Coast Entertainment Holdings Limited (CEH) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Coast Entertainment Holdings Limited Annual General Meeting 2025. I would now like to hand the conference over to Dr. Gary Weiss, Chairman. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Annual General Meeting of Coast Entertainment Holdings Limited, which this year, as you're well aware, is being held here at Dreamworld. I'm Gary Weiss, Chairman of Coast Entertainment. For those attending in person, welcome to Dreamworld. We are truly delighted to showcase to you today our latest world-class attractions, including the crown jewel of Rivertown, which you've walked through to get to the restaurant, featuring our new Jungle Rush family coaster, Murrissippi Motors and of course, Jane’s Rivertown Restaurant. As in previous years, this AGM is being conducted in a hybrid format to allow shareholders to participate either in person or virtually via the online platform. Before I formally open the meeting, I will ask our Company Secretary, Chris Todd, to outline some procedural matters on today's meeting for those who are joining virtually. Chris?

Thanks, Gary, and good morning, shareholders in the room and those online. As Gary mentioned, today's meeting is being conducted in a hybrid format, allowing those not present in the room to attend virtually online via the AGM online platform. For those attending virtually, I just set out a couple of procedural matters for you. If you experience any technical issues during the meeting, there's a published virtual meeting guide on the website, which includes details on how to seek assistance. Shareholders who are online will have the opportunity to ask questions via the virtual meeting platform. Those in the room will also have an opportunity to ask questions. If you are a shareholder or proxy, attorney or corporate representative of a shareholder and you wish to ask a question online about a particular item of business, please click the icon Ask a question on your screen, select the particular item of business your question relates to and then click submit question once you have typed your question. If you already have a question prepared, please feel free to submit it on the platform now so that we can consider it as and when we come to that particular relevant agenda item. You don't need to wait until we get to the relevant item of business. At the conclusion of the meeting, we will endeavor to respond to any shareholder questions of a general nature that may not have been addressed in the business update by Gary or Greg or if we consider that a response would benefit all shareholders. Finally, a recording of today's meeting will be available on our website later this afternoon. I'll now hand back to Gary to formally open the AGM.

Thank you, Chris. I now confirm that a quorum is present, and I declare the meeting open. It is my pleasure to introduce you to the members of the Coast Entertainment Board in attendance today. On my left, I'm joined by David Haslingden and Jemma Elder. And joining us on the phone from the U.S. are directors, Randy Garfield and Erin Wallace. I would also like to welcome members of the executive team, Greg, Group Chief Executive Officer; and José De Sacadura, Group Chief Financial Officer, who are both with us today. The group's auditor, BDO Audit PTY Limited, represented by Nigel Batters, is also in attendance at Dreamworld today and is available to answer questions in relation to the FY '25 auditor's report. The format for today's meeting will be as follows: I will begin by providing some opening remarks outlining the key activities and performance highlights of the group for the year, and will then hand over to Greg to provide a more detailed update on the performance of the business. We will then move to the formal business of the meeting and put to shareholders the resolutions set out in the Notice of Meeting. All resolutions to be put to the meeting today will be decided by way of poll. Shareholders attending the meeting will be able to cast their vote using ballot papers if attending in person or the electronic voting card received when your online registration is validated if attending online. Further information and assistance with online voting can be found in the virtual meeting guide available on the group's website. FY '25 marked a period of significant transformation and momentum for the group. Despite broader macroeconomic challenges, particularly across the retail and discretionary spending sectors, we delivered a strong operational and financial performance, highlighting the resilience of our business model. The strategic investments made by the group in recent years have begun to deliver tangible results, particularly with the successful launch of Rivertown last December. This major attraction, which was delivered on time and within budget, has resonated well with our guests and played a key role in delivering a stronger second half performance in FY '25. Looking ahead, the upcoming opening of the new King Claw attraction this December is expected to add further momentum to the business. During the FY '25 year, the group saw a 10.5% uplift in ticket sales and 11.2% growth in visitation, with both being well above pre-COVID levels. This, combined with a growing annual pass holder base and an unwavering focus on delivering excellent guest experiences helped drive operating revenue of $96.4 million, our strongest since FY '16. Notably, key commercial areas such as Food & Beverage, Retail and Experiences exceeded FY '16 levels. This strong trading performance resulted in our best EBITDA result for the Theme Parks and Attractions business since FY '16 at $8.8 million or 19.4% above the prior year. At the group level, consolidated EBITDA reached $4.1 million, representing a 275% increase compared to the prior year. Other notable achievements include a further significant reduction in corporate costs, the finalization of insurance claims related to the FY '24 summer storms and the completion of our second on-market share buyback. We now enter the new financial year with a strong balance sheet, no debt and a healthy cash position. Pleasingly, the positive trading momentum has continued into FY '26 with robust ticket sales and visitation over the first 4 months. It is now my pleasure to invite Greg to provide a further update on the performance of the business. Following this update, we will move to the formal business of the meeting.

