Peet Limited (PPC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Peet Limited 1H '25 Results Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Brendan Gore, Managing Director and CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and welcome to our first half results presentation for FY '25. Also with me is Brett Fullarton, the Group CFO. And hopefully -- well, if there's any questions, Brett is here to respond accordingly. Probably like to start off and just set the theme and what we've achieved in the first half and sort of give some taste for where we're heading into the balance of the financial year and beyond. Probably the key theme is, I mean, all the hard work that we've been doing is starting to be delivered. And that's in particularly the value we've created over the last decade. You're seeing that, and you will see that going forward into the underlying earnings and the quality of that. The key theme in terms of the markets remain relatively consistent to last year and that is really Queensland, West Australia and South Australia. We're well placed in those markets with key projects. But quite importantly, in relation to the 2 challenging markets, particularly Victoria and less so ACT, New South Wales, we are very well positioned with a reasonable number of long-life, high-margin projects that are well positioned for a market rebound that we anticipate is -- will start to turn in the next 12 to 18 months. So with that, if we look at the next slide, I probably won't dwell too much on this, but we are very diverse. We have just over 32,000 lots across the country, well positioned. I suppose in those 32,000 lots, there's a large component of key projects that have a long life. And I think the other thing as we move forward in terms of particularly growth is the establishment and a well-credentialed funds management platform and capability. And certainly, over the last 12 months, the capital partners that we have, both current that have invested and new capital partners that have reached out to us to look to joint venture is growing and we see that as an ongoing key source of growth as we move forward into the coming years. In terms of us, where we're placed, we're very well placed across the key corridors of the main markets across Australia. That hasn't changed. Our focus on acquisitions and growth will still remain on the Eastern Seaboard, particularly Queensland, Victoria, and South Australia to a lesser extent. We're well positioned in West Australia, but we will continue to remain a very disciplined approach to acquisitions to ensure that we continue our track record of buying quality projects, well located, low-cost base that can deliver high margins in the future and that won't change, and I'll talk a bit more about that as we get into the presentation. We have 43 projects across the country. I would point out that each project that we do have is one project. So Flagstone, for example, is one in that 43. And the end value is close to $13 billion as we move forward. The average age of our land bank remains one of the oldest. It's still sitting at 13 years and the fact that we're able to maintain that signals that, that acquisition approach that we do apply. Just in terms of our ESG, I'll take that as being read. But probably the key theme that we do within Peet is very much focused on mental health and well-being, not only internally, but also externally and how we leverage our partnerships across the entire country to deliver results to our employees, our community and others and that's something that we will continue to be focused on over the short to medium term anyway. Getting to the highlights. It is a strong first half. We're up 63% at $25.2 million NPAT. That delivered an EPS of just under $0.054 per share for the half. The margin significantly grew to 26%. We expect for the full year that to be closer to 28%. Our NTA increased to $1.34 at cost. And as we'll work through the presentation, there is no doubt that the underlying market value of our portfolio continues to increase as each balance date comes and goes. We have $130 million of cash and available facility. The portfolio and our project release program is fully funded as well as capital alongside capital partners to pursue growth should those opportunities present themselves. Just under 1,400 lots sold for the half and just over 1,000 settled. We have $660 million worth of contracts on hand at 31 December. That has further increased by 6% as of yesterday. And our land bank activation sits at 70%, which I think in the next 18 months as a number of new projects come into development, that will certainly kick up into the mid-80s. And that's quite important in terms of the visibility that we have in terms of the project delivery of both earnings growth and recycling of capital. If I look at around our strategy, we continue to deliver and execute and that really is investing in high-quality projects across the country and we've continued to do so. But there's been a significant focus on how we can unlock [Audio Gap].

Pardon me, this is the operator. We have temporarily lost speaker connection. Please hold and the conference will resume shortly. Thank you all for waiting. I would now like to hand the conference back over to Brendan Gore. Please go ahead.

