time last year and represents a strong outcome, especially when considered in the context of total revenue that we achieved for last year. We expect about 70% of these presales will deliver revenue in FY '25 with the balance going into FY '26. More detail on the financial position of the company will be covered shortly. Now a bit about our company. Our strategy is to grow and develop our national project portfolio diversified by geography, product type and price point so that it continues to hold broad customer appeal and performs well in a range of market conditions. The strategy is proving successful with strong relative financial returns that we've been able to deliver over the longer term. Cedar Woods has multiple product types in 4 states and different price points appealing to a variety of buyer profiles. In terms of our business model, we create value in 3 keyways. Firstly, in acquisitions, we are tactical and research-based and have a 30-year track record of identifying and converting high-quality sites. The quality of our portfolio is testament to this component of value creation, and I think it is unparalleled in our sector. In the development phase, we engage designers and create products that we think will meet a demand sweet spot. We then engage builders and oversee construction. And the third value-add area is marketing and sales, where we create quality brands and presell projects before starting construction. As part of our strategy, we are supplementing our portfolio with projects that are undertaken in partnership. Our partnering strategy is a strategic pivot that will see a greater portion of future earnings coming from partnering arrangements. Partnering allows us to further leverage our existing development skills, generate regular fee income and thereby smoothing our earnings profile, access larger scale and a greater number of development sites, which in turn supports our diversification strategy and grow our earnings in a less capital-intensive way. Further diversification and greater scale allows the company to perform more consistently through the cycles. So far, we have established partnerships with QIC and Tokyo Gas Real Estate, representing exciting opportunities for Cedar Woods to participate in projects of scale without committing to the entire capital requirements. QIC and Tokyo Gas Real Estate are both substantial and experienced partners. QIC offers us access to well-located sites in major town centers for developing apartments and townhouses at a time when those housing forms are in very short supply. Tokyo Gas has selected Cedar Woods as a national development partner. We recently announced the third project with Tokyo Gas being an apartment development in Subiaco, which helped fulfill their plans to deploy $600 million into property globally, but particularly Australia. The intention with both partnerships is to expand them with more projects, and we continue to evaluate opportunities to support these relationships. ESG ties in with a number of our key values, one of which is we think about tomorrow, which encapsulates the value we place on sustainability and innovation. This year, we achieved good progress in delivering on the ESG strategy. We continue to work on abating our corporate carbon footprint through adopting green and solar power at our corporate and sales offices, resulting in around 40% reduction in Scope 2 emissions across our facilities. We advanced our program to measure and report on our project emissions in preparation for mandatory climate reporting by FY '27. In FY '24, we maintained our strong safety record, recorded an improvement score in our staff satisfaction survey, and we continue to provide support to the broader community with initiatives such as our ongoing sponsorship of the Smith family, and our community grants programs. I'll now hand over to Leon to take you through the financial matters.

Thanks, Nathan. Looking at the results in a bit more detail, an improvement in net profit after tax of 28% was achieved on broadly stable revenue gross margin and overheads with other income, including $19.9 million before tax profit contributed from the previously [ expand ] sale and settlement of the Williams Landing Shopping Center, which more than offset higher finance costs. A change in product mix with a greater portion of revenue derived from lower value land settlements resulted in broadly flat revenues despite a lift in settlement volume from 919 lots in '23 versus 1,140 in the financial year '24. Gross margin was stable at 25% in financial year '24 for and is expected to benefit from sales price improvements in time, although year-to-year can be impacted by the product mix. Pleasingly, project overheads were stable at $20.8 million, and the 2% growth in administration costs was kept below inflation of 3.8%. Finance costs were higher, as a result of higher average debt balance during the year, slightly higher base interest rates and a lower portion of borrowing costs capitalized. Taking a look at the balance sheet. The balance sheet was transformed in the second half of the financial year, following a significant number of high-value residential settlements, as well as the settlement of the shopping center. Total assets at 30 June of $743.6 million were lower than the prior year, although net assets and equity were reflecting the strong full year earnings result less cash dividends paid during the period. Net bank debt of $120 million was well down on the prior year and gearing, measured by net bank debt to equity at 26% and net back debt to total tangible assets less cash at 17% are at the lower end of our target gearing ranges. The company extended the tenure of its 3- and 5-year corporate finance facilities in the year, giving the company $330 million in finance facilities and ensuring continued to secure long-term funding availability, with the average debt maturity of approximately 3 years. The reduction in facility limit related to the closeout of a $30 million project facility during the year. We finished the year in a strong liquidity position with $134.9 million in facility headroom available at year-end in addition to the $21.9 million in cash and with interest cover at 3.9x, comfortably exceeding the facility covenant of 2x. I'll now hand back to Nathan to talk to market conditions.

