Fletcher Building Limited (FBU) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
August 16, 2022
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Operator
operatorThank you for standing by, and welcome to the Fletcher Building FY '22 Full Year Results Briefing. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Ross Taylor, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.
Ross Taylor
executiveThank you. [Foreign Language]. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the presentation of our full year results for the 12 months ended 30 June 2022. Given nothing material has changed since our Investor Day just 2 months ago, will be covered in some detail our medium-term strategies and FY 2022 operating update and the outlook for FY '23. We'll do a shorter and more focused presentation than usual today. The agenda for today is shown on Slide 3 of our results presentation pack. Presenting with me today is our group CFO, Bevan McKenzie. I'll provide an overview of the results. Bevan will provide a bit more detail on the financial performance, and then I'll sum up with the FY '23 outlook. With this reduced agenda, there'll be plenty of time at the end for Q&A. Turning to Slide 4 and a summary of the full year results. Despite the significant COVID disruptions and lockdowns in the first quarter, we improved across all our financial and most of our nonfinancial metrics through FY '22. EBIT was up 13% for the year, our second half margin lifted to 9.5% and net earnings improved significantly, up 42%. Our trading cash flows remain solid and our balance sheet remains strong. Against this backdrop, the Board has declared a fully imputed final dividend of $0.22 per share. Looking ahead into FY '23, we continue to see solid committed workloads across all our sectors and expect market levels to remain at or about FY '22 levels. This positions us well to deliver further profit growth in FY '23. Turning now to Slide 5. Overall, our teams have delivered an excellent result for the year. Revenue was up 5% and EBIT at $756 million was just ahead of guidance and up 13% on last year. Our second half margin of 9.5% across the group was pleasing and sets us up well as we enter into FY '23. All this -- this all translated to ongoing strong returns on our funds employed of 19.3%, again, ahead of our 15% base target. Moving to Slide 6 and on to cash and leverage. As we flagged at last year's results, through FY '22, we needed to restock stock inventory across most businesses and replenish housing stock in our New Zealand residential business. Despite these investments, we still achieved a good trading cash flow through the year of $462 million. Net debt levels at the end of the year were $670 million, resulting in a leverage ratio of 0.6x, and $1.1 billion of available liquidity. All this maintains our strong balance sheet position as we enter into FY '23. On Slide 7, we see the strong performance flowing into our other financial results. Net earnings for the year were up strongly to $432 million and earnings per share before significant items, which is the basis upon which we pay our dividend increased to $0.60 per share. Against this backdrop, the Board declared a fully imputed final dividend of $0.22 per share to be paid in October. Continuing with capital returns, we completed our share buyback program in May. And in total, we purchased and canceled around 41 million shares for $274 million. As I mentioned in my introduction, we continue to make good progress on our key nonfinancial metrics as well. The graph on the top half of Slide 8 shows the continued improvements we're achieving in safety. TRIFR, our total recordable injury frequency rate set at 3.4 at the end of the year, 32% down on last year. And this translated to 90% of our sites being injury free through the year. We continue to focus significant ongoing efforts into further improving our safety performance. And this year, we'll see us implement a major frontline training program. We're confident this program will keep us moving towards our ultimate goal of no injuries across any of our businesses at all. After the challenges of resetting our cost base through the early stages of the COVID years, it was pleasing to see our overall employee engagement, again, improving. We're putting a lot of effort into ensuring this continues. Beyond these day-to-day activities, we're also working on our overall employee value proposition. Some recent examples on how we're improving this include: introducing a materially enhanced parental leave policy, working to specific targets on increasing the percentage of females and operation roles, and continue to work towards pay parity, which should see the last of our gaps close over the next couple of years. Moving to sustainability in the top half of Slide 9. We continue to make good progress towards our goal of a 30% reduction in our carbon emissions by 2030. Our emissions are now sustainably 12% below our 2018 levels, and each business has a plan to ensure we'll meet or better our 2030 target as an overall group. On the bottom half of the slide, you can see that the COVID and geopolitical disruptions that occurred to demand and supply chain over the last couple of years have had some impact on our Net Promoter Score with our customers. This softened slightly to 36% through the year. We recognize that this has been a tough period for our customers. But looking forward, we're now seeing most building product suppliers, including plasterboard, are moving back into balance. Capacity has been added, international and local supply chains are starting to sort themselves out and panic buying and stockpiling is abating. Beyond this, we're very focused on improving our own performance and value proposition to our customers. And this is through things like our new digital interfaces and e-commerce channels, decreasing delivery times while adding certainty and traceability and increasing the pace of our product range and innovation improvements. The combination of our own focus and the generally improving backdrop gives us confidence we'll see improvements in our customer satisfaction scores through FY '23. On Slide 10, we have a summary of our divisional performance. The more detailed divisional slides we usually present are available in the appendix to this presentation as well as in our annual report published today. Overall, the divisions performed very well during the year. Across our New Zealand Building Products, Distribution and Concrete businesses, we saw ongoing good activity levels and volumes. And while input cost pressures have been a feature through the year, we've generally been able to flow this through to price. This, combined with ongoing operational improvements, saw all these businesses lift both margins and overall profits through the year. In Australia, the division delivered a material profit improvement and the second half margin of 4.8% sets us up well as we enter into FY '23. In our residential development business, we had an excellent year. And although [ house ] sale volumes were lower than last year due to disruptions and industry capacity constraints, margins were very strong. And finally, our Construction division made good progress with a second half margin of 3.9% and a strong and much better dimensioned order book as it enters FY '23. I'll now hand over to Bevan, who will take you through the detail of our financial results for the year.