Thanks, Gary. Good morning, everyone. Great to see some friendly faces, and hopefully, everyone is very friendly today here at Dreamworld and really great to see you here at the park to see what we've been doing over the last little while. As you're aware, the group has provided a very comprehensive summary of the FY '25 results at our recent presentation in August. Today, I'm going to highlight some of the key points from those results, but I think more importantly, provide an update on trading performance for the first 4 months of the year. So we'll turn to Slide 6. And this presentation page really summarizes our key successes in FY '25. And I'd like to just take a brief moment to highlight a few of these. Firstly, our guest satisfaction scores remain consistently high and are tracking above the prior year, which had already a strong benchmark. This is supported by strong attraction operating uptime of 98%, reflecting our commitment to safety and moreover to delivering a high-quality guest experience, which is a core pillar of our recovery strategy. Our reliability rate of that quantum is as good, if not better, than any theme park that I've seen both locally here in Australia and internationally. It's encouraging to see that this performance, together with our enhanced refreshed theme park offering, including new attractions, enhanced guest experiences and the various strategic initiatives that we've put into play are clearly resonating with our guests. We are seeing strong growth in our annual pass holder base with sales now exceeding FY '16 and substantially improved retention rates, which are a strong indicator of growing loyalty and sustained engagement. And while this momentum may not be immediately visible in the revenue that we'll talk about today, due to the recognition of annual pass revenue over time, it is particularly pleasing to note that F&B, Retail, Experience and Function revenue have already exceeded FY '16 levels for the year for FY '25. This demonstrates the strength of the in-park spending and the continued demand for our offerings. On Slide 7, we're showing Rivertown, which opened in December this year -- December last year. This new family area has undoubtedly been the highlight of our year and a real game changer for Dreamworld. The area includes, as Gary mentioned earlier, the Jungle Rush family coaster, Murrissippi Motors, a reimagined version of the Classic Vintage Car ride and where you are today for the people at Dreamworld Jane’s Rivertown Restaurant, which provides an enhanced food and beverage offering and plays an important role not only in F&B, but in our conferencing events and international guest strategy. Rivertown comprises Dreamworld's most thematic attractions ever built. It is a complete comprehensive reimagining of the Dreamworld experience designed as an immersive intergenerational space that appeals to guests of all ages. And as Gary also mentioned, it was delivered on time and on budget despite its complexity and despite a very challenging construction environment here in Queensland, and that reflects the outstanding work of both our teams internally and our external partners. Since opening, Rivertown has received overwhelmingly positive feedback, demonstrating success in elevating both the guest experience and visitation and has been a strong driver of momentum across all key revenue metrics. Slide 8 summarizes the group's financial performance for the FY '25 year, which was characterized by solid -- continued solid trading performance and growing momentum despite cost of living pressures and weather-related disruptions. This performance was covered in detail back in August 2025. However, I'll just recap on some of the key performance highlights. Building on the already strong results from FY '24 and FY '23, ticket sales for FY '25 rose 10.5% for the year. Notably, following the opening of Rivertown, we saw an acceleration in growth with second half growth in ticket sales increasing to 15.1%. Similarly, visitation increased 11.2% compared to the prior year with stronger growth in the second half of the year despite a temporary closure and the Easter holiday trading disruption that we saw as a result of tropical cyclone Alfred. As a result, operating revenue grew 10.8% to $96.4 million and second half growth accelerated by 11.9% despite the business cycle and the launch of Kenny & Belinda's Dreamland in the second half FY '24. Additionally, deferred revenue increased by 4.8% to $12.7 million as of balance date in June 2025, driven by continued growth in the annual pass holder base and high guest retention rates. As revenue recognition for annual passes is spread over the 12 months of the performance obligation, we obviously and generally see a lag in the value of ticket sales for which the cash is received upfront. And finally, the net result was that EBITDA continued to improve, growing 19.4% versus the prior year, reflecting the growth in revenue and clearly some increased operating leverage on a largely fixed cost base. International Visitation is continuing to slowly recover, but it does remain below pre-COVID levels with overseas inbound visitation to the Gold Coast region in FY '25 down 41% compared to FY '19 and China Visitation down 80% to the Gold Coast. That's concerning, but it does present significant upside for the business as international markets continue to recover. Turning to Slide 9. The group has recorded a strong start to FY '26 with positive momentum continuing across the business. During the first 4-month year-to-date period ending October 2025, so only just last week, ticket sales were up 54% year-on-year, driven by the cumulative effect of new attractions, which we have launched over the last 12 to 24 months, as well as a number of successful targeted promotional campaigns. Notably, the year-to-date ticket sales have also increased and exceeded FY '16 levels, albeit that there has been a change in the ticketing mix intentional, reflecting a shift towards a higher proportion of annual passes. This has driven a 35% increase in visitation with October year-to-date attendance from local markets now surpassing FY '16 levels, again, a clear sign of momentum shifting in a positive way. Pleasingly, we've achieved record-breaking attendance during the October school holidays, even surpassing the levels that we saw when Rivertown first launched in December and January earlier this year. In the past, we've often called out when adverse weather has impacted performance. And I think it's important in a similar mind to note when weather has been a tailwind. And if you're here from the Gold Coast, you would know that there was very favorable weather, and that played a big part in the uplift that we've seen in FY '26 so far. Total rainfall for the current year-to-date period of 237 millimeters and more importantly, 19 rain-affected days was lower than the 336 millimeters we saw last year and the 28 affected days that we saw in the prior period for the same time. These improved weather conditions were helpful in driving stronger visitation and in-park spending. Operating revenue for October year-to-date increased by 20%. And as mentioned previously, revenue tends to lag ticket sales due to the timing of revenue recognition for passes. As a result, the group's deferred revenue balance further increased and as at the end of October '25 was 58% higher than the prior corresponding period. Due to the attendance growth, in-park revenue for the first 4 months of '26 have increased by 25%, providing a strong indicator of improved economic activity in park. And EBITDA for the year-to-date period, excluding Pacific items, has improved by 94%, the best result for the first 4 months since FY '16, and SkyPoint once again has achieved record revenue and EBITDA results. I should emphasize that these numbers are unaudited. And while we are pleased with the performance in the year so far, we have much of the year to go. In particular, we're mindful of cycling a period which predates the opening of Rivertown. And therefore, current trading conditions should not be taken as a guide to future performance. The performance of the business also remains susceptible to external factors such as weather and economic conditions. In September, we launched WILD with Australian Geographic, and I hope you will get a chance to see that today. That is a reimagined Wildlife precinct, featuring immersive experiences such as a 45-minute our country cinematic show and habitats for native species, reinforcing Dreamworn's very strong commitment to wildlife education, conservation and more importantly, inspiring future generations to protect Australia's biodiversity. With the return of Big Brother to Dreamworld also imminent, and you'll see a bit of that today, and the first episode does air this Sunday at 7:00 p.m. on Channel 10, if you are interested in watching. These projects are all expected to enhance Dreamworld's brand visibility. Slide 10 shows that our momentum continues to build as illustrated by the rolling 12-month performance of October 2025. As I mentioned back in August, this momentum is not fully reflected in the reported revenue due to the accounting treatment of passes. And while we don't recognize revenue upfront, we are seeing that difference, and you can see it clearly in higher cash inflows and a growing deferred revenue balance. To get a clearer indication, we've been tracking several leading indicators, as you can see on the screen, particularly attendance, in-park spends across food, beverage, retail and experiences, all of which continue to outperform historical benchmarks. And as you can see, since Rivertown opened, we have seen a significant lift in performance, particularly during the school holiday periods in April, July and October, which has further strengthened Dreamworld's rolling 12-month results. We are particularly encouraged by the fact that we are not just seeing growth in out of the growing performance base, but we are seeing that growth accelerate over time. Let me just give you a few highlights. Firstly, Dreamworld ticket sales for the 12 months to October 2025 were up 31% compared to the same time last year, which is building on the 10.5% previously reported for the 12 months to June. Dreamworld's attendance rose 27% over the same 12-month period, accelerating from 15% that we reported back in June. Dreamworld's in-park revenue for the 12 months to October grew 23%, again, up from the 17% we reported for the year in June. Importantly, this momentum is not due to one silver bullet like Rivertown, but it's the culmination of a multiyear focus on guest experience, operations and the product offering, and that is now delivering consistent and repeatable performance. As I've mentioned before, we are seeing higher guest satisfaction scores. We're seeing a growing and more engaged pass holder base with stronger guest retention rates. And we're pleasingly starting to see increase in improved interstate visitation, particularly from New South Wales and Victoria, I'd like to mention out of Brisbane as well, despite relatively limited marketing in the southern states. And we are starting to address that this year. Early indications of our enhanced marketing work, which is still in its early inception, is proving to be very, very promising. Looking ahead, we still see significant further upside as international visitation continues to recover back to pre-COVID levels. Slide 11 offers a preview of our new attraction King Claw, which remains on track to open by the end of this calendar year. Construction for the ride has now achieved practical completion with prelaunch testing now in progress and theme elements being finalized. King Claw is a bigger, a faster and a higher capacity successor to the claw. It will be the largest gyro swing in the Southern Hemisphere, setting a new benchmark for thrill rides in our region. We are confident it will serve as another major draw card for guests and further strengthen Dreamworld's positioning as a leading entertainment destination. And excitingly, I think at the conclusion of today's presentation, members of our executive team will be conducting a tour of the park, and we will be doing a behind-the-scenes tour at King Claw to show you exactly where we're up to. Slide 12 provides an update on our land development application process. And as we've previously announced, on the 1st of September '25, the Queensland Deputy Premier, who is also the Minister for State Development, Infrastructure and Planning, issued the group with a proposed call-in notice regarding its development application and invited written submission from interested stakeholders. Following consideration of those submissions, the minister has issued the company with a statutory call-in notice advising that he will call in application. The effect of the call-in is that the minister himself will now assess and decide the application in place of the local council. The time frame for the minister's final decision on the application is unknown. And at this time, the group has not made any series of decisions or commitments regarding the proposed use of the land should the application be approved. As previously advised, we'll continue to assess all options to ensure maximum benefit for our shareholders, and we'll continue to provide updates to the market as information becomes available. Slide 13. Slide 13 outlines some of the very clear business fundamentals that continue to underpin our performance and provide a solid foundation for future long-term value creation. We maintain a debt-free balance sheet with strategic levers such as significant unrecognized tax losses, which provide clearly a valuable tax shield over the medium term and owned property assets that we believe are undervalued on the balance sheet, particularly at Dreamworld given its location in one of Australia's highest growth corridors and clearly ahead of the 2032 Olympics. The opportunity to derive higher and more meaningful value from our landholdings in Coomera is significant. As the famous quote suggests, nothing in the world worth having comes easy, and I think the journey to date on the land could be characterized in this regard. However, under rejuvenated state government is working hard to make Queensland competitive on the global stage, we are starting to see real momentum. And I'm very confident that our efforts in this endeavor will deliver value to stakeholders. Our guests will benefit from additional world-class product offerings. Southeast Queensland will benefit in terms of additional amenity, infrastructure and jobs. Our people will have more opportunity to grow their careers within our organization. And importantly, our shareholders will see an uplift in value as a result. Our targeted investment and operational discipline have driven meaningful improvement, returning us to profitability with clear organic momentum. Brand strength is growing through strategic collaborations, as I've mentioned, Big Brother and the new partnership with Australian Geographic broadening our audience. And now that we believe our product offering is in good shape, we expect to redouble our efforts in sales and marketing in order to tell what we believe is a very good story to our addressable markets. Our clear strategy focuses on delivering sustainable long-term value for guests, for shareholders and for stakeholders moreover. And I believe we're in the strongest position yet to realize that potential. As I come to a close, I think it's very important to state that there is absolutely no complacency nor hubris in this team. Whilst we are very pleased to see the recovery taking shape, that also means that many of our guests are returning for the first time to our properties in a long time. And it's constantly on my mind on how important it is to make sure that they have a safe, enjoyable experience with us and make very special members here with us and their families. To that end, execution is arguably as important as it has ever been during this journey. And I can assure you that as our owners, our focus on that remains unrelenting. Finally, I want to thank our dedicated team whose passion and commitment to safety and service underpin our success. I'll now hand back to Gary to conduct the formal business of the meeting.

