SkyCity Entertainment Group Limited (SKC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the SkyCity Entertainment Group FY '24 results. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Jason Walbridge, CEO of SkyCity Entertainment Group. Please go ahead.

[Foreign Language] and welcome to SkyCity's presentation of its financial year 2024 results. I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land upon which our SkyCity sites sit, Ngati Whatua Orakei in Auckland, Tainui in Hamilton, Ngai Tahu in Queenstown and the Ghana people of Adelaide. Welcome to my first results presentation as Chief Executive Officer of SkyCity Entertainment Group. I officially started in the role on the 15th of July 2024. For those I have not had the chance to meet yet, I'm a kiwi and have recently relocated from living in Las Vegas for the past 23 years with a combined 27 years in the gaming industry across all global regulated land-based and online markets. This is my first time on the operator side, and I have to say, even with our challenges, I am absolutely loving it. In my first 5 weeks, I have visited all of our SkyCity properties and met with many of our people and other stakeholders where possible. I've been impressed with the energy of the team, the pride and the work they do and their appetite to meet the challenges ahead. I've also enjoyed seeing firsthand the quality and the diversity of our assets and experiencing what we deliver for customers. With me today in Auckland is Julie Amey, our outgoing Chief Financial Officer; Callum Mallett, our Chief Operating Officer, New Zealand; and Peter Fredricson, our new incoming Chief Financial Officer. Peter joined us on the 5th of August 2024. He's a highly experienced publicly listed company, Chief Financial Officer, with over 25 years of experience in this part of the world. And I'm super pleased to have somewhat of Peter's caliber and experience joining the SkyCity team. He certainly wasted no time in getting up to speed with the role, and he officially takes over the Chief Financial Officer role from tomorrow. I would also like to acknowledge the role Callum Mallett fulfilled as Interim Chief Executive Officer. During this time, he enabled SkyCity to progress a number of the issues facing the business as well as overseeing the overall running of the group and what has been a challenging operating environment. Thanks for your efforts in this role Callum, and I really look forward to continuing to working with you. We will speak with you today about our financial year 2024 results disclosed earlier this morning referencing the results presentation pack. We have included the appropriate disclaimer slide, and you can see from the table of contents, what we will be covering this morning. Turning now to a summary of our results on Slide 5. We will discuss the key features in more detail throughout the presentation, but I wanted to provide a high-level overview. Over the year, we were able to deliver group revenue in line with the prior period. However, a change in the revenue mix and ongoing investment in key parts of our business saw an 8% decline in underlying EBITDA to around $277 million. This reflects the challenging economic environment that we and many other businesses across New Zealand and Australia have been experiencing. With a reduction in spend levels as customers feel the impact of cost of living pressures on their discretionary wallet. Our underlying net profit after tax was around $123 million, in line with our previous guidance. You will see our reported NPAT is a loss of just over $143 million, which includes the impact of a number of accounting items Julie will talk to shortly. Our balance sheet metrics were in line with our expectations. However, as previously announced, the Board has prudently decided not to pay a final dividend for financial year 2024, after the payment of an interim dividend of 5.25 cents per share. Turning to the next slide, I would like to highlight some of the key messages from this result and the areas of focus for the group during the 2024 financial year. Although it is disappointing to report a reduction in underlying earnings, I am encouraged with aspects of the overall performance of the group, given the operating environment we were faced with. We were able to settle some of the regulatory matters during the year and have recently submitted the program of work that we are planning to undertake in Adelaide for approval with Kroll. In addition, the uplift program we embarked on in 2021 has been significantly enhanced. This program will derisk our business and is focused on