Bevan McKenzie
executiveThanks, Ross. [Foreign Language] Good morning, everyone. Turning first to the income statement on Page 12. As Ross has noted, the group delivered a strong full year performance despite the significant impact of the COVID lockdowns in the first quarter. The second half performance where the group delivered EBIT margins of 9.5% and year-on-year earnings growth of 46% points to the operational improvements in a number of key areas. In particular, it's been driven by more effective pricing to offset inflation and to slightly expand our gross margins, growth into higher-margin product categories, a more efficient cost base and the operating leverage which that cost efficiency is enabling. I'd note that as we look at our second half revenue growth of 11% year-on-year, around 1/3 of this is due to volume growth and around 2/3 is due to price to offset inflation. This is consistent with the market that remains at capacity in many areas with volumes broadly flat year-on-year as we head into FY '23, consistent with our prior guidance. A couple of final points here. The significant items in FY '22 relate principally to the Rocla divestment, which we completed earlier in the year, and our results are inclusive of around a $15 million impact this year from changes to the cloud computing accounting standard. Turning to cash flows on Slide 13. The group's underlying trading cash flows were strong, and the result is coming ahead of the guidance we provided at Investor Day. As we've highlighted previously, the group has made targeted investments in inventories in FY '22 to support both the growth of the business and also to support customer service levels through a period of significant supply chain disruption. We've continued to see the benefits of these investments, both in our earnings growth and also our customer satisfaction metrics, which as Ross has highlighted, have softened slightly but have generally held up well despite these disruptions. Page 14 provides more detail on the working capital movements. The key investment in the year was $239 million in inventories for the Materials and Distribution divisions. About half of this investment was due to higher stock volumes, again, to support growth in customer service levels and about half was due to higher stock values, particularly in areas impacted by higher commodity price inflation, such as steel and resin. We do expect to maintain inventories in the Materials and Distribution divisions at about the current level through FY '23. This is slightly higher than our long-term target level. However, we consider it prudent to maintain a higher level of resilient stocks as supply chains are yet to fully normalize. Turning to Slide 15. The focus of our capital expenditure program remains consistent. On maintenance CapEx, we're seeing the benefit of our investments in prior years in a well-controlled spend that is now broadly in line with underlying depreciation. Our base CapEx also includes $50 million to $100 million per year to deliver on our objectives in the area of digital, data, more efficient manufacturing and sustainability. As we highlighted at our Investor Day, we also have a number of what we call our above-base growth projects underway. These are primarily organic investments, targeting returns of at least 15% and are focused on entries into new product categories and network adjacencies. We're well underway with 6 key growth projects currently, and this will be a feature of our FY '23 investment. On Slide 16, closing net debt for FY '22 was $670 million, with the increase in the period due to the expected investments in inventories, the Winstone Wallboards' plant and the share buyback. This has meant a leverage ratio for the group of 0.6x at the end of FY '22, as shown on Slide 17. We do expect leverage to move back to the lower end of our target range as we make our above-base growth investments. Through FY '23, this will mean the group's leverage will move to around the 1x level. Over the medium term, as we've highlighted, the group will continue to target leverage at the lower end of the target range. Slide 18 shows that the group's funding profile remains very strong. We have around $1.8 billion of total credit facilities, a long-dated maturity profile and liquidity at June 2022 of $1.1 billion. Looking ahead to FY '23, we expect our funding cost to be around $90 million as borrowings lift on our growth investments. On Slide 19, as Ross has highlighted, our return on capital and our returns on share to shareholders remain strong. Our ROFE lifted to 19.3% in the period, well above our base target and with the group returning to cash tax payments in New Zealand, the group has delivered a fully imputed full year dividend of $0.40 per share, a material uplift on the unimputed dividend of $0.30 per share paid last year. In summary, the group's results in the period demonstrate our ongoing performance momentum. We're seeing the benefit of initiatives put in place over the past 4 years. In particular, improved price disciplines mean we're more than offsetting input cost inflation. We have a much improved cost base, which is giving us strong operating leverage to volumes and which resulted in underlying earnings margins of 9.5% in the second half, which is more than 200 basis points ahead of the prior period. On cash, good working capital disciplines mean we can make targeted investments in stocks to support customer service and earnings growth, making the most of our local positions in a disrupted supply environment. We're pleased that this performance has enabled another material uplift in our returns to shareholders as well as ongoing strength in our balance sheet metrics. Finally, and consistent with our long-term strategy, we're now firmly in the phase of investing in the future growth of the business, primarily through organic investment in new product and network adjacencies. And with that, I'll hand back to Ross for some closing remarks.
Ross Taylor
executiveThanks, Bevan. And turning to Slide 22 and the outlook for FY '23. Customers and forward indicators point to ongoing strong volumes across all our sectors. With this, we expect similar market activity levels across the FY '23 year to what we saw in the second half of last year. We are confident in our operational disciplines and continuing to cover inflationary costs. And with that, we are forecasting to see an EBIT profit uplift in FY '23 of at least $100 million from FY '22. Moving finally to Slide 23, I'd like to recap on how we see our medium-term positioning. When we look at our strategy, we remain confident we're well positioned to drive shareholder value both in the short and longer term. As mentioned, we expect to see solid profit growth into FY '23. We continue to have both plans and runway to drive further margin improvements above what we're achieving now. We have an established pipeline of growth opportunities, which we outlined in detail at our recent Investor Day that will start to mature over the next 3 years. Our balance sheet and financial position is strong, and we intend to keep it that way. And our operating approach and scale in-country presence positions us well to both take advantage of and deal with the global trends affecting our sectors. Before we move on to questions, I'd like to thank our people for their commitment and resilience through what has been a very demand in a couple of years. It's through their efforts that we've been able to deliver this performance. And I'd also like to acknowledge all our customers and shareholders for their continued support. With that, I'd now like to hand back to the moderator to allow us to take questions.
Operator
operator[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Lisa Huynh with JPMorgan.
Lisa Huynh
analystSo I just had a question around that conservative stance around the balance sheet. Is it largely the macro that you're provisioning for? So I guess, in 12 months' time, if the macro doesn't kind of deteriorate or not the end of the world, whether those room to look at more capital management?
Ross Taylor
executiveSo I'll have a quick go at that and then Bevan can pick up on anything thing I've missed. But we've put out there our target range or leverage target range of 1 to 2. And we've also said that we are positioning to stay at the bottom end of that -- that's where we're comfortable to run the business at. And we've also said that with the investments we've got planned over the coming -- in FY '23, particularly you'll start to see us move to the bottom end of that range. So right where we have said we want to hold it. So I don't see any capital management. We've also said should we find ourselves below the bottom of that range or below it for a sustained period, then we'll obviously look at those options again, but we don't -- we're not forecasting at the moment. We're expecting to get by the end of FY '23 or probably halfway through, we'll start to get quite close to the bottom end of that range.