Thank you, Greg. We will now move to the formal business of the meeting. The resolutions for consideration today may only be voted on by shareholders, proxy holders and shareholder company representatives. I propose to call a poll on each of the resolutions. As a reminder, shareholders attending via the online platform will have the opportunity to ask questions on each matter being put to the meeting. If you have questions already prepared, please go ahead and submit them now. The first item of ordinary business is to receive the annual financial report, the directors' report and the independent external auditor's report for the company for the financial year ended 24 June 2025. The remuneration report will be put to a vote for adoption separately. Are there any questions from those persons present in relation to the annual financial report, the directors' report or the independent external auditor's report? Any questions in the room? Yes.

My name is Spencer Roy -- shares in my personal capacity and through Copyright Limited Trust. I think that the strategy that the Board has put in place and that the executive leadership team has been executing has been excellent, and we're starting to see that bear fruit. So I think congrats on that. A few things in relation to the annual report. When I went to WhiteWater World, it was discussing busy. And my metrics show that your satisfaction rate at WhiteWater decreased probably because it's become so busy, like you look at all the reviews, our long line, long line. Is there an opportunity to increase how much WhiteWater is open? Obviously, it used to be open pretty much all year. Now it's only a fraction, maybe more profitable because of annual pass holders and we want to keep the cost down. But I think short term, great. Long term, we need to make sure that satisfaction up. And Dreamworld, obviously, is Sky satisfaction rating. Let's keep that up, obviously. But I don't want to just be your compliments. So that would be my first question on whether there's opportunity there at White Waterworld to improve that satisfaction rating and to get those lines down somehow. And also, Greg mentioned about the undervalue of the balance sheet. Just the thoughts on like obviously, SkyPoint on our balance sheet at 10.6% on a cost value ratio. Is there any desire to move back to the fair value ratio we can get a better book value ratio and get more shareholders interested in Coast?