Thank you. And I do apologize. We had a power outage in the building. So, I got a bit if it's a bad result that happened. But anyway, we'll move forward. Probably the other thing I'd like to touch on in relation to the first half results is it's a strong underlying performance. This is really just bread and butter lot sales and lot settlements, which you'll see going forward, which underpins the quality of the portfolio and the business as we continue to work through it. Just on our strategy, there remains and continues to be a fair bit of work to unlock the underlying value of our business, particularly some key projects and that's obviously Flag, University of Canberra and a few other projects. The Flagstone Town Center is continuing to progress, which I'll talk through shortly. We have settlements from 8 new projects to come through over the next couple of years. That will increase our land bank activation to around 86% and we have 3 new projects commencing development effectively from January onwards this year. Capital management remains a key focus of ours and that's also how we can leverage our capital partners and value creation. I mean there's plenty of opportunities within our land bank moving forward, which I'll talk through that we can look to expedite and unlock value and obviously recycle capital and deliver earnings. Building on the deliverables, during the first half, it was quite busy in terms of getting a number of our large key projects to advance stage. In relation to acquisitions, we acquired a new acquisition, the adjoining landholding to our Palmview portfolio. That adds another 480 lots to our portfolio. It is a very restricted market there. We have a dominant position. It is well established with amenity, infrastructure delivery, and we expect that to start delivering from 2026 in terms of earnings. That has also resulted in a new wholesale partnership, a new wholesale fund in relation to that Palmview project, where Peek retains 50%, and we have 2 capital partners joining us with that project. And in addition, throughout the first half, we've established a new joint venture with our Glendalough Townhouse project with Tokyo Gas Real Estate and that project has kicked off in January as well. So clearly, in relation to acquisitions and capital partners, they continue to progress. In relation to acquisitions, we'll continue to remain disciplined to ensure that we keep that cost base low. In terms of Flagstone City, the Flagstone project continues to deliver strong results. We expect sales out of Flagstone this year to be north of 425 sales, and we've continued to get strong price growth with margins in that project continuing to improve month by month. It is well established now with over 1,500 residents in and around our estate. And therefore, the Flag City Town Center, which is a big focus of ours, we had the master plan approved. And that's really important. That sets out effectively the town center precincts and that gives us certainty around activation and stage delivery of the town center, which we expect from FY '28. In addition to that, there's a number of landowners around us now in relation to Flagstone. And obviously, the Flag City Town Center is a core part of that greater Flagstone area. We've reached agreement with a joining landowner to deliver the main road through the town center into their relevant property and that's effectively stopped us from spending over $25 million. So that's a capital saving for us and our project where someone else will deliver the infrastructure, which we will obviously be a big beneficiary of. And then in terms of University of Canberra, it received its key environmental approval during the first half and the cultural heritage process has also been completed and we're now on track to lodge our sub-development approval application by 30 June this year. And that remains on track to commence sales probably later in FY '26, probably timing right where we see the ACT market improving. So, a busy first half in terms of our strategy. Those strategic deliverables on that slide will add significant value going forward out of the business in addition to any new acquisitions that we may pursue. All that dovetails in what we believe is a significant platform for growth. And this has taken a fair while to pull together. It's taken a good 10, 12 years to create the quantum of value that we have established in our business now. And that's underpinned by 13 projects around 23,000 lots with a GDV of over $11 billion with a low cost base that will give us long life, high margin and visibility moving forward. That platform is set, that is in train. Pretty much all those projects now apart from University of Canberra is well established with amenity, trunk infrastructure in place to a point now where we're just really doing simple stage development, improving sales activity and pushing price and increasing margin. And then above that, we have another 30 projects totaling 9,000 lots that are just going to churn and burn over the next 3 to 5 years and that's really just monetization of those projects. All that, those 2 platforms there really allow us now to look forward more longer-dated acquisitions, be very strategic and tactical, be countercyclical in relation to new acquisitions and where those markets are. But look, we don't need land for the next 3 to 5 years. It's as simple as that. We've built all this up. We can see a monetization period before us. But looking at growth and looking at new acquisitions, we can leapfrog to stuff that doesn't really need to deliver for us earnings unless it's 5, 7 years out. It's a good position to be in. It's a strong position to be in and that's something that we're continuing to look to advantage. And all that continues to come back down to lower cost, higher-margin projects that will have embedded better growth in it. And that's really what we're focused on and taking that countercyclical approach. And if we can continue to deliver that as well as create the value and unlock the value in the Flag Town Center and University of Canberra and so forth, that is a significant platform