So I'm now going to touch on market conditions that the company is experiencing and talk more about our sales. So this graph shows our gross sales by quarter going back to Q4 FY '20. Enquiry and sales volumes continued to increase in each successive quarter during FY '24, particularly in WA, Queensland, creating a strong presales position for FY '25. All buyer categories were active, but with first-home buyers and investors well represented. Sales growth is a positive forward indicator, as these sales translate to settlements and revenue in future periods. Sales are the most buoyant in WA, where the economy is strong and property is more affordable, but its performance is closely followed by Queensland, which has also performed well, especially over the second half. Construction costs have continued to grow, but more in line with long-term averages and at a markedly lower rate than revenue growth, which I'll touch on shortly. There is a significant shortfall in housing across Australia. Housing demand is currently running at around 240,000 per annum and is expected to settle at around 185,000 over the next few years. Housing supply is expected to generate around 167,000 dwellings in 2024 and average around [ 180,000 ] in outer years, which means that the housing supply shortage will continue. Australia is forecast to have a shortfall of 260,000 dwellings by mid-2029. Supply of housing also affects the rental market. Nationally, the rental market is tight with low vacancy rates in all capitals. This is going to take many years to fix and position Cedar Woods well with our significant number of shovel-ready projects, long pipeline of projects and new partnerships. Australian dwelling values increased 8% over FY '24 looking at the national statistics. This persistent growth is despite higher rates and affordability challenges, and it comes down mainly to the lack of supply, but also the strong employment outcomes evident around the country. There was significant price growth variations from state to state, which you can see from this chart on the left, with Perth strongly outperforming all other states, but Brisbane and Adelaide also seeing strong growth. The Melbourne market is the weakest nationally with little to no growth in prices experienced there over FY '24. So these statistics largely echo the performance of our own portfolio over FY '24, but with our own price growth in Perth, stronger than the 24% shown in this chart. And with a significant Perth portfolio, this is helping with our earnings outlook and the restoration of margins. Now just touching on buyer profiles. Both owner occupier and investor numbers increased over FY '24, as demonstrated by the chart on the left, which shows loan commitments to these cohorts. First, homebuyer representation as the percentage of owner occupiers is shown in the chart on the right. It's fair to say that all owner occupier categories have been active in our stronger markets, but with a general increase in first homebuyer numbers. The interest from investors in WA property has been the strongest we've seen in a long while. Cedar Woods has a distinctly broad base of customers with products to cater for most categories. I now wanted to provide some insight into our portfolio and in particular, the presales composition. These charts demonstrate the geographic and product diversification in our portfolio. The first chart on the left shows the proportion of our portfolio in each state and a reflection of our geographic diversification. The middle chart show our presales by location. And as you can see, we have good presales in 3 of our states. Queensland is running a little behind because of the timing of stage releases. We have acquired a number of projects in Queensland in recent times. And as these come to market, that will be reflected in future charts. The charts on the right show the mix of product in the presales with residential land still being the largest sector, but townhouses and apartments together accounting for over 50% of our presales by value and offices being 8% of presales. We continue to boost this diversification with the joint venture at Robina in Queensland, which will add a large number of townhouses and apartments to the portfolio. Now let's take a look at each state portfolio, starting with Western Australia. We have 13 residential projects and 4,800 lots of dwellings in the pipeline in WA. Our portfolio here is primarily comprised of residential lots, and we are in a good spread of locations north and south. Our newest projects at Atwater in Rockingham, the Ariella extension and Eglinton up in Perth North all recorded strong sales. Across the portfolio, we achieved over 30% price growth during FY '24 and have achieved further price growth in FY '25 to date. We recently acquired a new site in Subiaco next to our existing Incontro project that we intend to develop apartments at in joint venture with Tokyo Gas. We now have over 300 apartments to deliver in 4 separate buildings in Perth. Now to look at a project example. The Eglinton project in WA will be a major master planned community with over 1,200 residential lots, a school and a shopping center. It will contribute to earnings for over a decade and has gotten off to a good start with sales that contributed to profits in FY '24. It is only a recent acquisition but has been one of our top-performing projects out of 40 nationally for the past 12 months. The estate is located 500 meters from the Eglinton Train Station, which recently opened. The estate also includes a community energy sharing network, also known as a micro grid, which consists of a private network with solar power from rooftop panels linked