Lisa Huynh
analystOkay, sure. And I guess just on the Australian business, just a private label brand, Oliveri. I just noticed it's being stocked in a number of retailers here and Australia now outside of Tradelink. Can you just talk about what's happening with the strategy around that?
Ross Taylor
executiveYes. So Oliveri, I mean, we obviously use the Oliveri brand through Tradelink. But yes, it is stocked through winnings and other companies like that. And so they've got a broader strategy to go to the retailers as well as through our Tradelink distribution things. And we think that's complementary and not -- doesn't cannibalize it at all. So we're very comfortable with that, and it's going well. So -- and we have been increasing our range for a good, better, best sort of strategy where we've positioned the Oliveri at the best in, but we've got products now through Oliveri that compete up and down, what I call, the value proposition. So we expect that strategy -- it's working, and we'll continue with that.
Operator
operatorYour next question comes from Grant Swanepoel with Jarden.
Grant Swanepoel
analystFirst question, just around your $100 million uplift of FY '23. A couple of things around that. Is any of the above normalized CapEx EBIT going to come through in FY '23? Second one around that, if you add back the COVID impact to the first half little bit of leverage on the business for the $5 million, you get to about a 9.7% margin for the first half. So I was just wondering how conservative is your guidance considering you did get 6% price increases through over FY '22?
Ross Taylor
executiveSo I won't comment Grant on the conservativeness of -- or otherwise of the guidance. But simplistically, the $100 million came and we've been very, very transparent about that as the first quarter impacts due to the disruptions in New Zealand and the shutdown. Well, we held our overhead and our people costs -- cost us $100 million of profit. So what we're sort of -- the thesis is not more complicated than, okay, we think the market backlog and volumes look pretty stable through FY '23 as we look at our own customers. So we see those volumes continuing and we don't see another COVID lockdown or disruptions through the year. So we're simply adding back that $100 million is how we think. In terms of our longer term $500 million CapEx that we've flagged into growth, the only 1 that will really drop into FY '23 is going to be the store acquisition, which we flagged at the Investor Day, will be $10 million to $12 million of profits through the FY '23 year. The balance of them tend to start generating profits after that, probably more in year 2 and 3 of that program.
Grant Swanepoel
analystExcellent. And then you're meeting the small board bulge. Is there any margin squeeze coming in the first half because of your -- or billings you're doing to mitigate?
Ross Taylor
executiveSo no. So the way we work and what we've been doing, I mean, if I take all of our building products, I'll start in the helicopter first is that, generally, as we -- commodity price supply agreements usually are over a period. So as we come off those, and we have to renegotiate. And if we do get cost increases, which generally is what we've been experiencing, that's when we pass costs on our prices on to customers. So we're not sort of -- we just got to make sure we marry that up as well as we can. So as we look at plasterboard, we're only just now concluding our renegotiation of our gypsum suppliers as well as our paper suppliers. So they're just happening now. So that will -- they are going up. So we're going to have to look at price in plasterboard again as we come on to those. But -- so we haven't been carrying that to date, but we are now staying to experience it as we come off our 60-year agreements on the new ones.
Grant Swanepoel
analystAnd my final question, just on central costs. I think once you net out that $15 million related to [ Tauranga ] was around about $63 million. What number should we look to the central costs for FY '23?
Bevan McKenzie
executiveYes. The $75 million is the right number for corporate costs in FY '23. And Grant, that's largely driven by that OpEx spend we flagged around the Digital@Fletchers program. So it's the backbone ERP systems. That's been all CapEx in FY '22. But as we move into the pilots, we've got about $10 million to $15 million of OpEx, and that will flow into the corporate. Otherwise, corporate is flat year-on-year.
Operator
operatorYour next question comes from Simon Thackray with Jefferies.
Simon Thackray
analystThanks, Ross. Thanks, Bevan. I'm not sure if the rest of the team are there, but I've got 4 questions, which I'll punch out as quickly as possible. You -- there's an addition in the annual report to the outlook to say that the 9% to 10% mid-cycle margins are premised on activity levels being 10% to 15% below the second half '22. So I need to do the math on the revenue, I do the math on the EBIT, but it looks like you're talking at the midpoint to around $750 million EBIT as being your through-cycle expectation, is that correct?
Bevan McKenzie
executiveWe don't -- we look at the first part of your question in the same way. So yes, we think mid-cycle as we said at Investor Day, Simon, it's about 10% to 15% below. So in New Zealand resi, for example, we think 30,000 consents thereabouts is the right level for mid-cycle versus what's built today at around 35 to 40. In terms of where that takes earnings, the difference in our outlook there, Simon, is that we've obviously got those growth investments underway. So we expect those to be additive. And we've said that we expect both at obviously, EBIT Quantum and also we've seen they're going to be margin-accretive investment. So we've been pretty clear, 9% to 10% is the right level, but we need to be factoring in that growth that is coming from those organic investments as well.
Simon Thackray
analystWith the return hurdle, I presume, of 15%, is that the return hurdle?
Bevan McKenzie
executiveThat's right. We said at least 15% on those organic investment, which is consistent with what we applied in the past. And we think all of those at mid-cycle levels can deliver the 15% plus, that's right.
Simon Thackray
analystThat's very helpful. And then just on your comments on leverage being at the bottom end just noting from the annual report at Note 9, the land and property commitments. I think they came in at $787 million this year versus $431 million with a note that $415 to be delivered in FY '23. That's I hope I'm reading this right, that's cash outflow. Does that go through the working capital?