for growth, which obviously will continue to go into shareholder returns. Accompanying all that is clearly not only our balance sheet now, which will continue to get stronger, but our significant, if you like, portfolio of capital partners. They're quality, they understand development. There's a strong alignment with us as a developer and co-partner. And that's taken decades and decades to pull together and have that reputation. And we now have that, and that really is part of how we can do 2 things. One is use those capital partners to unlock value within our existing land bank, particularly the Flag Town Center, but also pursue new acquisitions, particularly longer-dated acquisitions, as I touched on. All that flows into a period of monetization [Technical Difficulty] cookie cutting. This slide here on Slide 11 really demonstrates it takes a long time to create value. It takes a long time for these large-scale projects to get through their planning, their environmental, their cultural heritage, their start-up phase, their infrastructure, their amenity, their look and feel community. We are there now and as demonstrated by this slide, it's very clear that all these projects now over the last 10 years have been worked on. And now we are really at a period now where it's just releasing stages, selling lots and booking the profit and the cash. And then the acquisitions that I touched on earlier really sit towards the end of that slide that will then continue strategically from 2030 onwards to then build on that momentum in that time, but not disrupting that monetization earnings flow that you see on that slide. Long time to get here, but we're there. It's clearly demonstrated. Obviously, there's market cycles on this page. Clearly, the Victorian and the ACT markets remain somewhat challenging, but we are seeing early signs of an improvement in the ACT market. So, Googong itself is delivering positive sales and sets results. So, we're starting to see a recovery, albeit gradual in that market. And then obviously, the Melbourne market, which still is a very big market, well established with our projects there that we still think it's probably got 12 to 18 months to go. But nevertheless, when that market rebounds, we'll be out the door pretty quick, making sure that we can deliver the right product at the right price. So, a key snapshot here. Strategy is on track. It's being executed. It's being delivered. It's delivering results, as you can see and we're very confident it will continue to deliver results as we move forward into '26, '27 and beyond. Just really touching on the first half results in a bit more detail. It's pretty self-explanatory. Revenue is up, EBITDA is up and margins is definitely up and we expect further EBITDA margin improvement in the second half. Dividend, final -- interim dividend of [ $0.0275 ], that's up 83% and book NTA sits at $1.34. Again, I emphasize that is book. That does not include market value of our assets. And when you look at the performance of the assets today from a sales momentum, a price growth momentum, a lower risk approach in terms of all its approvals in place, its amenity, there is no question the underlying market value of our portfolio continues to grow and will both now and into the future. And so that gives us quite a bit of positivity in terms of being able to bridge that gap between market NTA and earnings, which is starting to come through. These results, I'll point out, is obviously delivered by Queensland, West Australia and South Australia and to a lesser extent, ACT and Vic. But the key upside here is the rebound in those ACT, New South Wales and Vic markets. That will have quite a material improvement in our bottom line, particularly given their very, very high margins. All-important cash. It's been a busy 18 months as you probably could see from that previous slide with the bar charts demonstrating the buildup over the last 10 years. That is money in the ground. That money is getting recycled as we speak. So during the year, there was still a fair bit of development going in. And that's a result when you've got $700 million worth of contracts on hand, you have to create the stock and deliver it. That's what we are doing, but we are starting to get significant cash flow coming back into the till, and we'll see a very strong second half in terms of cash delivery. We have -- before acquisitions, we have a positive cash flow of $1 million. We expect that to be in the vicinity of around $80 million for the full year, which means effectively, it's $80 million in the second half. And I can say that, that has started to come in as from January this year already. In terms of term payments, the other significant thing to note there is that the final Flagstone term payment has been made and that was made in mid-January. So, Flagstone is now fully funded and paid for. And therefore, the land vendor liabilities on our balance sheet moving forward is only related to University of Canberra, which will be paid for over the next 4 or 5 years. In terms of balance sheet, again, it's strong. We -- our bank debt is slightly up. That's due to construction. Our gearing sits at 35%. I'll point out that's balance sheet gearing. That doesn't -- that's all, including land vendor liabilities. We're very, very comfortable with that. But what we do know is that, that 35% comes down to 30% around 30 June, given the strong cash inflows and will continue to trend down. It does not take into account the uplift in mortgage valuations and never low market valuation. So, when we look through our gearing, we are very, very comfortable that there is significant upside in terms of the delta, if you like, between balance sheet and market. Interest cover will continue to increase. And obviously, our weighted average cost of debt is a little bit elevated. That's mainly due to the bonds. We are unhedged except for having one fixed bond in there. If you do strip out the flag and university payments, we sit at 30%. So that gives you some feel that the balance sheet remains robust. Just quickly touching. It is important to note that we do return [Audio Gap].