to a community battery, providing energy efficiency and low energy bills for our customers. Now turning to our Victorian portfolio. In Victoria, we have 12 projects, which offer a wide range of products, including land lots, townhouses, apartments and offices. Our suburban office projects continue to do well with Boston Commons and Hudson's Hub experiencing continued high demand for strata offices in Melbourne's West. Over 13 hectares of mixed-use and high-value land at Williams Landing remains undeveloped and is expected to accommodate a further 1,000-plus dwellings and strata offices to be delivered over the next 8 years to 10 years. Our residential projects in Victoria experienced softer market conditions during the year, mainly as a result of higher interest rates. Mason Quarter in Victoria is a good example of one of the company's residential estates. It comprises 800 dwellings, 2 schools, community facilities and extensive open space. The estate is positioned as a premium estate in Melbourne's north, attracting first-home buyers and second home buyers. This estate was one of the highest performing projects in its growth corridor, recording over 250 settlements during FY '24. Sales, though, at this estate was lower over FY '24. Now turning to our Queensland portfolio. We have 6 projects in Queensland and a total of 1,700 lots and dwellings to deliver. There's a mix of land estates, townhouses and apartments in this portfolio. Our joint venture with QIC to develop 414 apartments and townhouses adjacent to the Robina Town Center is progressing through planning. Given Southeast Queensland's relative affordability and strong inbound immigration, we expect this market to perform well over the medium term. We've had solid price growth in FY '24 on the back of strong growth that was also achieved in FY '23. The construction sector has seen significant cost increases, which has impacted the timing of some stages, but which we expect to restart as more capacity comes in -- back into the construction sector. Flourish in Southeast Queensland is our newest project there, and it got off to a strong start in FY '24. It is a 510 lot master planned community located 36 kilometers south of Brisbane in the suburb of South Maclean. This area is a major growth corridor of Brisbane, and the estate is close to existing housing and amenity and offers an affordable price point. Strong presales have been achieved since launch in November and construction of Stage 1 has commenced. The first settlements are due in the first half of FY '25. And lastly, the South Australian portfolio. In Adelaide, we have 9 projects, including 5 within the Glenside estate. In total, we have around 1,000 townhouses and apartments yet to deliver, a pipeline, which will keep us busy for a further 6 or so years. Our South Australian projects are well established with strong reputations for quality and sustainability and will continue to make meaningful contributions in coming years. The market has been strong in FY '24, and we've seen price growth of around 13% over that time period. Glenside in South Australia is a major multiyear infill project for the company that is contributing strongly to earnings. It has 1,000 townhouses and apartments planned on a 17-hectare site, just 3 kilometers from the Adelaide CBD. Several apartment and townhouse stages are [ entrained ]. Recently, we launched a new stage of apartments called Elegan, which has seen strong sales to date. Bloom at Glenside is an innovative new concept, Cedar Woods has developed. It's an over 55 apartment product with a traditional title ownership model. We've successfully sold out the first stage and are now moving on to our second stage, and we intend to roll the Bloom concept out at other locations around the country. With a significant housing shortage continuing in South Australia, we have seen strong price growth during the year. And in recognition of the quality of this development, Glenside took out 2023 UDIA Award for Excellence during the year. And now to the outlook for our business. In our portfolio, we have a number of new projects that will start to deliver first earnings over the short and medium term with 6 in FY '25 alone. This is as a result of successful acquisitions activity over the last few years, which has significantly added to our portfolio. There is a mix of apartments, townhouses and land estates and the new projects are spread geographically across the states. In the medium term, there is a raft of apartment projects that will be ready to go, as that sector recovers. These new projects, along with the existing ones already contributing in the portfolio support our growth outlook. Currently, the conditions for the housing sector are very favorable in the states we operate in, except Victoria. Cedar Woods starts FY '25 in a strong position with $559 million in presales expected to settle over FY '25 and FY '26. Presales for FY '25 already exceed the full year revenue for FY '24. The balance sheet is in good shape with low gearing and significant finance facility headroom to fund our developments and further acquisitions. The partnership strategy is progressing well, with 3 underway with Tokyo Gas and one underway with QIC and plans with both partners to expand the relationships. The company is targeting 10% growth in NPAT for FY '25 and is well placed for the medium term with a pipeline of more than 10,000 undeveloped dwellings, lots and offices across our 4 states. This brings us to the end of our presentation. Thank you for your interest in our company.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question we have will come from Larry Gandler of Shaw and Partners.

