Peet Limited (PPC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Peet Limited First Half '26 Results Call. Following the formal present, there will be an Q&A session for investors and analysts. [Operator Instructions]. I will now hand over to Brett Fullarton, Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Michelle, and welcome to everyone who's joined the call. It's my pleasure to present Peet's first half of FY '26 financial results to you today. With me is Mark Winkworth, our Chief Financial Officer. Next slide, please, Michelle. Today, I'm going to walk you through a high-level summary of the first half results. We're going to look at some key profit, cash flow and balance sheet metrics for the half. Then, I'll show you the primary operating drivers of our results, where our earnings are coming from, from a business segment and from a geographic perspective. Then I'll conclude with some comments around how we see the balance of FY '26 and FY '27 looking. Next slide, please, Michelle. In front of you now are our first half financial highlights. I think it's fair to say, it's a pretty strong result. Just picking on a few of those items in front of you. Net profit after tax of $50.9 million for the first half. That's up just over 100% on first half last year. An important part of these metrics, the EBITDA margin at 34%. First half last year, it was 26%, so 8 percentage points up. Gearing at 24.7%, just about in the middle of our preferred range. At June last year, that was 27.5%. That's come down a few percent. It places us in a very strong position, and we're pleased to be able to declare a dividend for the half year of $0.065 per share. All of that has been possible of really strong operational results, just under 1,800 sales in the first half and just under 1,500 settlements. Very strong contracts on hand at the end of 31, December 2025, $776 million, which gives us a lot of confidence as we launch into the second half and indeed into FY '27 and a highly activated land bank. Next slide, please. As is well publicized, we are operating in a sector that has very favorable momentum at the moment. Strong population growth continues. The beneficiaries from a state perspective, WA, Victoria, Queensland are the fastest-growing states and even more specific and very positively for our portfolio, Queensland and Western Australia are experiencing the fastest net interstate migration. Housing supply continues to be constrained, severely constrained, and that's been well publicized. Notwithstanding the recent interest rate rise, our view is that our customers are still enjoying a reasonably favorable borrowing environment. We haven't seen any slowdown in demand because of that recent rate rise. We continue to see strong interest from Australian and international capital looking for exposure to the Australian residential sector. Next slide, please. Let's move to Slide 5. From a strategic perspective, as we confirmed, in fact, at last year's Annual General Meeting, our core focus is on owning and/or managing large master planned communities. Townhouses and Low-Rise apartment projects will continue to be pursued opportunistically based on geography capital requirements and, of course, forecast returns, but we do have a portfolio that is located in desirable and geographically diverse locations, long-dated aged land bank that ensures strong embedded margins, and we have a highly capable team that is certainly delivering some great outcomes for our shareholders. Next slide, thanks. With respect to land bank, as you can see, almost 28,000 lots in our land bank, almost 17,000 of those lots on our balance sheet, 100% owned, almost 11,000 in various funds management structures. As you can see, spread across the nation, 43 projects in total. You can see the exposure to WA and Queensland on that page. Next slide, please. We understand we are, as the land bank indicates, a leading residential developer with a very large national footprint that comes with responsibilities that we take very seriously from an ESG perspective. Just to call out a couple of highlights in that regard in the first half. Our Fort Largs project in Adelaide was awarded Best Master Plan Community and Project of the Year by UDIA in South Australia. Our Brabham project in Perth was recognized with the Excellence in Sustainability Award by the UDIA in Western Australia. Next slide, please. If I move now more specifically to the financial results. From a profit perspective, firstly, and you can see on that slide, strong growth in sales and settlements. Sales increase driven specifically by Western Australia. Settlements increased driven across WA Queensland and South Australia because of those volume increases, strong improvement in revenue, which has flowed to the EBIT line, and because of the increased margin, we have a very strong profit number, obviously, from a proportion perspective, much higher than the growth in the revenue. Profit after tax, as I said earlier, of $50.9 million, up just over 100% on the previous corresponding period. Book NTA at $1.44, and of course, that reflects our assets, which are held at cost. It doesn't reflect the true market value of the assets on our balance sheet and the co-investments we have within the funds management structures. Next slide, please. Looking at cash flow. That improved activity gives us a higher cash inflow, $238 million inflow. We haven't had as big a development program the half just ended as the previous corresponding period, as you can see, $131.7 million down to $121.9 million, just reflecting the development cycle within the portfolio. Pleasingly, a little further down the cash flow distributions and dividends from associates and joint ventures material improvement there, and that reflects returns from our co-investments in those various funds management vehicles, giving us operating cash flow before acquisitions of just under $71 million, a very strong performance and payment for land acquisitions in the half was only term payments on the University of Canberra project. A very strong cash flow in the 6 months. The next slide, please, shows balance sheet, key balance sheet metrics. A little over $1 billion in total assets. As I said, those assets are held