Bevan McKenzie
executiveSo it flows through the resi working capital line that's spot on. You see that in the note disclosure. So you've got those investments coming. You've obviously also got land going out in the sense that you'll be selling houses on top of them. So that's not the -- that's -- you shouldn't expect that $400 million odd to be the total outflow. We do expect an increase in resi funds this year, and that's consistent with our growth strategy. We delivered just under 700 units this year. We're putting more towards 1,000 in FY '23, but with that longer-term objective up near the 1,400, 1,500. So yes, you'll see some working cap growth in resi this year, Simon, but not that full number that you point to.
Simon Thackray
analystYes, which is a gross number, not a net number. That's helpful. And just while -- I don't know if Steve is there, but I guess it's a good opportunity just to get a live update on what foot traffic and consumer sentiment is around housing and how sales given what we're watching with the transaction volumes falling, median prices falling. And time on market, obviously rising. Just wondering if there's any feedback on the current conditions.
Ross Taylor
executiveAbsolutely. So if I just give you a sense of what we're seeing across our portfolio. Firstly, prices probably peaked around December 2022. And since then, on average, they've come off about 10%. What we saw is there was a bit of a hiatus in sort of sales and conditional contracts sort of becoming a feature probably back in March, April as people were quite nervous where it was going and my sense waiting to see where prices went to. But what we've actually seen since we've got into July, August sort of sales thing is that, we're actually -- it seems to be stabilizing about that average of 10% across our portfolio down. And then what we're also seeing is sales running at about 30% to 40%, which is about where we'd expect given our stock levels in the winter months. And there's far less in what I call conditional contracts there. So the consumers are sort of moved on now. And it feels like there's going to be a level of comfort coming into where prices have fallen to. They're confident they've got a good sense of where interest rates are going and where bank loans will be going. And so they seem to be returning to the market. So that's a real positive for us. So it feels like we've now got a base level to go forward for the year in terms of our house sales. So yes, and that sort of gives me a bit of confidence of what we're sort of projecting will occur through this coming year.
Simon Thackray
analystAnd then just the final one on the construction backlog for the legacy projects. I didn't see a number in the $3.2 billion backlog. I can see that in the annual report. But then also just for interest, what's now the largest single project by value as a proportion of the total backlog?
Ross Taylor
executiveIt's all into NZICC. Basically, we'll be able to roading projects in the next 6 to 9 months, and there's bits and bumps to go there. But fundamentally, it's NZICC, which is part the provision, which is not much about 0.1 or $100 million of provision maybe and then the balance is insurance work.
Operator
operatorYour next question comes from Peter Wilson with Credit Suisse.
Peter Wilson
analystI might just follow that question up on the construction. Very good second half margin, 3.9% despite still having some revenue from those legacy projects. I was just wondering what proportion was those new margin legacy projects -- and I guess the margin, excluding that, should we expect that to be indicative of the go-forward margin you might expect?
Bevan McKenzie
executiveI'll start from -- Peter, I'll start from the end. So we said construction should be delivering in that 3% to 5% range, and your spot on second half was firmly in the middle. So we'd be hoping to push into the upper end of that range. We've been very focused on the quality of the order book. And as you see that flow through, we expect good margin to follow. In terms of legacy, for the full year, it was about $250 million of legacy, i.e., nil margin work and that was split pretty evenly between the first and second half. So just north of $100 million in the second half would have been nil margin revenue.
Peter Wilson
analystPerfect. And another one probably for you, Bevan. Just the $100 million COVID impact on New Zealand, how do you -- can you provide a rough split by business?
Bevan McKenzie
executiveWe have not, and we will not. It was obviously concentrated in your larger manufacturing-based businesses where you get the fixed cost deleverage as the revenue turned off. But we also had a reasonably chunky impact in Steve's business. We didn't sell any houses for the Level 4 lockdown period. And also, you had the delay in construction that flowed through. And you can see that the year-end house units at 670, were obviously below where we wanted to be. So that kind of clipped the full year number. In volume terms, obviously, margin was significantly up just due to where house prices, particularly in Auckland were through the year.
Operator
operatorYour next question comes from Marcus Curley with UBS.
Marcus Curley
analystJust a few. I just wondered if you can talk a little bit more to the job expansion project now that you're sort of closing in on the finish there? Maybe an update in terms of timing and potentially a view on returns from that project as we look into the next year?
Ross Taylor
executiveYes. So timing, it's running as we've been talking to really -- we should be in full production in May next year. So that means we're broadly doing trial board from February, March, just getting it commissioned and all that. So that's running well. And as we do that, we've still got the facility up here in Felix Street in Penrose, which sort of covers us. So we've got good transition planning through all that. So it's running to budget and on time, and it's going really well. So very confident on that. In terms of returns, it's actually not as simple as that, Marcus, because it's actually not a growth CapEx, it's actually -- part of it's replacing what was so the overall impact on the Building Products division and the wallboards is to actually drop its ROFE as we make that investment, but it will still stay above -- well above what we call our 15% target, but it will come down because we're basically manufacturing plasterboard in Auckland out of an end-of-life plant that's basically more or less depreciated. So it's the wrong way to look at it as incremental, what I call, returns on capital.
Marcus Curley
analystWould you expect any net negative out of it once it opens? Or do you think it could break even in the first year?
Ross Taylor
executiveOh, it's actually -- it will be a seamless transition. So there'll be no what I call deminuation of the wallboards profitability at the EBIT will flow. And in terms of any remediation costs, we've got around the site, that will be dealt with as we think of the overall capital envelope with we're investing. So it's really just get it working. And if anything, what it will do, just gives us better ability to have volumes meet the market, so think -- so very bullish about I wish it was open now.
Marcus Curley
analystAnd secondly, Ross, can you talk a little bit to the outlook for the steel business, particularly around margin looking into '23.
Ross Taylor
executiveYes, look, if you look at premise and what we're seeing in our businesses is the volumes and the orders and the activity take the second half FY '22 and just roll it across FY '23. So if I look at the steel activity, we'd expect it to be very similar. And this is not based on us just putting a thumb in there, it's talking to our customers, understanding that backlog of work to get through that disconnect between the amount of consent versus the capacity of the industry. It's also talking to our customer base, builders, group homebuilders, smaller builders. So we've got a bit of visibility of their order books, and we're looking at our own orders and volumes in our various businesses. So from my perspective, I'd expect the steel business to run pretty well, same again from that second half. And that's what we're sort of pointing to across all of our Building Products businesses.