building our internal capability to ensure we are compliant with our regulatory requirements across all of our geographies. And I'll speak more in detail about this shortly. Pleasingly, we have successfully refinanced part of our debt facilities, and Julie will talk more to this. S&P Global Ratings reaffirmed our BBB- credit rating and the Board is committed to maintaining an investment-grade rating and targeting BBB flat metrics in the medium term. We bought back the Auckland Car Park concession agreement at the end of January 2024. The Car Park business is now integrated back into our Auckland operations. The Horizon by SkyCity opened on the 1st of August, and I'm very pleased with this latest addition to the Auckland precinct. It's a truly spectacular hotel. We expect the NZICC to open in 2025, and we have the privilege of being able to market this globally as New Zealand's International Convention Center. We're continuing to invest in our online gaming capability and are encouraged with the recent announcement made by the New Zealand government regarding the potential regulation of this market. The next slide provides further details on 3 of our key growth projects that have either been concluded, the Auckland Car Park concession or have opened Horizon by SkyCity or will open in 2025, the NZICC. Each of these projects has the potential to deliver future earnings uplift, particularly once the NZICC is opened and hosting one of the many conventions and conferences, shows and concepts that have already been booked in. The flow of benefits for our Auckland precinct from the addition of these major tourism infrastructure assets will be significant with more than 500,000 new visitors per annum expected. I want to now spend some time talking about the progress we've made during the year to settle some of our regulatory matters. In May, we reached agreement with the Department of Internal Affairs to resolve the civil penalty proceedings commenced in February 2024 for historical non-compliance with New Zealand AML and CFT laws. The agreement includes the civil penalty of $4.16 million and remains subject to High Court approval with a hearing in September. In July, we reached agreement with the Department of Internal Affairs to resolve the application to temporarily suspend our New Zealand casino operators license for historic non-compliance with our Host Responsibility obligations. As part of the agreement, we will close our Auckland gaming areas for a 5-day consecutive period from the 9th of September 2024. In June, the Australian Federal Court approved our agreement with AUSTRAC to resolve the civil penalty proceedings commenced in December 2022 for historical noncompliance with Australian AML and CTF laws. The A$67 million penalty was paid by SkyCity in July 2024. In Adelaide, we continue to engage with consumer and business services and the South Australian Liquor and Gambling Commissioner in relation to the independent review, which recommenced in June. A notable milestone in Adelaide is the recent submission of our program of work to consumer and business services. I would like to speak to the importance we put on our role as an employer of over 4,500 people across New Zealand and in South Australia. We now undertake an employee engagement survey twice a year, and this provides the opportunity for our staff to give us feedback on a wide range of areas related to their employment at SkyCity. And we use this to make improvements and announcements. In our latest survey, our overall engagement score was 75%, which given the challenging year we have had, it's a pleasing outcome. Compliance training is a crucial aspect of the SkyCity Way training programme, and we currently have 56 compliance courses on offer. Completion of these courses is mandatory for many of our staff and during financial year 2024, more than 22,000 compliance courses were completed by staff. Also important to us is the positive contribution we make to the various communities we operate in. In 2024, we paid $4.6 million to the SkyCity Community Trust, with the trust approving $5.9 million in grants to 130 organizations in our communities. We also supported Leukaemia and Blood Cancer New Zealand's fundraising efforts and helped them raise $2.2 million through 2 key events at the Sky Tower. We also partnered with a range of other organizations across both New Zealand and Australia and some of which are illustrated on the slide here. I'm now going to hand over to Julie Amey, who will provide an overview of the group results and an update of our debt profile and financial year 2024 capital expenditure.