I'll take the second question first, and hopefully, Jose will rapidly correct me when I'm wrong. But in terms of the carrying value of Skypoint, that carrying value is dictated by accounting standards. We're not able to revalue that asset formally within our accounts. What we did do was procure an independent valuation about 18 months ago or so to provide shareholders with at least some guide as to what an independent valuation of that asset might be. In terms of Dreamworld and WhiteWater World, there is scope as the business recovers, as I understand, to potentially write back values that have been written down, particularly since the period following FY '16. But Jose, perhaps you can confirm or deny that.

Yes. No. Our accounting policy is to account on a historic cost basis. So under that type of accounting, you cannot apply fair value measurements. But as Gary pointed out, we have, in the past, impaired those assets, and we are able to reverse those impairments to what the assets would have been had they been impaired. It wouldn't -- it would go back to a full historic cost unimpaired, but not to its fair value. Now what we have done in the past and may do in the future is potentially disclose what the fair value is even if it's not necessarily reflected on the balance sheet. As Gary pointed out, Skypoint got valued 18 months ago. The fair value, I think at that point was $37 million, which is obviously much higher than the $10 million or so carrying amount in the balance sheet. And obviously, Dreamworld hasn't been valued for quite a while. As you know, there's a land development sort of process underway. There'd probably be little utility in getting it valued right now. And I think we sort of wait for the outcome of that. At that point, we will probably look to get something done and potentially disclose that to the market. But needless to say, I mean, the carrying value of Dreamworld assets on the balance sheet is well south of $230 million or $240 million that it was last valued at back in 2016 or so.

Yes. So if I could also just add another asset which we have called out are our tax losses because we haven't been in a taxpaying position, we're unable to recognize any part of those losses. But then again, Jose, subject to you correcting me potentially as we generate otherwise taxable income, there ought to be the potential to start recognizing the value of those tax losses on the balance sheet. We do try in our presentations to call out to investors the -- some of these assets that are genuine assets, but the full value of which are not reflected in statutory accounts. So Greg, on the part.

Spencer, good to see you. Let me start off with this. And I think as I've mentioned in the presentation, we're quick to talk about weather when it's poor. And then when weather is good, we should tell you at the same time when we've got tailwinds that are helping us along. And I think it is clear that the challenge, the opportunity, obligation before us is to make sure that as we trade stronger, we continue to deliver a quality guest experience. And it's very good when I talk to you about the guest experience when we're not so busy, look 2 years ago and look at what we're doing fantastic work. But the test will come now as we start to get busier. And so you're 100% right on what's happening at WhiteWater World. It is on our minds. Let me give you an insight and give you all as owners an insight into how we think about this. Every time we get a Google review, which has got 1 star, every one of the executive team, including myself, get an e-mail. And we are very aware about WhiteWater World and some of that concern that's going on in those peak days. I would say, and this is far from an excuse, but it's a very low base. And so when you get a very small amount of reviews, typically, what happens is people don't have a good day, give you a review and that brings the rating down. That's mathematics, and that's not an excuse by any stretch. There are a number of different things that we're working on at WhiteWater World to improve the guest experience. I'm very comfortable with the park in terms of how it's presented. I'm very comfortable with the people and the service. What we're not doing well enough is getting the throughput, and that comes from a few different things. In water parks, you want to just get as many people as you can in the water for as long as you possibly can because when you're going on slides on busy days, there's a fairly long wait to get down a 90-second attraction. As you're well aware, it takes some time for us to bring new attractions online, and we're also very carefully considering future attractions in the organization. And so we're thinking about what that would mean. I would say to owners at the moment that we're not about to go and announce any new attractions at WhiteWater World in the very near future, although we are considering the mix. I think we've demonstrated at Dreamworld that as we've thought about new attractions into the future, we've thought about them with a long-term lens, and we've added things that bring new capacity into the parks as opposed to just one-on-one replacements. That's on our minds at WhiteWater World, but there are other levers that we can take. And some of those you've alluded to, which are, I mean, Furious agreement on around trading hours and trading days, and we are looking at that and reviewing that as we I don't have anything to say on it just yet today, but we do anticipate to do some of those things. One of the challenges that I think can come with a focus on operating leverage, which we have a very clear focus on operating leverage. I've said to you all, the notion here is to grow revenue. We're a fixed cost business. But at the same time, we need to find a way to contain the cost base and ensure that we can pay for our priorities. So if you come into our offices, there's no one here at night emptying our rubber spines and wiping in the desk, that's the executive team. That's what we do. We have a very clear focus on cost. The reason for that is we've got very strong priorities around safety, engineering and operational safety. And I say to our team, that's about being prudent and disciplined in this part of the business to ensure we can pay for our priorities. The risk is that we sometimes get overzealous on that, and we lose sight of ultimately what we're about here, which is making sure that we get a very strong guest experience. And so your point is well made. I am absolutely on to it. It's a conversation that we're having internally right now. You can validate that. Michelle Erasmus, our Director of Operations, will be walking groups around today, and I can tell you that she's laser-focused on it as well. So we will be doing some things in that regard over the coming holiday period.

Noel?

Noel Ambler, Australian Shareholder's Association. Firstly, Gary, obviously, congratulations on achieving very good results up to today after the debacle and the tragedies you've had over the last 8 or 9 years. So I think all the Board deserve a pat on the back because it's been a really, really long hard hill to climb, and I believe you've now sort of got to the top of it, and we can look forward to hopefully some fairly good news as shareholders in what your plans for the future are. So if possible, if you have a little bit of time just to probably give us a bit of an outline of how you're looking to the future a little bit, particularly in your total shareholder return and the attractions you intend to bring online and more importantly, the development of the 55 hectares because that's a rather substantial investment. So please go ahead and give our shareholders some good news.