Marcus Curley
analystSo you're not expecting a material impact on margins from falling steel commodity prices?
Ross Taylor
executiveWell, it's a bit -- they go up and down. And what happens is that you always have opportunity and issues in the steel trading business because effectively you're buying stock and then selling it. So whether it's going up or down, it can have an impact. But what it is, is mostly volatile. So you can have spikes. So you might make a bit in some months and be a bit below run rate the next month. So what you find is it tends to average out over the year. So the answer is no, because we don't carry a whole 12 months of stock. You basically are a trader in the steel. So therefore, it sort of sorts itself out as you go through the year.
Marcus Curley
analystAnd then on the dividend, can you give us sort of any -- I know you've talked about your leverage levels, but any perspective on where you think you might take the dividend next year given the higher level of profitability one would assume you're looking to try and make sure that the dividend level is sustainable through the cycle?
Ross Taylor
executiveSo if I look just forward to next year rather than predicted over 5 years because I think that's unfair. We're very specific on the 50% to 75% payout range of net profit after tax. And if -- so to the extent FY '23, we've also said we think we'll be $100 million higher in EBIT. So that should give us -- therefore the opportunity to pay out more dividend is there, then it's a decision for the Board after that. But the direction of travel in our underlying profitability is the core, I think, indicator of where the dividend goes. So I'm optimistic of the dividend outlook, but I don't -- I'm not sitting here trying to predict it through mid-cycle.
Marcus Curley
analystAnd then just finally, maybe 1 for Bevan. Can you talk -- I know you sort of highlighted this, but yes, specifically to cash tax payments this year and working capital, will you be paying full cash tax and by the sounds of things, working capital relatively stable, would that be the right conclusion?
Bevan McKenzie
executiveYes, 3 components. Peter, cash tax payments this year, obviously, in New Zealand, not yet back to cash tax paying in Australia, but cash tax payments in New Zealand for full year '23 in a year will probably be at around $180 million. So we'll be back to normal levels, which is enabling us to impute those dividends, which is positive. On working capital, as I mentioned before to Simon, you will see investment in the residential business as we invest to grow that business. On working capital outside of residential, yes, you should expect that to be broadly flat because we think those investments that we made in stock in FY '22 have got us to about the right level even to support a little bit of growth that we're targeting in FY '23.
Marcus Curley
analystSo Bevan, can I draw you on what type of number that adds up to?
Bevan McKenzie
executiveIn terms of the working cap investment?
Marcus Curley
analystYes.
Bevan McKenzie
executiveI think, look, in Steve's business, you'll be in the range of $100 million to $200 million investment. This year, we ended at $650 million of funds June 22, Peter. And the reason -- Marcus, excuse me -- thank you, Ross. My apologies. And the reason for the range, the $750 million to $850 million, it just depends -- there's a few variables, obviously, in Steve's business. Obviously, sales is a clear one. But yes, there's some interesting opportunities out there on land, but we're also, at this point, reasonably kind of well booked on that front. But $750 million to $850 million is about the right level of total funds for Steve exiting this year, therefore, a net $100 million to $200 million investment.
Operator
operatorYour next question comes from Keith Chau with MST Marquee.
Keith Chau
analystFirst one, just going back to the resi division, Ross, you talked about running at, I think, you said 30 to 40 in response to Simon's questions. Just wondering if you can clarify what you mean by that in terms of ruling at 30 to 40 in August?
Ross Taylor
executiveI said 30 to 40 sales, sorry, to make it clear. And what you find is very seasonal this business because when we exit -- we enter the winter months, we don't have as much stock. There's not as much to sell. So that's a pretty solid number from our perspective. And what then happens is as we build it will start to swing up through the year, you sort of -- as we were completed and obviously the weather does impact consumers as well. So yes, so I'll just point the fact. The point really was that as we look at that, it feels like people are back in the market, they have seen some price drops, they've also got comfortable around interest rate outlooks and they're buying. And we're not seeing that I'm not going to buy until I sell my house stuff. They get quite confident on what they're doing. So it's a really different feel to what we're seeing in April, May. So it feels like we have now sort of got to a sort of a level that we can then go forward on from here.
Keith Chau
analystSo that run rate is $30 million to $40 million per month, but obviously seasonally impacted...
Ross Taylor
executiveSeasonally, I mean, that's about what we'd expect to see in July, August and then it just gets -- it grows stronger from there because, I mean, as I said, if you think of our overall outlook, we're sort of talking about 1,000 but that's really about 800 houses up from the sort of high 6s because we've also got the retirement living going into the thing as apartments next year. So we haven't got overly ambitious targets, I think, in the residential space. So that feels about right for what we want to see now to get on that trajectory to the sort of circa 800 houses.
Keith Chau
analystOkay. Maybe I'm nitpicking here, but the expectation for FY '22 was circa 700 sales. And with only a handful of trading days going into the end of the period business when guidance was provided at the end outcome was $670 million. So lower than expected, notwithstanding only a handful of trading days, can you help me understand whether the lower outcome was driven by timing. Was that related to the pause of the market? Just keen to understand where the differentiation was and what was actually cheaper since the guidance intimated?
Ross Taylor
executiveSure, Keith, I would agree in nitpicking, but I'll answer it anyway. But the thing here is that what we saw happen, the biggest issue we faced is the extension of approvals from counsel because the approval process just got elongated. So what happened is you might have had a sale that we only book it were finally gets completed. So those completions just got a bit elongated as just their -- COVID affected as well their own staff. So we were trying to be order of magnitude in the 700, we didn't quite get there, but the profits were very solid, and they went up. So it didn't really change our forecast. So apologies if you thought we gave you a misty there, but we weren't sort of guiding that specifically at sort of order of magnitude.
Keith Chau
analystJust trying to understand the...