[Foreign Language] Jason and [Foreign Language] to everyone on the call. As you will see on Slide 12, the group's financial year '24 underlying earnings of $277.8 million and underlying profits of $123.2 million are below our prior financial year performance. While overall, we were really pleased with the level of customer [Technical Difficulty] across our properties, including a welcome increase in international tourist to Auckland, our customer spend levels during the year was softer as people navigated the tough economic conditions, particularly in the second half of the financial year. This is most evident in our gaming revenue with the flat spend rates for our gaming machines and tables lower year-on-year, excluding any hold impact. And while the lower discretionary spend was also seen across our food and beverage outlets and our hotels, our non-gaming revenue has the benefit of a $7 million increase from the Auckland car parks that rejoined our operations back in January of this year. AGMs remain the group's highest revenue and margin contributor, delivering 47% of the group's total revenue. But also noting that AGMs delivered around 50% of the revenue in the prior financial year. So this shift in revenue mix has contributed to the reduction in the group's EBITDA margin. Overall, expenses are up 5% year-on-year. This reflects a number of offsetting factors, including a significant cost reduction in the Adelaide property of around A$13 million and also reflects increases in Auckland costs, including the costs associated with our new outlets, higher tables opening hours and of course, our preparations for Horizon Hotel and NZICC opening. Our people represent around 53% of the group's expenses with the year-on-year people cost movement reflecting an average wage and salary inflation of around 4.5% across the group. This increase also reflects the full year impact from the ramp-up and positions in the last financial year in support of our return to a more sustainable operating model. Also of note, our risk and compliance costs across the group for both our operations teams and our enhancement programs was around $22 million, reflecting a $2 million increase on the prior year. I will now move to slide 13 and cover off a few of the more significant items that we adjusted out of our reported earnings. And as a reminder, these adjustments are made to enable a better comparison of underlying result to previous years and across the market. So in accordance with accounting standards, we undertook our reporting period assessment of all of the group's cash-generating units. And at 30th of June 2024, we have recognized an accounting impairment of the SkyCity Adelaide assets. This impairment ensures that the carrying value of the Adelaide assets appropriately reflects the future value from the rebased business which includes the introduction of mandatory Carded Play from early 2026 and our ongoing investment to build a better business. Jason will share more detail on our transformation program later in the presentation. And like most owners of commercial buildings in New Zealand, we have implemented the recent change to the New Zealand tax legislation that effectively removes our ability to claim tax depreciation on commercial buildings. This has resulted in a $130 million adjustment to our tax expense in our deferred tax balance. This change to the tax legislation is expected to increase the group's annual effective tax rate by less than 0.5% when calculated on a like-for-like basis. In addition, we have recognized a $19 million deferred tax liability associated with the Auckland Car Park asset that has come back into our operations. And as per disclosures we have made throughout the year, we have also reflected changes to regulatory and other provisions, such as the South Australian Casino Duty matter, also noting that the AUSTRAC provision was settled in full in July this year. And of course, we continue to adjust out our annual NZICC fire accounting impact, which reflects the insurance reinstatement and project delay costs, which can vary materially across the years. And finally, we have also adjusted out the gain we made following the successful sale of our equity share in Gaming Innovation Group for $55 million. This reflects a great return on our investments. Moving now to slide 14, we remain pleased with the level of liquidity headroom the group continues to carry to ensure sufficient cover for future requirements. This week, we finalized a successful refinancing and extension of $465 million of the group's debt facilities. This was in partnership with our existing USPP noteholders and 2 of our existing syndicated bank debt members. It is great to have the support of our existing financiers and to have secured a rate that is modestly higher on a like-for-like basis when compared to our current average cost of borrowing of 5.6%. The overall debt profile of the group is now structured with prudent levels of liquidity headroom to meet future requirements and maintain the group's investment-grade credit rating, which was recently reconfirmed by S&P. Moving on to slide 15. You will see that we continue to be conservative in our allocation of capital with the group's full year BAU CapEx spend of around $64 million being well below the annualized average that we would typically work to of around $80 million to $100 million. And as expected, the group spend on the NZICC Horizon Hotel projects ramped up during the year with capital allocation to the project of around $63 million as the project moved past reinstatement and towards completion in preparation for opening, which, of course, happened for Horizon by SkyCity on the 1st of August. I will now hand over to Callum to talk you through some of the specific property highlights.