We're here to try. Noel, thank you. And for shareholders present and online, I met Noel shortly after I invited myself on to the Board of the old Ardent Leisure. And Noel was Head of the -- what was the correct name of the organization, Australian -- and my inbox started to fill up with e-mails from Noel complaining about the state of Ardent Bowling and other assets in Australia. So we've known each other since then. And I think, Noel, you've remarked to me on more than a few occasions that you were astounded when we successfully sold those operations to Time Zone at a value of $160 million, which was 32x EBIT. So that was a terrific deal to have done. And even though the share price performance has been extremely disappointing, I do want to also highlight other achievements that we've succeeded in delivering for this group and particularly what was the company's largest asset, which was Main Event Entertainment. So Main Event Entertainment had endured 6 quarters of negative like-for-like sales growth. We then changed management. And over a period of time of about 4 years, we doubled the EBITDA of that business. We sold it to a company called Dave & Buster's at an 8.5x EBITDA multiple for USD 850 million in cash. And as I was, I think, noting to a couple of the guys in the conversation today, it is noteworthy that at the time, Dave & Buster's paid us $850 million in cash. Dave & Buster's itself was valued on the market at USD 1.5 billion today. Today, the share -- at its current share price, Dave & Buster's is valued at $500 million. We picked literally the top of the market in terms of consumer sentiment and in terms of relevant multiples. And of course, that gave us the capital to provide a return of $0.95 to shareholders with the balance having to be invested back into Dreamworld and WhiteWater World. And those assets, again, as you know, Noel, have been materially under-invested in for an extended period of time. The good news is -- and of course, who can forget that playing this all out against the backdrop of a coronial inquiry, which created some very, very damaging publicity for Dreamworld against the backdrop of a class action, which again, we had to contend with. And -- but I'm very pleased to say that we've navigated through those very choppy waters. And I think there is a lot to be confident about the future. We have a first-class management team, and I'm not just saying that because Greg and the team are here. They are recognized not only within Australia but internationally as one of the best operating teams for theme parks in the world. And I should call out the fact that we have 2 extremely qualified directors, U.S.-based directors, Randy and Aaron, who know the theme park industry backwards. And I know they rate the team here and indeed very highly. And indeed, Aaron, after a first visit, he sent me a note to say that she believed that the team here were as good, if not better, than any team she worked with during her long time at Disney, which is, I think, a pretty substantial accolade. So here we are today, where the bulk of the major investment needed to restore the reputation of Dreamworld has been spent. Clearly, as we go forward, there will be ongoing CapEx requirements, but it won't be at the size and the pace at which we've been doing this over the next few years. over the last few years. The big opportunity clearly is not only to get back our profitability to at least levels that we saw between FY '12 and FY '16. But as you've highlighted, our landholdings do represent, in our view, a very, very significant opportunity. Now we can't assure anyone here that there will be a successful outcome to the call and application. But we do believe, as Greg indicated, that we have strong support from the state government who are very keen to ensure that Queensland remains the tourism capital of Australia and the ability for us to deliver much needed infrastructure and other entertainment and other options in this -- in the fastest-growing region of the country is well recognized. So we are in a strong position as we've indicated, we don't have any debt. We have a strong cash position. And as the CapEx requirements ameliorate, we would hope to be in a position to start generating free cash flow. And I think at that stage, all options are open. I've been, like many of you, a long-standing shareholder in this group. I want to return as much as anyone else does, but we needed to make the extensive investments that we have made in order to be able to create a long-term asset of substantial value for our investors. So Greg, there's anything you want to add to that?

I think it's very well covered. But look, I think, the land situation clearly is on every investor's mind. I think investors have different approaches around valuation, which are very clear. But the difficult thing for investors, which we absolutely recognize is what is the land worth. Let me just put it simply is that there's elements of the land that we are working on today that are part of our application, which we believe, if we do get the approvals that we are desiring, have to be and accelerate the value. If you think about it, clearly, I've got areas of the park here, 4, 5 hectares at the back. The only thing you can do today on that land is build a roller coaster, a ride or some tourism associated infrastructure. And we have no intentions to do that. We've come to the view. And I think we've got an experienced team here, which is relatively qualified to be able to make those kind of views that we don't need to make the theme park any bigger than what it is today. And we thought that out over the next 10, 15, 20 years. There's plenty of opportunity here if we have the view to increase the attraction count and other things, it's big enough. And so what can we do with this land? Well, clearly getting some additional use cases makes sense. And that completely changes the valuation perspective on some of these elements of the land. We have a view as to what the highest and best use is of that land. But as Gary has mentioned, our view has been very much focused on let's achieve the valuation, let's achieve the planning approvals that are desired. If you've been a long-standing holder in Ardent previously, this has been a discussion forever. And we've never been closer than where we are right now to getting those approvals. We're not there yet. We can't give you any confidence we'll absolutely get there. But I think you can all see that there has been some significant momentum to date. And I think if we can achieve those changes, well, then that gives us significant optionality. We've turned our minds to how we would crystallize value. But again, we've turned our minds there enough to be able to make sure that this is a prudent process to go on with, and we've obviously committed several years of executive effort and some degree of capital towards these approvals with consultants and other things. We've done that because we see the value. But we're not yet ready to talk about how we'll crystallize that value because we want to make sure we get the first thing done first, which is achieve this approval.

Any other questions?

My name is Richard Logan. I'm a shareholder. I read in the courier mail a while ago about a Supreme Court case that Pico Play bought against you against us for about $0.5 million on the latest development last year. A couple of questions. Curious to know why I had to read about that in the paper and not find anything about that. I didn't read every word of the annual report. I guess it wasn't in that year anyway. It was since then, but heard no announcements, heard nothing. Just curious to know why that wasn't announced at all. And also who had a long relationship with Pico Play, I think obviously, that relationship has probably come to an end. Is that going to have any effect on the future development or whatever of the past?

Let me start, and I might ask Chris to talk about the obligations that are upon us in terms of disclosure, and we've obviously thought about that relevantly. I'm not here to denigrate any of our partners. But my responsibility is to represent holders and the company. And if I believe that we've not achieved the value that we should have achieved under a contract, then it's my obligation to pursue that. And I am very strongly with that belief, and that's where we are at the moment. PICO Play are one of many theming vendors. I'm not concerned about whether we'll be able to deliver quality of theming on future projects. We're doing that just now at King Claw, and I'm not concerned at all in terms of what we'll achieve there. I need to be reasonably prudent about what we're talking about because it is a subject of discussions in a legal context. But I would say to you this, I have desire to commit time, resources and effort towards legal cases unless I felt there was a clear obligation on the executive team to be able to pursue where we believe we've been -- where we believe we haven't received what was committed to us under contract. I think what you will see here at Rivertown is a very, very well-executed project. But if you were to know the things that we still haven't got and the things that I'm very keen to deliver, which I believe we've paid for, I think the project could be 20% better again. And so hopefully, you can understand I'm not trying to be opaque about it, but I'm not looking to go and spend time on legal cases or money on legal cases unless I felt very strongly that it was the right thing to do on behalf of holders. Chris, do you want to say anything?