Ross Taylor
executiveYes. Look, so it is that counsel -- so there's -- the capacity constraints across the industry are not just building supplies, it's trades, it's supply chain, it's counsel, it's getting on to site, get the sections approved and then get the final handover of the houses. It is right across it and -- but what we are seeing, as I mentioned, is certainly some of the supply chain, the building products, that's easing -- there's still a skills challenge. But to the extent the borders, they're staying to get a little bit easier. So we're staying to see some hope in the next 6 or 7 months, we might get a few trades supplementing it. And then hopefully, the authorities start to get better at the section approvals and then the final approvals on the way through. So that's why we don't want to get overly ambitious with our numbers this year because I just don't think it will free up completely, but it will hopefully get a little bit easier.
Keith Chau
analystSo the assumption in getting to the 1,100 number -- or roughly 1,100 number for FY '23, that's based on these labor constraints and consenting constraints remaining as they are or easing?
Ross Taylor
executiveNot really. I mean, what we're actually more like about, I mean, if I break it down, call it about 800, and these won't be sort of please don't -- 800, 850 of residential. But what you get, I think retirement living is about 60, 70 and then apartments are about 140, 150, something like that. So I mean, they're not going to be exactly right. But -- so the thing is that what we're sort of seeing is a mild up ticking our residential throughput from the high -- close to 700 up to the 850s and the others are the new product coming into the market, which are fundamentally aimed at different consumers.
Keith Chau
analystSorry, Ross, there's a housing target of 850 doesn't assumed consenting processes remain as constrained as they are that look gets better?
Ross Taylor
executiveI think it will be a bit better. But we're not sort of sitting here saying we go back to Nevada at all. I mean we're sort of planning this outlook based on what we see in the -- firstly, it starts with the consumer buying it, and then the second thing is, well, what can we actually get built. So you've still got a constrained market to some degree, albeit not as dramatically constrained as what it was in FY '22. So we think it will get a bit easier, but we don't expect it to completely transform.
Keith Chau
analystYes. Okay. Understood. And then just a follow-up question on construction. With the legacy projects, I see in your notes to the accounts that the provisioning is still fine under current assumptions. There are still, however, a few projects in there that could be at risk NZICC, you've got some insurance claims on that, which may provide a failsafe. There's only a small amount of work left for pick to Otaki and P2W. In the current environment with cost tracking as they are and the delays to projects, et cetera, et cetera. Where do you think the key risks lie for those businesses with respect to where the end outcome could be for cost to deliver? And the only reason I ask is what basically what's happened with the justice present in the past, that projects was aimed to complete in short order, but dragged out for multiple months, if not years. So just trying to get an understanding of how confident you are in current provision levels based on what you can see on the cost backdrop and the labor backdrop evolving?
Ross Taylor
executiveSo 2 things, Keith. Firstly, the 2 main projects to finish The Puhoi to Warkworth and NZICC, Puhoi to Warkworth will finish 2023. And really that one it's well understood. We know we're going direction travel very solid, so we can sort of see that it's basically done, and we're basically getting paving in from here. So it's just progressively finishing the pavement and knowing and then doing the QA checks to hand it over. And I don't trivialize it. There's a fair bit in that, but it's -- in terms of that one and the reason it's in the accounts is that from the COVID delays back in first quarter '22, there was delays around that, and that's the subject of a claim we've got to work through with Waikato. Just as we had to work through a claim with Waikato on the FY '20 COVID disruptions as well, which we successfully did. So we obviously got to work through that, but we're confident we'll get an outcome there. And on NZICC, it is an insurance work and insurance covers the cost of inflation in that. So again, there'll always be pushing shove in the insurance world, but we're covered for the inflation costs in that. And the other thing I'd just say to you is that we put a lot of focus on assessing these projects, whether it be ourselves, the Board or the auditors, and that's -- and the comfort you can take is we're still comfortable with the provision envelope as we have been for many, many years now.
Keith Chau
analystOkay. Great. And perhaps if I can just squeeze in 1 quick last one. For the PlaceMakers business in New Zealand and Tradelink in Australia, how would you characterize your channel inventories for those 2 businesses? Would you say you're back to normal over full or still running fairly lean?
Ross Taylor
executiveNo, no. I think we're still -- I think goes to Bevan's overall comment. I think both those businesses have a bit more than you'd have in a normal environment, but we're not going to pull them back until -- as I said, I think -- we're seeing the direction of travel with the supply chain is getting better. I don't think we'll call done on that until we get into second half of FY '23. So we're letting them hold inventory in the critical products where we think they need to hold them on both sides, in Tradelink and PlaceMakers. And then we'll only move back. I mean, we're more concerned about our customer outcomes. We don't think it's excessive our inventory levels there, but they are a bit higher than normal, and we'll leave it at that for the moment until we see all that -- the other issues dissipate.
Operator
operatorYour next question comes from Stephen Hudson with Macquarie Securities.
Stephen Hudson
analystRoss and Bevan, I've just got 3 quick ones. Just firstly, on Australia, Ross, your regular rates, few margin there at 4.8%, it was pretty strong in spite of weather. Can you just call out the outcomes and underperformers sort of by company? And then a couple for Bevan, Tumu, it looks like you've acquired it, something like 3.8x EBIT, which is pretty remarkable multiple. Are there more of those out there? And how do you weigh that up versus sort of buybacks? And another one, just for you, Bevan, just on Wallboards, are you still thinking about the $400 million sale and leaseback -- sorry, the sale and leaseback on your Wallboards investment? Or is that sort of being parked for the time being?
Ross Taylor
executiveStephen, do you mind -- Ross here. You got garble when you asked your question. I just couldn't quite hear what you wanted to hear about Tradelink. So can you just say -- say it again?
Stephen Hudson
analystSorry, can you hear me okay?
Ross Taylor
executiveYes, I can just -- can hear -- final question was just whatever had happened at that point, it just got garble, I really didn't -- sorry, my old age hearing file on 1 of the 2.
Stephen Hudson
analystProbably garble. Look, it was just really what your exit run rate for margin in Australia was pretty strong at 4.8% in spite of weather. Would you -- are there any call outs for you in terms of the divisions that outperformed or was it across the board? And then hopefully, Bevan heard my other 2.