Thanks, Julie, and good morning, everyone. As Jason and Julie have mentioned, it has been a challenging economic environment to operate in. Visitation to our precincts remains solid, but spend per customer was lower. AGM play in our Auckland business was lower due to win per unit per day dropping year-on-year by 6%, with visitation softening in H2. Our share of the market grew 0.5 percentage point for the year. It was pleasing to see the continued recovery in Auckland table games, reflecting higher opening hours as labor constraints have eased. Over the period, our table opening hours were 14% higher than the prior year. The strong growth in premium table revenue is impacted by the actual win rate of 2.6%, being well above the theoretical level of 1.8%, which equates to around $8 million in revenue. Non-gaming revenue growth was also a highlight as visitors to Auckland are attracted to the many and varied entertainment options we have across our precinct. Food and beverage growth was supported by our investment in a number of new offerings, including Cassia, Metita and SkyBar. Hotel revenue growth was driven by a significant improvement in occupancy rates from 80% in FY '23 to 85%. Average daily rate dropped from $251 to $245, reflecting our volume strategy to increase footfall across the precinct. Auckland has continued to see a significant increase in hotel supply ahead of the opening of the New Zealand International Convention Center with the Auckland hotel market achieving occupancy levels of 68% against our occupancy for the year of 85%. Sky Tower had a very good year, driven by both visitation and increased ticket value as a result of pricing strategy and increased automation. Expenses increased by around 14% year-on-year. Employment costs were the largest increase, reflecting a more sustainable labor model and wage and salary increases. The EBITDA margin of 39% remains within our expected range with both a change in revenue mix and a higher cost base now reflected in the margin. Turning now to our 2 other New Zealand properties, Hamilton and Queenstown. Hamilton's performance improved across the year after a particularly challenging first half. Tables improved to be ahead of the prior year and win per unit per day for AGMs was down by 4.5%. Our share of the AGM market grew by close to 1 percentage point for the year. Encouragingly, visitation to Hamilton grew 5% over the prior period, but this was offset by the reduction in spend per person across both the gaming and non-gaming business segments. Expenses grew with labor being the primary driver. In Queenstown, it was pleasing to achieve growth in both local and premium tables as labor availability improved. But as with the other New Zealand properties, AGM revenue was impacted by a lower per win per unit per day, down 6% year-on-year. Visitation to our Queenstown property was marginally up year-on-year. We have commenced the process for the renewal of the Queenstown Casino venue license to renew the license for a further period of 15 years from December 2025. We exited the Wharf Casino venue license and property lease this year with the costs associated with this move impacting the full year result, and we have an unconditional contract for the sale of the Frankton Road investment property in Queenstown. Turning now to Adelaide. After a particularly challenging first half, it was pleasing to see the Adelaide properties operating performance improve against all metrics across the second half of the year. Visitation over the period was stable year-on-year with a slow recovery in interstate and international tourism to South Australia. Gaming machine revenue was flat, with our market share remaining steady at around 9%. Local table revenue continued to be impacted by the operational changes introduced in the 2023 financial year, with reduced opening hours and the introduction of the $5,000 daily cash limit. This cash limit in Adelaide is currently under review. Our tables business in Adelaide is now rebased heading into FY '25. Eos Hotel experienced a modest drop in revenue, reflecting a stable occupancy rate of 75% with a slightly lower average daily rate of $438. This occupancy rate remains well above the Adelaide market. As we reported in our FY '23 result, we restructured our cost base in response to the challenging operating environment with initiatives including reduced VIP room opening hours and fewer staff across the property, contributing to expenses reducing year-on-year by 7%. In relation to the casino duty matter with revenue South Australia, the declaratory proceedings remain ongoing, and we look forward to resolution of the matter. Turning to our online business. We remain excited by the longer-term opportunity that we see in the New Zealand online gaming market, which continues to grow. The New Zealand government has recently announced a high-level approach to regulating the market expected to be in place in 2026. We continue to actively engage with both New Zealand regulators and the government on market regulation. As we have spoken about previously, the existing unregulated nature of the New Zealand online gaming market has created an even playing field where many of the participants are aggressively targeting players and ignoring local advertising regulations, which we adhere to, and this inequality is reflected in our lower revenue figures. The SkyCity online casino, which is operated from Malta, continue to upgrade its content, including the launch of Bingo during the year and continue to uplift its compliance and regulatory framework, including enhancements to increase automation of responsible gambling triggers and the implementation of the Safe Talk assist training program. In New Zealand, we continue to invest in our online capability and have brought forward planned investment in this area. We are looking forward to a regulated online environment that supports a fairer competitive landscape. I will now hand you back to Jason.