Pardon me. This is the operator, we have temporarily lost speaker connection. Please hold and the conference will resume shortly. Thank you for holding. I would like to hand the conference back over to Brendan Gore. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Look, I do apologize. There seems to be some issues in relation to the building, our office building, not our office, but the whole building, which is impacting power and communications. So, I apologize for all that. I'll just quickly dart back. Cash flow, just to reinforce, we expect strong second half cash flows. We expect full year operating cash flow before acquisitions to be in the vicinity of $80 million. And the other point I made on that slide is that the last term payment for Flagstone City has now been completed. That was done in January post -- just post 31 December. So, Flagstone City as a project as a whole is being fully paid for is now on our balance sheet in 100%. So, the only remaining term payment on our balance sheet is University of Canberra, which we paid for over the remaining 4 to 5 years, of which the bulk of that will be paid in years 5. The balance sheet, the key thing to note there is gearing. We expect gearing to come down to 30% at 30 June as a result of the operating cash flows coming back into the business. And then we expect it to be trading at the mid- to lower end of our range of 20% to 30% moving forward. We do have over the next 3 years on a do-nothing basis, a significant amount of capital and operating cash coming back into the business, which gives us a significant amount of capital to pursue growth and obviously look at other capital management initiatives, whether it be buyback or payout ratios. Just quickly touching on operating performance and just briefly, as I said earlier, it is really 3 states versus 2, Queensland, WA and SA. They continue to deliver, particularly Queensland. So, if I look at the states around the grounds, WA, we are seeing moderation in volume and price. We are of the view that price probably peaked around June, maybe July last calendar year. And we're probably seeing some volumes pull back in terms of moderating probably from October onwards. Not unusual. The market had a significant run, both price and volume. But for the right price, there is underlying volumes there. So probably it's given back some of its upswing, but significantly ahead of where it was a couple of years ago. The population continues to still be robust into Western Australia. So, if the product is right and it's priced right, there is a market there for it and that's a positive. So, we are well positioned to continue to deliver earnings out of Western Australia. South Australia, again, probably similar to WA had a very strong run. We've seen volumes and price moderate. A bit different with some built-form product where we're still seeing sizable demand and price growth in our low-rise apartments at Tonsley. But generally speaking, we expect it probably to be moderating somewhat and tracking sideways as a market moving forward. Again, for us, we have the product, we can deliver the volume. And given our cost base, the margins are quite relatively robust. Queensland, on the other hand, continues to probably outperform both volume and price. We continue to deliver volume and price growth across the entire portfolio. So, there's a lot of people, net interstate migration going into Queensland. There's a lot of activity in infrastructure, employment, et cetera, et cetera. So again, our projects there and hence, the new Palmview project will continue to outperform. As we move down further south, the ACT, New South Wales market for us is highly profitable. All our projects there have significant EBIT margins embedded in them, even post [ real allotment ] price of around between 10% and 12% over the last probably 12, 14 months. But we are starting to see the cancellation rate moderate. We're seeing net positive sales volumes. That's -- and we're seeing improvement in underlying inquiries, both from builders and the general market. That tells us that we are definitely at the bottom, if not starting to improve. So that's a positive. And we see that as probably more of a second half '26 story, if not first half '27, but that's fine because the rest of the portfolio will continue to deliver strong results. Our most challenging market does remain Victoria. And that probably -- I don't probably have to say too much about that. But nevertheless, we're taking the view that, that has 12 to 18 months still to run. We are well prepared that if the market does improve sooner rather than later, we can meet that market demand pretty much that night. And we're well positioned to capture any upside. So for us, our portfolio is well balanced. We've got the right capital allocation, the projects, the delivery to ensure that we can transition, if you like, our production profile and our