I'm guessing the King Claw is a different company, different...

You're right.

Thank you for the question. I'll just add a little bit to what Greg said. I think it's fair to say that when you read things in the media, the way it's portrayed is not quite what it is, and we put out a response in relation to the same. In particular, like any building project, there's always defects. There's always work that wasn't completed properly. There's always some finalization of payments. And what [ PCO Play ] have done is, as you probably read, it sought an adjudication under a statutory building -- piece of building legislation in Queensland. They haven't litigated us against us in the normal commercial sense. The Supreme Court matter was actually -- we were a party to it, but it was a matter against the adjudicator who found that he had no jurisdiction to actually deal with their claim because they had performed unlicensed building work. So what the Supreme Court and the newspaper didn't report it quite like that. But in short, what it was, it was a decision to have the adjudicators decision that he had no jurisdiction overturned and go back to square one and commence a fresh adjudication. We -- as Greg said, there's work that wasn't either completed or completed properly and it cost us money to fix it. So from our point of view, we don't actually have a liability to them that is material that would warrant a disclosure to the market. So it's really just finalization of a building contract, the usual back and forth, and it's been going on for a while, and the media picked up the Supreme Court matter, again, regarding the adjudication -- sorry, the jurisdictional point. And we, as Greg said, are having discussions with PECO Play to try and resolve that in a way that ensures we get the final defects completed. and they are satisfied with final payment due to them and far from a material matter.

And let's just simplify the issue here. And these things can become quite adversarial. But at the end of the day, there's a payment claim. We haven't made that payment because we don't believe that we're obligated to do so for reasons that we've disclosed. So it's as simple as that. And again, we don't take these decisions lightly. It's a use of executive management, and we update the Board on these matters, and we much prefer to focus on running theme parks than doing these kind of things. So we're only doing it because we feel that we're representing everyone's best interest. Noel?

Noel Ambler from the Australian Shareholders' Association again. In the financials, I noticed on the repairs and maintenance, it was up more than $1 million. I'm the last person who's going to complain about spending money on repairs and maintenance. However, clarification, in some cases, has it been repaired rather than replaced? And when it comes to your maintenance, do you have a difference between your normal maintenance like the hedges and the preventative maintenance of checking components and bearings, all sorts of things, which are not seen but can cause a disaster. And the last thing we want to hear at any stage is a ride to fail or even worse. So can you please just give me a little bit of a breakdown on how you're handling repairs and maintenance, and I am not complaining about the extra $1 million.

Your point is well noted, Noel. I'm going to make a start and then Jose, you might want to add some color around the actual number. I think the first thing to say here is that theme parks are large, complex asset-heavy environments. And so what comes from that is that you get fairly bumpy and lumpy spends from time to time. You have a particular component on one attraction and that could be $300,000 or $400,000 one instance. The other thing I'd say, and I make this very clear, is that we've made a very clear commitment around attraction uptime. Now attraction uptime is not about making sure rides are running because management are putting pressure on maintenance or operations to keep their rides open far from it. But if you look at -- and again, the Board has made it clear that the proxy for us in terms of good safety is aviation. Reliability is not only about making sure that we're giving guests what they want, but it is absolutely a clear leading indicator as to potential safety issues along the way. And we've made a very clear commitment to making sure that we invest to reduce our maintenance obligation in terms of durations and in terms of frequency. So let me give you maybe a pertinent example. If I think about an attraction that has several different ride units on it, we can close that attraction for its annual maintenance and close it for 6 weeks. If we were to have on hand in stock 2 of those particular ride units on hand, you can imagine that I can hot swap them straight on to the ride and that reduces the maintenance duration by a degree. And in our minds, there's a very clear linkage between the guest experience and the customer sentiment and the uptime and the availability of attractions. It's amazing, I know, but some people come here for the attractions. And so for us, we are very clearly linking our maintenance spend to reliability and also to uptime across the board. In terms of how we think about different elements of the maintenance, so the other thing that we are trying to do, and I think you can see this today when you tour the park is that we've tried to be quite strategic about how we've invested capital over the medium term. We're not there yet. But I think if you look at Rivertown, for example, you probably don't do this, but I do a lot and so does our team, but we spend a lot of time looking down because floor surfaces in places like this where you have millions of people go over the top of them are inordinately expensive to maintain. And so we've pulled up as part of Rivertown, all of the old bitumen, which was getting painted every year, we were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, maintaining bitumen. And we've put in a more expensive but much more robust surface, which we'll have to maintain every 20 years. So we've tried to, as we've invested this capital, think about OpEx over time and see a reduction in that over time. But I think your point is absolutely well noted. I would say this is that we have the same view around maintenance. But at the same time, I think it's -- there's an obligation on us to make sure that we're suitably diligent and prudent about how we do spend every dollar in the organization, if it's safety or otherwise. And so certainly, safety goes to the top of the pile. Whenever we're talking about efficiency in the organization, it's very clear that safety is not on the table there. It's all about other parts of the business. It's a priority that we have to pay for. And we've seen what can happen in terms of the erosion of value when it's not a focus, and that's been on our minds, a very, very clear focus. But there are big things that can happen in terms of pieces of plant that do necessitate potentially a fairly sizable one-off cost. Jose, did you want to add anything?

I think you've covered it pretty well. Obviously, if we're doing something substantial to a rider attraction or other structural asset and it's going to enhance that asset and give it a longer life than it would have previously had. then in those situations, we wouldn't be expensing it and we'd be capitalizing that because we're basically creating a better or improved asset. What you're seeing in the P&L is more the stuff that's just keeping stuff as it should be and safe. What I will say is that in FY '25, we had obviously Rivertown open for half of the period. And we also had the kids area that came on a year earlier. If you look back into the year prior to that FY '24, a lot of the park was closed. We had taken down a lot of rides and so they didn't need to be maintained. So there is an element of having more rides in FY '25 versus the prior, which would have had an impact too.