Thanks, Julie and Callum. I'd like to spend some time talking about the transformation program we have embarked on that originally began with the initial uplift program in 2021 in response to commencement of AUSTRAC enforcement investigation into SkyCity Adelaide. Progress over the last 3 years has included a complete refresh of the SkyCity Board, which has resulted in the recruitment of directors with specialist risk expertise. A dedicated Risk and Compliance Committee has been created to oversee AML, CFT, Host Responsibility, risk and other compliance obligations. A Chief Risk Officer role was created and Carolyn Kidd was appointed in April 2023 to lead the new enterprise risk management framework. We have continued to invest in both capacity and capability across the financial crime, risk, compliance and Host Responsibility teams with 113 extra employees as at the 30th of June 2024. Shaun Philp was appointed the Chief People and Culture Officer in August 2023 to lead the culture change at SkyCity. This group-wide transformation program will embed improved practices through all parts of the business and to signify its importance, a Board Transformation Sub-Committee has now been created to oversee and monitor progress. Moving to the next slide. We have provided an overview of this comprehensive multiyear program designed to deliver the best outcomes across these 6 pillars, deepening our regulatory relationships and fostering a culture of care with our customers and communities. This transformation program is a significant step up in response. And as a consequence of the actions brought by the Department of Internal Affairs in New Zealand over the last financial year and more recently, the work completed with Kroll in Adelaide. Looking forward to the next 12 months, I'd like to call out some of the key priorities from this slide, which include embedding 3 lines of accountability in the risk management framework across the group, establishing and commencing a culture shift program and embedding our refreshed code of conduct. Our aim is to reduce risk and complexity by changing the way we operate to reflect our lower risk tolerance, including limiting the ways in which customers can transact with us. A key aspect of this is our facial recognition technology, which we have spoken about in the past, and it is now embedded across our casinos. Over the last year, this technology was enhanced to also monitor ATMs at our Auckland and Hamilton properties. There are further slides in the appendix, which provide more detail on our transformation program. The next step is the implementation of Mandatory Carded Play across our casinos. We have agreed to implement Mandatory Carded Play across New Zealand casinos by July 2025 and in Adelaide by early 2026. Simply speaking, this will be a no card, no play situation. This will help us manage customers' duration of play across both gaming machines and tables to identify when customers need to take a break. This is an important step in underscoring our desire to care for our customers and the sustainability of our business. Encouragingly, this will automate the manual process that is currently in place and will reduce the risks associated with this part of our Host Responsibility requirements. Importantly, we see this as the first phase of an ongoing initiative, and we will look to add further functionality over time. In determining the impact on our business from the decision to implement Mandatory Carded Play, we have taken into consideration the following key factors. There is a high level of Carded Play across our casinos today, particularly with our high-value premium customers, and we are actively increasing the overall level of Carded Play ahead of our go-live date. We are hard at work ensuring there is a seamless customer onboarding journey to remove friction and to encourage adoption by the minority of players that are uncarded. In New Zealand, we are able to offer a more differentiated gaming product that is preferred by our customers, which is not available in Class IV venues. However, in Adelaide, the differences between our gaming product and what is available in the pubs and clubs is far less. We believe New Zealand customers are more likely to remain in our casinos versus in Adelaide where we expect customers are more likely to play in competing venues where Mandatory Carded Play is not deployed. Our relative market share in New Zealand, circa 50% in Auckland and Adelaide circa 10% reflects the reality of this market structure. Based on our analysis, we are assuming an initial 15% to 20% impact on the uncarded gaming revenue from implementation but I would stress this analysis comes with a high degree of uncertainty. The following chart illustrates the investment we have made to date, both in terms of spend, but also the number of employees and dedicated roles across AML, compliance and Host Responsibility. Turning now to the