allocation of capital into those markets as they start to improve and continue to deliver improvement growth. Just quickly dust you on sales and sets. I won't -- it's really again those 3 key markets. Whilst I was somewhat negative on the Vic market as a whole, we're still selling. It's not like it's 0 or it's negative. So, it's just not what the volumes are what you would expect of that size market. But it's clearly tracking sideways. I don't see -- we're not seeing it go backwards, but we're not seeing it go upwards. So, our projects there that are selling continue to sell some volume. It's still profitable and still contribute, albeit not where we'd like it to be, but that's a market cycle. And as I said, we're well positioned to ensure that when that market picks up, we can deliver into it. In terms of our inquiry slide, inquiries have been really strong. And these are qualified inquiries. And what I mean by that is that they're buyers that we have qualified internally that have effectively finance approval to move. Great position to be in. So, the -- you'll see there on this slide, the second -- or the second quarter or December quarter of FY '25 is pulled back. That's really a function of the previous 3 quarters, whereby we had significant leads at elevated levels that were qualified to buy. A good example is Tonsley. We launched 2 apartment pods in Tonsley to find out that we had more than enough demand to do 4, and that's what we've done. That's reflected in the capital in the first half, but all that capital comes back in the second half. So, it gives you some idea in terms of the underlying demand and still those buyers are still on our list looking for product, which we're focused on delivering into the balance of the financial year. In terms of our contracts on hand, the first half, as I said, was $661 million. And as of the 18th of Feb, that has further increased by 6% to $700 million. And that, again, gives us strong momentum as we move into the second half and beyond. So, those contracts on hand will straddle the second half as well as [ FY '26 ]. So, pretty much a 14- to 18-month period there of delivery of those contracts on hand. The other thing to note, our cancellation rates continue to stabilize. Just quickly and rounding out in terms of our outlook, nothing has really changed too much in terms of what we reported at the full year of '24, but we have 8 new projects commencing between now and '27. We have 3 of those starting this second half we funded and they'll contribute to earnings, particularly from '26 and beyond. In terms of our outlook, we have the delivery program to meet market demand. If there's further strength in the market, if there's further incentives from government, relevant state or federal coming through, we can meet that increased demand by putting the foot on the accelerator and releasing new stages. There's no issue there. Underlying supply constraints still remain. That probably again reemphasizes the quality and the underlying value of our land bank. Pretty much our full land bank is approved. It's got planning approvals, environmental approvals now with UC. There's no internal impediments in relation to us delivering into market cycles going forward. We're well positioned in relevant states, and we're well positioned to take a countercyclical approach in terms of acquisitions and so forth. The underlying demand still remains. We are seeing that on the ground. The red and green tape continues to constrain supply. We don't see any near-term fix to this. Pretty much all government policy seems to be focused on the demand side, not the supply side. So, people like us with a large-scale land bank, we see ourselves as a beneficiary of this. Our inquiry levels remain quite elevated and continue, but more importantly, the quality and the qualification of those buyers remain solid. They have finance approvals, so the banks are lending. And certainly, as I said, we remain well positioned for any upside recovery through the ACT and Victoria market. All that leads to where we see the FY '25 year, and that really is that we expect strong cash flows to come in the second half, which I touched on to the tune of $80 million before any acquisitions or term payments. And we're now targeting a net profit after tax for FY '25 in the range of $50 million to $55 million. So that is significant up on the FY '24 performance, which is can be considered as a low point in the cycle, which we obviously flagged last -- this time last year, given the contracts on hand going into '24 was somewhat limited. So, the contracts on hand coming into '25 has been strong and continues to build and that further builds momentum into '26 and '27. So with that, that probably concludes the presentation. So, I'm more than happy to open up for any questions that anyone may have.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Gavin Allen from Euroz Hartleys.