Larry Gandler from Shaw and Partners. Nathan, Leon, nice to start working with you and congrats on the good results in a clean set of accounts. Pleasure to work with. I guess, Nathan, my first question is the inventory at over 10,000 lots, you seem to have replenished that after strong sales in FY '24. Can you just help me understand how you've built that inventory back to over 10,000. What are the key components look like you may have included the JVs, perhaps in some of that inventory?

So there's a couple of things there, Larry. Firstly, Noble Park, which is an apartment project in Melbourne. It's government-owned lands that we have a contract to acquire. It's around 100 apartments that we'll pay for in hopefully September '24. It's a minimal nominal value that we're paying to that site. The product will be sold in one line with settlements forecast for FY '26, possibly some in FY '27. It will be sold to a -- in one line to an affordable housing provider. Then we've got Corio, Corio is in near Geelong or part of Geelong. It's about 400 lots. We've contracted to buy that in October '25. It is a conditional acquisition, conditional upon planning approval, which we're expecting in November or expecting to make a call on in November or December. But we're feeling good about it at this point in time. And then, as you suggest, QIC are a major owner of shopping centers around the country. Many of those shopping centers have surplus land. Cedar Woods have an arrangement with QIC to build a relationship over multiple projects, but starting with the Robina Town Center. This project we've called Robina Quarter, and we've planned 414 townhouses and apartments. We launched the planning application about a month ago. And the government there is enthusiastic about new projects to help deal with the supply issue. And so, we're expecting that to have a relatively smooth path. And then finally, we recently announced an acquisition of the Subiaco Depot site, which is over 200 apartments on a site very well located and next to our existing Incontro project. So we know that market well, and that is in JV with Tokyo Gas Real Estate also recently announced.

Fantastic. That's very good. If I can ask just a couple of other questions. The NPAT growth for F '25 seems conservative. Just wondering if -- what are some of the constraints that perhaps -- or uncertainties that perhaps are leading to that conservatism?

I think it's a good target we've got out there at 10% growth of '24. You see with our presales number of $559 million, and we're saying approximately 70%. So around about $400 million of our presales we're expecting to settle in FY '25. So clearly targeting revenue growth and likely step up revenue growth when we add in new sales that we'll continue to make over FY '24. There is obviously a constraint of how much you can build and how quickly you can build. So while we've done a lot of the hard work in the selling, we'll continue with the construction side of things. And there are scenarios, where we exceed or don't meet that target, and we'll update the market throughout the year, as we progress.

Right. And I guess, you're cycling the Williams Landing Shopping Center sale?

Yes. So year-to-year, we'll have one-off transactions like this. The shopping center was a big one in FY '24. In FY '23, we sold a school site in our Mason Quarter project. In FY '25, we announced that we'll have a commercial site from our Eglinton project that will settle and some of the adjoining land from the shopping center. So I think the Eglinton sites, [ 13 million ], the shopping center land is a much smaller number, but it's fairly typical for us to add 1 or 2 of these non-residential sales per annum.

There's -- throughout the portfolio, there's childcare sites, retirement sites, density sites that are very usual for us to transact on from year-to-year.

Excellent. And just one last question. This is a Leon question here. Leon, I just noticed the current tax liability stepped up. Should I be thinking that next year there'll be a cash tax -- a lift in cash tax paid maybe because of capital gains on the shopping center site.

So there's a 1-month lag with new payment of income taxes. So you pay your June month income tax in July. So we had a very big month of revenue in June. So the payment we made in July is a large payment relative to a normal month. But if our effective tax rate, it's pretty close to 30% and is kind of more, more consistent times, that's a fair proxy of cash tax in the year as well.

Next, we have Edward Day of MA Financial.

Nathan and Leon, congrats on the result. Just a question on your guidance. Just wondering if you can give us a feel for product mix and how your assumptions in FY '25 might compare to how you [ levered ] FY '24?

Yes. Sure. So I guess, if we sort of started FY '23, so FY '22 and FY '23, we were around about 45% of our volume of settlements was coming from our built form projects, so our partners, townhouses and offices. And if you think about when we're selling those, it's normally about 12 months earlier than that. In more recent times, there's going to be those apartment projects being more challenging economically and people have really sought house and land packages. And so, in '24 and our outlook for '25 from our volume of settlements, it's about 20% of our settlement volume that we think will deliver built form.

And just one more. Nathan, you spoke about some of the additions to your inventory. Can you just talk about, I guess, your appetite to continue restocking, given the -- where the balance sheet is and the capacity you have? And I guess, some of the opportunities you're looking at and which markets they are in?