Ross Taylor
executiveThe other 2 were clear as I'll let Bevan speak for himself, but I heard them anyway. So look, I think the -- just on Tradelink, I think that it is pleasing the direction of travel. And I think the results are going to speak for itself. If I just think about that momentum, the way we're looking at Tradelink is we're sort of assuming we can drive about 100 basis points a year for the coming couple of years. So that's the direction of travel on Tradelink. And we're starting to see all the things we've been doing is staying to set us up for that. So that's how we're about it. And that's what gives us confidence to talk about the overall Australian division going into the 6% to 7% overall performance. So I look at the other divisions, the ones that I think then you start to see really getting a bit of momentum. It was Iplex was not -- came back nicely. That was probably the other -- the other 1 that we've been worrying really hard over the last couple of years, just to really clean up its manufacturing footprint really focus on what it did manufacture did and also how it thinks about its distribution channels. So I'd say all very well. Laminex and Stramit and those other businesses also performed, but the ones that really started to move the performance style would probably those 2, which is really pleasing because they're going to -- there's a fair bit of revenue in those 2 and they'll actually get them going and it starts to drag the whole Australian business up.
Bevan McKenzie
executiveThat was -- we think that's a good business that Bruce and the team have bought there, and we're pleased to welcome them to the fold at the end of the month, Stephen. Are there any out there? I think we said consistently a couple of things. There are a couple of areas in kind of bolt-on acquisitions that we continue to look at. And we will continue to do so. I think the discipline on the buying is important to us, Stephen, and we need to look at these things on a through-the-cycle basis, and they obviously need to make strategic sense. So yes, there are a couple. But again, to our point, most of the investment you're going to see is in that organic area, and that's the way we like it. We'd like to have these. The lion's share under our control. . In terms of Wallboards sale and leaseback, we keep that option on the table, Stephen. But again, we've consistently said that we would get through the project, we'd get commissioned and then we'd have a look at it. I make 2 points. You won't see a sale and leaseback in FY '23. We're going to commission in May next year. So it's certainly not part of our FY '23 plans. And we've not factored in any sale and leaseback of the land and buildings into our balance sheet metrics. So when we talk about being at the lower end of the range, that does not rely on a Wallboards sale and leaseback. So probably, it will be FY '24 and maybe even later FY '24 before you look at that question, Steve.
Operator
operatorYour next question comes from Daniel Kang with CLSA.
Daniel Kang
analystJust in terms of the backlog of work that you talked about consenting completions, wondering how you see this backlog lasting in terms of duration. Given that, as you mentioned, there's some easing in some supply constraints that we're seeing.
Ross Taylor
executiveLook, I -- look, we've actually put a lot of thought into this and as you would have seen at the Investor Day, not only we sort of tried to supplement our own sort of views, which are necessarily overly sophisticated because we just talk to our customers and look at our volumes and forward orders with the piece of work we had by Deloitte. So Dan, I'm not avoiding it. We laid out what we think it looks like as the -- both the -- with the economic things are doing versus that backlog consideration. And that's why we had Deloitte try and piece that puzzle together for us, which basically led us to be confident not only from our own customer soundings and our own order books you sort of have that outside in view sort of supported a relatively flat volumes through FY '23. And then what that then said is, it started to ease a bit in FY '24, but not precipitously slow. So that was sort of -- I'd just point to that. And we're seeing nothing in any of what I call our lead indicators or what we're seeing as our business that would indicate it's any different to that, but it's hard to -- I'm just -- I haven't got much more to say on FY '24, FY '25 beyond what that piece of work we did at the Investor Day.
Daniel Kang
analystNo, I appreciate that. And Ross, with regards to inflationary pressures, can you talk about the key areas that you're noticing this most and perhaps any areas where you are starting to see some relief?
Ross Taylor
executiveLook, I think what -- so I said basically, let's start with building products. So we're seeing -- that's running between 5% to 10%, let's call it 7.5%. If I look at what we have put into the market either through PlaceMakers and what we buy and also what we put into the market for our own building products is running at around about 7-ish percent. What you see the inflation that's occurring actually in people that are procuring houses from builders or we're doing alteration and additions is far higher than that. . And that dynamic, from my perspective, is all about once the traders or the builders got busy, prices went up. What I think will happen is as we get -- and if I look at their order books, as we talk to our customers, depending who they are, they're basically full to early next year to middle of next year. So what will start to happen in my mind, if you absolutely want to lock them in for a house now, the price is high. But if that's -- but as they start to see more need to fill their order book, they'll start to get a bit sharper, that will probably also be a confluence with border is getting a bit easier and some of these trade skills becoming available out of Asia, Philippines, et cetera. So I think what you'll see is an unwind in the pricing aggressiveness that's been going from the trades or the builders to the consumers. And that will also marry up with as what people can sell houses for drops, it sort of brings it together. So I think you'll see that more than anything is a bit of the housing inflation that's out there more so than building products. And I do think, I mean, then we're all in our economic forecasting. I mean to the extent the interest rate cycle get inflation under control, then I expect in FY '24 building products to return to more normal levels of inflation. So -- but that's how I think it will play out.
Daniel Kang
analystAnd just a couple of housekeeping items for Bevan, if I may. Effective tax rate, what should we be assuming going forward? And then secondly, given the higher interest rates, how does that impact your borrowing costs?
Bevan McKenzie
executiveYes, sure. So effective tax rate, we're creeping back up to that 28% that we have been talking about. It was a couple of percentage points lower than that in FY '22, again, due to the industrial land sales in Australia and the nondeductibility there. So we're at 26-ish, 28. I think we'll be getting close to that FY '23. In terms of funding costs, we're at 4.6% in FY '22, you basically -- you're largely going to move with base rates there as we have a coupon above that. You've obviously got the capital notes which won't, but the others, the syndicate in USPP well. So there's obviously an announcement out in New Zealand today on that will broadly move in line with that. So you're probably looking into the low 5s and FY '23.
Operator
operatorYour next question comes from Rohan Koreman-Smit with Forsyth Barr.