And everyone present. Dreamworld was the subject of an episode of a reality international reality TV show called how do they fix it? How do they fix it, which I think is on National Geographic.

Yes. I think it's actually -- it's airing on Saturday. I understand it on Channel 10 midday, I think, actually.

And I would commend it to everyone to look at. It's a behind-the-scenes view of what happens at Dreamworld in terms of safety, the regular safety checks, maintenance and so on. I found it a fascinating program. So if you've got the opportunity to try and catch it or record it, it's well worth watching.

And lastly, Noel, just to give you one more insight. What we've been dealing with over the last several years is some significant investment, I would say, around core plant integrity parts of the organization. So when I say that, I mean things like in-ground pipes, I mean things like high-voltage networks, which hadn't been invested into the quantum that we would otherwise like to see them to the point where we wouldn't be able to do some of the material changes that we've made in the organization without having to upgrade those facilities. Those things are the most difficult investments because it's very hard to sell a ticket on the back of a brand-new HV transformer at the front of the park, but they are necessitated nonetheless. Those things over time will come off. We've had to do that over the last several years, and that is slowing up, but it has been another factor in this. It's not all -- in fact, a lot of it is not rides. It actually is core fundamental infrastructure within the property.

Just a quick one. First, tip the hat to Mike Hamilton, shareholder, to Greg and the team. Anecdotal, but I try and drive on the M1 at night, not during the day as everyone trying to come here this morning probably noticed. It's not a good idea. The special events, Halloween, et cetera, car park chockers. It's fantastic to see, and I think you guys are doing a great job in that regard. And the question I have is just a follow-up on the DA. It's not on the specifics, I understand that. And if you read the call in notice, very measured. So I understand where you're coming from there. But this pertains more to the Board and the nature of what you see the company being in the future. because there will be some that will be very tempted to become builders. And if you read -- and the reason I'm asking this question now and just to get some clarity that I think you should be able to provide is the calling notice was one thing, but the ministerial press release was another. It meant it could have been your PR release that you got everything you ever wanted because I mentioned the Premier, the Deputy Premier, obviously, 2 ministers, the Minister for Tourism, the mayor and the Deputy M and extolled the virtues and particularly mentioned the residential, et cetera. So what I'm going to know as a shareholder, is the Board see us becoming something like -- and Holdings where you run a theme park, but you're also doing developing -- you're becoming a developer. I understand the hotel would be probably a different thing. But in particular, precinct 4, et cetera. You don't quite know what you're going to get, but that ministerial press release says that it's a valid question to ask, how do you see that company in the future in terms of that.

Thank you. And I'll really repeat what we've said at previous meetings in response to similar questions. And the short answer is we don't see ourselves as being developers. What we do have, hopefully, is very valuable pockets of land that potentially we can contribute to a development and participate that way. But I don't -- the attitude of the Board is that we're not going to become developers and take on development risk. But we hopefully will have something that a lot of people will want, which is the land, which is the biggest cost for as a precursor to any development. And I think if we can -- hopefully, those promising words from -- contained in the media release that accompany the call and if they come to fruition, there are some very exciting concepts and so on that we think can be rolled out where others are putting capital at risk, but which will all be additive to the value of what we have got and also create further income streams for the group. I think we have one more question here, Chris.

[indiscernible] a shareholder. Just going back to the question beforehand about CapEx going on in the business, and it sounds like a lot of it's been overdue. Is there a forecast for the next 3 years on -- we've spent sort of $96 million in the last 2 years. I assume that's going to taper off now. Is there some sort of guidance or forecast for the next 2, 3 years that you -- even -- nothing too specific, but even just some quantums. I understand that there's some of these things that come up and things like maybe the WhiteWater World, the water slide thing, that might come up as a capacity thing, but that doesn't sound like it's huge, but any sort of color on that would be great.

So I'll get Greg to -- I ask Greg to deal with the body of the question. But let me just say that -- as a matter of policy, we don't make forward-looking statements. So you will not find any guidance given by this Board either as to future financial performance or any other material matters. But Greg, anything in a general sense about CapEx?

Well, I can assure you that we do have a forecast. So hopefully, that helps. Look, I think the best I can do is say to you this is that we absolutely recognize the significant capital investments that have been made. We think that they were the right strategic investments, and I think that's starting to prove out in our performance. But we're also very mindful about over time, demonstrating that clearly before we look to come back to holders and say that we're going to spend more. So we've made it very clear that the quantum of investment and the pace of investment that you've seen over the last several years is not what we forecast over the coming years. You are right, there are times where things will come up. where we think an investment is strategically necessary. That obviously comes with Board approval, and it's not something that management have complete control over by any stretch. But again, I can assure you that there's no intention over the next 3 years. And I'm not suggesting that in 4 years, there is that we're looking to spend anything like the level of capital investment we've put to date. But we do our best to give some kind of, I think, directional idea as to what it is on an annual basis, but we certainly wouldn't give anything to that level of outlook. Jose, have you got anything further?

Yes. No, I think that's absolutely right. King Claw will hopefully open in a month, and that's the last significant piece of development CapEx at the moment. that's in the pipe. Our maintenance CapEx historically is sort of -- it fluctuates, but it's generally in the range of $5 million to $10 million a year. We're probably going to be somewhere in the middle of that range this year. And yes, we don't see a need for it to be up in the quantums that you've seen in recent years.

Sorry, one more. [indiscernible] Shareholder. Would there be any availability for the Board to consider separating out the attendance of its 3 businesses and the per cap spend of its 3 businesses. Macquarie used to do that, used to even say, here's how many we got from Queensland interstate international. Here's what the per cap and attendance was of Dreamworld and WhiteWater World. And while I said that WhiteWater World was disgustingly busy, which was when I attended -- my metrics also show that it's down from its peak because obviously, it's opened like less than half the time. Is there a way that we could put those in future annual report so we can also keep you honest to make sure we're not sacrificing too much per cap spend. Obviously, some great deals that have gone on Black Friday, $89 for your entire annual pass. I'm sure that will be very popular. I'd advocate that you only do that for Dreamworld and you upsell to WhiteWater World, SkyPoint and your premium offerings like Happy Halloween, which I was lucky enough to be a VIP Pumpkin pass holder too, and it was an absolutely fantastic 9. You should absolutely run those more. So -- would you consider changing the annual report so we can get a bit more information? Because I'm assuming our friends down south will know everything and more than our owners.