Thanks, Ed. Yes. So we have significant balance sheet capacity with gearing sitting there right at the end of the rate -- target range. We've also got some major capital partners helping us there to finance projects going forward. So there's a national undersupply of dwellings in play, even in Melbourne, which is experiencing subdued conditions. The supply shortage there is not as extreme, as it is elsewhere, but we are open to acquisitions in all 4 of our markets because of that. We are currently looking at acquisitions that can contribute to FY '27 and FY '28 because we do not need to make acquisitions that support FY '25 and FY '26. The portfolio as it stands, can achieve earnings growth subject to sales without those further acquisitions. We're interested in both land and built form outcomes. With the built form acquisitions, we are a little more selective, making sure that we're going to be able to secure builders at a reasonable price in order to deliver that product. But we do find ourselves in a position, where because of the shortfall of supply across all product types that it really opens up the acquisitions mandate for us, noting that it is going to take many years to fix this supply shortage.

[Operator Instructions] The next question we have will come from Shane Bannan of PAC Partners.

Good morning, Leon, Nathan. Just -- you mentioned the gross margin. I'm trying to understand exactly how we're going to get to the 10% growth based on given your forecast of sales increase into the current year. I would have thought that given the price activity that's taken place, particularly in Perth, you would have actually seen the margin manifest a little bit more in 2024. And by implication, I guess, you're suggesting it can be far more manifest in 2025. I know in the past, you've guided to a 30% average margin over time. Is that the sort of order of magnitude you're talking about to try and achieve the outcome that you forecast for FY '25?

No. So at this stage for '25, we expect to kind of continue to see overall group gross margins in the [ mid-20 ]. We might see some growth. You're right around our WA portfolio, we've seen margin expansion there and some quite good margin expansion, which has started off a fairly low base. We probably would have otherwise in '25 had lifted overall group margin and even [ in '24 ], but we do have 1 or 2 projects that are a bit of a drag on margin, where we're kind of really, we're cycling capital back on. Like one example is in '25, the Leveson project in Melbourne, we're probably at 1% higher overall group margin if we didn't have that one in the product mix. So year-to-year, there can be 1 or 2 of those, and that's why product mix can impact that overall group margin.

And just the -- again, I'm trying to just unpick exactly where the growth is going to come from this year given that we don't have the Williams Landing in the mix. You actually just reported $386 million of revenue. You're saying the presales have stepped up. You expect to see 70% of that manifest itself in so far as the current year is concerned. But to again achieve this $40 million number that you're talking about or $40 million plus, you're actually having to get a decent line share of new sales over and above that [ ambit target ] to deliver the outcome. Is that fair?

Yes. So it's extra volume and more settlements at better margins. Noting that the very strong price growth that has come through, Shane, in Queensland and Western Australia has been really over the last 6 months to 9 months. And it's those sales that are settling in FY '25 that will help with that overall profit number.

Yes. And so, the last couple of years, full year revenue and ex-shopping center around about [ $390 million ] just above or just below. So we got presales for '25 already at $400 million. However, we continue to sell for settlements in '25 at a number of land estates, particularly in WA. So it's quite visible really the step-up in revenue growth stable or improving margins, how -- how you can get to the 10% growth.

So the actual top line might be something like $500 million rather than $400 million you've just posted, for example.

Yes, something like that.

Right. Okay. And the other, I mean, I guess, it's implicit in what you're saying about the supply constraints that [ units ] which being seen to be under with construction terms going bust and whatnot, the extent to which that's actually constrained your own performance with respect to your build?

So the answer there, Shane, is mainly with regards to apartment projects. There were a number of apartment projects around the country that were put on hold because of the lack of availability appetite of builders or -- and/or construction costs being too high. So those projects, as a general rule, have been dusted off and are being prepared to launch over FY '25 because the builder availability has improved in some locations, but more importantly, the price, which we think we can achieve for those apartments has caught up. And we now have economics that we think can start to work.

But it will take some time to sell, construct and settle those projects. So we don't see a large portion of that in '25 that's been -- those apartments projects more in '26 and then '27 and beyond. [Technical Difficulty] to kind of pivot to the product that's working, have a range of different products and price points in the location, but pivot delivery and use of the capital to those performing markets, and that's kind of why the built form portions kind of moved from 45% to about 20% because house and land is really working at the moment. But in time, that will grow again.

So yes, we have a significant land portfolio that is selling well now and enabling us to be fairly confident around what's happening in FY '25. And then beyond that, we're confident that the apartment project metrics are going to return to viability, and we have significant portfolio of apartments that we've acquired over recent years or many years ago that we can deliver into an undersupplied market.

Well, at this time, we're showing no further questions. We'll go ahead and conclude our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to management for any closing remarks. Gentlemen?

Just to say thank you for listening in to our presentation, and we look forward to meeting with some of you over the next few days. Thank you.

And we thank you, sir, and for the rest of the management team for your time also today. The conference call has concluded. At this time, you may disconnect your lines. Thank you, and have a great day.