Rohan Koreman-Smit
analystCongratulations on a good result. I clearly need to press star one earlier. Just a couple of quick ones. Hopefully, previously, you talked about needing to this $200 million in the resi business, to take funds to $750 million, so now you're talking kind of may be topping out at $850 million. Can you just talk to what the difference in investment there is versus those plans that you've kind of outlined in the investment at the FY '21 result.
Bevan McKenzie
executiveI think what you're seeing there is that as we've looked at the opportunities more broadly, we see a couple of good opportunities. We've talked -- or Steve talked extensively around the living and the investment there that will obviously be held on balance sheet and apartments. I think we've got good confidence in the ability for that business to deliver on a couple of other fronts. And that's why we're looking to invest a little bit more, and you're going to need to scale that. You've also seen, I would say that the number of units that we are targeting up at that 1,400 or 1,500, level has also grown as well. So you're going to need to invest a bit more both in the total volume growth and inclusive within that some of those other areas that -- that is pretty exciting. Ross has mentioned, the 60 to 70 that we're doing this year at Vivid in Red Beach, it's getting plenty of attention in the market. So I'd characterize that as part of the overall innovation that you're seeing in the business role. And yes, there's a bit more capital that comes with it. But Ross and I are pleased about it. You've seen the business really start to push on some of these fronts, and it's thematic more broadly, not just in Steve's world.
Rohan Koreman-Smit
analystAnd then on that 1,000 home kind of guidance you gave, 800 houses and was 40 to 160 partners. Can you give us some color on how much of that was presold kind of going into the year. It seems you have more...
Ross Taylor
executiveSo with the apartments, it's about 40%. So -- and that's just the way we sort of approach it, but we don't want to presell everything because some of the -- depending on where it is and so apartments have always have a limited presale. And what we don't -- we don't presell with houses. Basically, we just -- we build them and then sell them in the market. And you've always got a bit of carryover from the previous year, but it's not a presale as much as I think. So we came in the year with around about 100 already, which didn't settle in June, so they get carried over and then you get on to sales and we finish the house and sell them. Every now and then, we might sell 1 ahead of that, but that's not our main model.
Rohan Koreman-Smit
analystAnd then just circling back to these benefits from this growth investment. I mean you talked the benefits kind of dropping through in the years 2 and 3 kind of outside of 2 move, but when you just look at the commentary that you gave, the steel side, you've got 4 sites to consolidate that kind of happens in 2026, Taupo Laminex is a 2027 story. I guess what am I missing from what will aid, I guess, FY '24 and '25 from that investment?
Ross Taylor
executiveSo it's not just -- so I mean, for simplicity, what we've tried to point to is the bigger ticket investment items that are going on. And so they are the Taupo, it's the tins upgrade, et cetera, those style of things. But what you -- what we don't -- because you just die in a ditch with detail, if you're not careful. All of the businesses have what I call small- to middle-sized investments going on either in production upgrades or bolt-ons or whether it's [indiscernible] footprint additions to what we're doing in our first plant. So we're adding bits and pieces all the time, as you can go and look at the different product lines in Australia. So it's a feature across everything. And so yes, so there is a bunch of that going on as well, which sort of gives us that confidence of trajectory, but rather than try and bring all that to life, which is almost impossible. We've sort of said, look, getting your helicopter, this really big stuff happening, which is really going to underpin some material lifts to what we're doing. So that's how I'd characterize it. So we think we've been doing enough across all the businesses to have a direction of travel, which will help us, what I call, incrementally keep driving growth as well as some clump on bigger bites that actually move the dial a bit more materially.
Rohan Koreman-Smit
analystAre you able to give any color on the, I guess, the quantum of those bigger investments versus the smaller ones, which seem to deliver more immediate benefits?
Ross Taylor
executiveYes. So the size of the big ones we've actually outlined, we've sort of said there'll be about $0.5 billion going into that, and we've sort of said bank that we'll be doing at mid-cycle levels that 15% ROFE, which equals $75 million EBIT or more. So that's sort of we'd hope to be north of that, and it will emerge as you say, in year 2 and year 3. So that's FY '24, '25 and beyond because it doesn't just stop then. So we've tried to be quite granular around that. And hopefully, we'll find other opportunities as we go because there's a good pipeline of innovation and ideas in the business. So I'd expect to see that evolve as we go forward as well.
Rohan Koreman-Smit
analystWe might be talking across each other on those numbers. Maybe we take it offline on that one. And then finally, simple competition has been kind of impeded for the last couple of years. Are there any signs that the importer is actually having an easier time of it? And what are you kind of expecting from a competition kind of standpoint in guidance and I guess, the coming years?
Ross Taylor
executiveLook, I just think it's more of the same. I think the market is competitive. I think it's internationally competitive, and we have to constantly stay on our game as we have always on making sure we're innovative and we're benchmarking ourselves against what can get imported and what our local competitors are doing, and I just think more of the same. So I don't think any real change to that, to be honest. And Ron, we have to stop there. I think we've got 1 more question, and we're over time, I think, but maybe if I can just let the last question get asked and then we'll finish up. Thank you.
Operator
operatorYour final question comes from [indiscernible] with Citigroup.
Ross Taylor
executiveMaybe we have lost him. So maybe we bring it to an end at this stage. Moderator, are you happy to do that? Or is there a question there?
Operator
operatorThere are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Taylor for closing remarks.
Ross Taylor
executiveAgain, thank you all for attending this. And no doubt we'll see a lot of you over the coming week or so when we get around the tracks. But thanks for coming along and thanks for the questions.
Read the full transcript via the API
You're viewing the first half of this call. Get the complete Fletcher Building Limited transcript — plus 252,000+ transcripts from 12,000+ companies, speaker segments, AI summaries and full-text search — through the EarningsCalls.dev API.
Get the API View API docs →This call discussed
For developers and AI pipelines
Programmatic access to Fletcher Building Limited earnings transcripts and 252,000+ others is available through the
EarningsCalls.dev REST API. Plans from $24.99/month — full transcripts, speaker segments,
full-text search, and the recently-added /api/v1/transcripts/recent polling endpoint for ETL pipelines.