Down south is in -- you mean...

Our friends at Village.

Yes. Well, I think that's the reason why we would be hesitant to do so is that we've got a situation where there's obviously a degree of disclosure, which is incumbent upon us as a public company, and there's a degree of disclosure incumbent upon them as a private company. We have no issue -- no intention to be opaque with holders. You are our owners, and so we completely appreciate that. At the same time, I'm well aware that Village. And when I was working for Village, I was very studious of what was happening here, and I can imagine that they are doing the same to us right now. In fact, we get a transcript of a report of who was watching these proceedings, and I can guarantee you there's many people at Billie doing just that. And so there's a reason why we are hesitant to give away too much, and that's because there are clear competitive elements to that, which are on our minds. So that's the first answer. I think on the second part around price, again, look, I would say this is that it's a very -- it's an interesting situation at the moment. We're testing price every day, and we're looking and trying to be very sophisticated around how we look at yield and how we look at active revenue management. And you'll see things that we'll test that will be on the downside. You probably don't see the things that we test on the upside. And there's things that we're testing right now around increasing yield that are less evident, but we're doing those things constantly. It's a conversation we have literally every week. they're very large asset-heavy fixed cost businesses. And in our minds, the marginal cost of an additional guest is quite negligible. And the incremental guest that comes on is quite disproportional in terms of the increase in profit that we get from it. So it is something that's on our minds. I think your point again about WhiteWater World is absolutely well made. And to your point about, well, how do you think about, say, Black Friday and what is included and what's in annual passes and things like that, that's absolutely on our minds. With WhiteWater World, I can tell you this is that when I first joined the organization, I would walk into White Water World when we were open in winter and there'd be 23 life guards and 14 people as guests in the park, and that's just not good business. And we've taken, again, a strong view around strategic differentiation. What are we trying to do to make sure that we're uniquely different to our competitor. That doesn't always mean that we're adding additional product or elements. That sometimes means that we're making decisions to take things away for the right reasons. And so our view is that at WhiteWater World running it out of season doesn't make a lot of sense. Does it mean that we would look to expand our operations in the shoulder periods? I think we're seeing more and more reasons to do that, and we expect to do just that over the next little while.

I can also just add to that. There's hopefully some logic in some of the promotional activities that we do. Almost unfailingly, when I bring people around the park who haven't been here for 5, 6, maybe 10 years, they're astounded at what's been achieved here. And again, almost invariably, the response is you've got to get the message out. You've got to tell people what's here. And we've had that challenge of particularly in the local market, again, going back to my earlier remarks, the consequence of the tragedy and the loss of support from our local market. We've had to rebuild as we're doing very successfully, the trust indeed the love of the local market with Dreamworld. So we've been using some element of price to get more and more people to come to the park because we're convinced that once they're in the park and see the investment that's gone here, looked at the standards of the food offerings, the service levels and so on, that they'll become ongoing annual pass holders and continue to support the park. And you can see how we're doing in terms of the growth of our installed annual pass holder base and so on. So we have deliberately used some measure of promotions to get the message out to the wider community as to what has been achieved here over the last few years.

We think about it very clearly in terms of lifetime value. And I can tell you that having been in the industry for a long, long time, this is a very immature industry in terms of thinking about lifetime value. And the Board has challenged management to get a lot better at that, and it makes a lot of sense. And so -- there's a gateway reason to get people into the brand and then there's a difference around once they're in, how do you retain them. And so we're constantly looking at all of that. That doesn't mean that we're going to be constantly doing the type of things that we're doing today. Our view has been very much let's recover the business, get it just operating well. Obviously, there's a discussion around trust and all of those kind of things, and we're researching that regularly. And I think that we're in a position where it's never where we want it to be, but it's materially better than what it was. At the moment, we're in a phase where we're building attendance. And over time, you can expect that we will think about how do we improve margins. That is absolutely what's on our minds, but I think it is very clearly a sequential strategy. And I think if you think about the alternative view, and I think there's a very topical one in Six Flags, a regional theme park operator in the U.S., they have the right strategy at the wrong time. So a new CEO came in, had the view that we've spent a lot of capital over a long time here, and we're just not getting the value we should get and let's put price up. And I'll give you a commitment over time that will make the product offer materially better, just trust me. So what he did was he hiked prices materially. -- attendance, revenue, EBITDA absolutely capitulated. And you can see today, if you go and have a look at the Six Flags share price, there are some other factors in terms of integration challenges with the recent M&A event. But at the end of the day, our view is it's about having the right strategy at the right time. And our view at the moment is that increasing price over time is absolutely the right strategy, and we're doing things today that will allow us to improve margins over time structurally to do that. So I would point to the fact that we're continuing to move headline price up, and I expect that we'll move headline price up again between now and Christmas. So that as we look at how are we going to improve margins, one way to do that will be to do less or more sophisticated promotional activity. And we'll have the optionality to do that without doing what we saw at Six Flags, which was taking pricing from 99, say, to $199 in 1 day. That, in my mind, is value destructive and not the way we want to go about it. So there's some things, I think, which are really mindful to be mindful of. I think the other thing that I would say, too, is that we're very mindful not only about the revenue mix from a ticketing standpoint, but what happens in park. And we want the parks to be comfortably busy. That's important for a few things. One is in-park revenue. There's other intangible things, the vibe, if you will, and the parks need to be reasonably busy. You'll see today that the park will be reasonably busy, but not what it is on the weekend. And I think, Spencer, you seem to be a regular guess, which we appreciate your custom. But I think you would see that the difference in a weekday to a weekend is materially different. And that also is what you would see in our in-park performance. let me just give you this other comment, which is that I want to give you some confidence that we do think about this at a strategic level. If I took you to SkyPoint and told you about our pricing strategy at Skypoint, it's materially different to what we're doing here today because it is capacity-based. It's challenged around capacity. And so the things we're thinking about at SkyPoint are contrarily different to what we're doing here at Dreamworld. And so we -- it's constantly in our minds. It is a discussion that we have internally on a regular basis. When I say regular, I mean 3 times a week, and it's something that is absolutely part of our discussions with the Board as well.