at cost, book value of $1.4, a few lines down, net debt has come down from $243.6 million at June last year, down to $216.2 million, about a $27 million reduction in net debt, which has driven the gearing outcome at 24.7%, comfortably within our target range. We also, at the end of the half, had headroom, so cash and debt facility headroom of over $200 million, which provides plenty of capacity to fund the portfolio and ongoing growth. Next slide, please. Shareholder returns. Because of the strong earnings performance, because of how our balance sheet sits, it does mean we're able to provide a strong dividend payment to our shareholders, and we have declared an interim dividend of $0.065 per share fully franked. That is at the high end of our payout ratio policy range of 50% to 60%, but we think that is appropriate given the performance, given our balance sheet and given what we see coming for the balance of '26 and into '27. Also, on that slide on the bottom right-hand side, you can see share price improvement. Obviously, that's a little bit beyond the control of management, but it is good to see the market reflect better value, particularly over the last 6 months, given the performance we are generating. Next slide, please. Looking a little more closely at the operating performance. Firstly, where our earnings came from in the first half. You can see on the left-hand doughnut, 55% of earnings were from our development portfolio, that is our 100% owned on balance sheet projects and 45% rather from funds management, just to give that context. For FY '25, we had 49% balance sheet, 51% funds management. A little heavier skew to balance sheet because of settlement profile within the balance sheet projects. Then from a geography perspective, you can see the major contributors are Western Australia and Queensland. Collectively, WA and Queensland delivered 81% of EBITDA. Last year, FY '25, that number combined WA, Queensland was 75%. South Australia remains important for us at 12% and Victoria and the ACT New South Wales or Canberra, the Canberra region for us are small contributors in the half, but represent upside as we see those markets improving. Next slide, please. Then here, you can see sales and settlements. Sales on the right-hand side, Western Australia, a very large contributor. The Western Australian projects almost all sit within funds management structures. Queensland sales at 17%, then from a settlement perspective, 58% of settlements out of WA, higher proportion of settlements out of Queensland at 26%, just given the development life cycle. Next slide, thanks. Because of that strong sales and settlements profile, we've seen a material uplift in our contracts on hand, so from $612 million worth of contracts on hand at 30 June 2025, improving to $776 million contracts on hand at 31, December 2025. That reflects those strong conditions, particularly in WA, Queensland and South Australia, and that gives us a lot of confidence as we move into the balance of FY '26 and into FY '27. On that note, next slide, please. Let me make some comments around how we see the balance of '26 and into '27 moving. We bring a lot of momentum into the second half of FY '26. The slide in front of you shows quarterly sales figures and quarterly inquiry levels across our portfolio. You can see the lift from second half FY '25 into first half FY '26, so the last 2 columns are the first 2 quarters in FY '26. That is driven by WA and Queensland. As we say on that slide, we have strong wait lists across the portfolio that give us a lot of confidence about where the balance of FY '26 sits. On top of that, and the next slide, please, we have shown you this slide in the past. The last 3 projects on this slide are new projects that will have an impact into balance of '26 into '27 and beyond. These are the major drivers of earnings and cash flow for the business. As we say in that slide, this underpins our very high level of confidence in the next decade, obviously, subject to market conditions. This is just 14 projects of the total 43 projects we have. As we've said in the past, the portfolio is in serious harvest mode at the moment, and that is very apparent from the results we're just announcing today and our view of where the balance of '26 and into '27 looks. On that note, the next slide just summarizes our view with respect to outlook. Taking account of all of those factors, the favorable conditions we're experiencing at the moment from a macro level, population growth, supply constraints, given where our portfolio sits in its development cycle, our exposures, particularly to WA and Queensland and emerging improvement in the Canberra market and in Victoria, together with a very strong contracts on hand position, we feel very, very confident about the balance of FY '26. Interestingly, we have a slight first half skew in '26. That is only a timing issue or timing is not an issue. It is only a timing matter. The team did a terrific job in bringing forward some things into December that might have otherwise rolled into January and February. First half is a little stronger than second half, but we have upgraded our guidance for NPAT for FY '26 up to $86 million to $90 million high end from the $74 million to $78 million we announced back in November last year. At the high end of $90 million, that's a 54% uplift on FY '27. As I said, strong performance in WA and Queensland is a key contributor to that. As we look even further forward, because of where our portfolio sits, because of those contracts on hand, notwithstanding FY '26 will be a record year, we see earnings in FY '27 being better than FY '26. Happy to conclude there in terms of the presentation and hand you back to Michelle, and we'll be pleased to take questions if there are any. Thanks.

Thank you, Brett. There are currently no questions in the queue.

Okay. Thanks, Michelle. Well, I'm happy to wrap it up, and thank you all for dialing in today. Thanks for your interest. It has been a very, very good result. We're very pleased to be able to report it and reward our shareholders. We look forward to a really strong second half and even better FY '27 and look forward to catching up with many on this call one-on-one in a few weeks' time.