Great results. Just a couple from me. So, just interested in your historical experience in a reducing interest rate cycle. How might we think about volume and/or first-time buyers in a decreasing interest rate environment?

Yes, good question. Look, it's interesting. If we didn't get a rate cut, I don't think we would have seen too much change to momentum. And the reason I say that is pretty much our customers have been factoring in rate cuts at some point during this calendar year, but it's a plus that there is one. If there was a rate rise, it would be different. There is still a significant buffer that our customers need to demonstrate to the bank that they can service the debt. So, that clearly seems to be achievable. So, in terms of volumes, I probably expect it will continue to probably underpin volumes. It probably gives some people at the margin that extra purchasing power. And if there's any change around government policy, like, for example, excluding HECS debt and those type of things in the calculation of loans, that's a positive in terms of volumes going forward. So, I probably expect that volumes will continue to be relatively around the 3,000, 3,300 for us. Bear in mind, we will -- where appropriate to do so, we'll continue to push price, which probably counter some of the volume growth, but we much rather that as we move forward.

Yes, that makes sense. And just you mentioned a couple of times the ACT and Vic being subdued, but also offering a lot of opportunity when they come back. To put some context around that, Brendan, just using Googong just one example, maybe some flavor on the margin that you're making there per lot just indicatively and sort of any flavor you've got on whether inquiry in that market has sort of changed at all in recent months?

Yes. So if we look at FY '24 as a base -- so if you go back to '23, we had about close to 400 sales. If you look at '24, we had net zero sales. And that was a combination of, obviously, the rate hikes, build costs coming through much higher, supply chain, et cetera, et cetera, consumer confidence. But quite significantly, the amount of cancellations that came through was probably at an all-time high or record for the ACT market, which is relatively stable. We've worked through all that. And so we now have net positive sales, and we're trading today ahead of expectations. So that's albeit low. In terms of the margin, we've realigned price there to a degree, but the margin is probably consistently between [ 190 and 220 ] depending on the product as we sit here today. So that's all plus compared to what we saw in FY '24. It will take a while. So, we're working through existing stock. We're not creating too much more stock. But we are seeing organic inquiry improve and the qualification of those buyers improve. We are also seeing that the builders now who have pretty much had a significant build book who have worked through those builds are now looking to replenish their pipelines. And so those discussions are certainly increasing as we sit here today. So to me, that sort of all leads to an improving market, albeit slowly. So therefore, we see it as probably a second half '26, but definitely FY '27 recovery story as a result of settlements coming through, but sales will proceed that.

That makes sense. And just one more for me. Just on progress on the Flagstone Hospital, if any, that you can give us a bit of an update on?

Yes. So I mean, discussions continue. Obviously, a change in government has disrupted things a bit. So, what I can say is that the town center as a whole in relation to the master plan has now been locked down. So that gives us -- and that's driven by state government, certainty around those precincts. Obviously, the health precinct is part of that. So, we continue to work with EDQ and Queensland Health to progress that. The Queensland government clearly is in transition mode in terms of its 100-day watch and see. I think the floods have definitely created another level of priority for the government, which we accept and understand. But underlying business case continues to improve. And as these volumes in not only Flagstone itself, but the greater Flagstone area continue to increase, therefore, more houses, therefore, more population growth, it does bring forward or more than support the justification for increased medical education facilities. So, another example would be that the Queensland Education Department has already reached out to us about bringing forward another school site just given the population growth. So, all of that continues to support, if you like, increased level of amenity that the Flag City Town Center will deliver.

[Operator Instructions] There are no further phone questions at this time. I'll now hand the conference back to Mr. Gore.

Yes. Look, thanks for your attendance. I do sincerely apologize for the disruption out of our control, but Murphy's law. What I will say in closing is that the business is in great shape. It's taken us a fair while to get here. But I think this result and you look through the underlying assets that we have and how they're performing demonstrates that. So for us, internally, we're excited about what we have in front of us, the levers that we can pull to deliver growth, both from a capital and earnings as well as really being strategic and tactical with the replenishment of our land bank. We've got plenty of time to do it. We will remain disciplined and that only bodes well in terms of getting that buying stuff at the right price, which means embedded margins well and truly the future. So that's the advantage that we have. That's the position we've worked to and we're now in place. And so now it's up to us to take it forward. But there's no internal impediment in terms of where we can take the business moving forward, and we have the capital partners to do it as well. So, we look forward to delivering a strong second half as well as moving into a growth period in '26 and '27. And certainly, thank you for your attention this morning and look forward to hopefully catching up over the coming weeks.

Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.