outlook for financial year 2025. We are reiterating the guidance we provided on 18th July 2024 for underlying group EBITDA of between $245 million and $265 million. As also noted previously, we are not expecting to pay a dividend for financial year 2025 based on our current earnings outlook as we are looking to maintain a conservative balance sheet in the short to medium term. Let me reassure you, though, we are working to ensure that we can pay dividends to shareholders as soon as possible. The other feature of our guidance was a number of what we consider to be one-off items that will impact financial results, which we've outlined on the slide. We've also provided CapEx guidance for this period, which includes the expenditure required to complete the NZICC and the core business as usual expenditure. Finally, I wanted to share some thoughts on SkyCity after spending 6 weeks as CEO. Our gaming licenses are a privilege, and we have rightfully been held to account for our historical failings. Transparent, proactive and respectful engagement with regulators is what my experience has taught me is the right thing to do, and it's what we will keep doing. I want regulators to know when I know. In my first few weeks, I have met or spoken to many of our key regulators. With over 4,500 highly engaged employees, which will grow to over 5,000 with the opening of the convention center, they are the heart and soul of SkyCity. And as I mentioned earlier, my travels across the group, I've just been immensely impressed with the energy of our team, the pride in the work they do and how involved they are in giving back to their communities and their appetite to meet the challenges ahead. The transformation program will significantly de-risk our business and deliver the capacity and capability to better meet our regulatory requirements in the future. What's clear to me though is this is a whole of business transformation, not only a risk transformation. And I want to stress it's going to take some time. We're going to need to continue to invest, and there will be challenges along the way. We have made good progress. However, we're not where we need or want to be. But every day, we are building a better business. Our hires in people and culture, finance, risk and technology complement our leaders with deep operating experience and overall, we have lifted and are lifting our capability. I am very aware recent returns are well below what we should be able to deliver to shareholders. We are taking a look at the broader business and our different assets. This will take some time given the priorities we have right now. When crisis arise, they can consume all your focus. And now that we have resolved the regulatory matters in New Zealand, there is opportunity in the core business to balance our focus on both transforming our business and ensuring we are operating our properties at full potential. But firstly, we must resolve the Adelaide regulatory matters to clear a path forward. I can't emphasize this enough. I spent my second week in the business in Adelaide with the team and met with the South Australian Liquor and Gambling Commissioner, the Honorable Brian Martin, Kroll and the South Australian Treasurer. Progress in Adelaide has not met our expectations, and we have a lot more to do. We have submitted a 3-year program of work to the commissioner for approval, and this includes the implementation of Mandatory Carded Play with new leadership in place that are very capable and focused on delivering on our commitments, and I'm confident that we do have a path to move forward. There are a number of exciting initiatives ahead of us that really give me some confidence in our future. The opening of Horizon by SkyCity and the opening of the NZICC next year are extremely positive for our broader business in terms of visitation, reputation and diversification of revenue streams. Our Auckland precinct is now the largest single-site [Technical Difficulty] provider and car parks in New Zealand, combined with our Auckland Casino venue license through to 2048 and diverse non-gaming offerings, this represents a tremendous opportunity for growth in our future. New Zealand is arguably at the bottom of this economic cycle. And yet despite this, we have maintained strong visitation across all our sites. Our online gaming opportunity is significant, and we are early in the journey. We are focused on ensuring we're well-positioned to take advantage of this. Having seen other markets regulate around the world, the regulatory framework is what sizes the opportunity and will shape how we ultimately enter. What is clear is we are in a unique position with our brand, land-based presence, player database and importantly, being a kiwi company to compete successfully. In summary, I'm genuinely thrilled to be here, and I'm extremely focused on the upcoming opportunities and the current challenges for the business. We have a fantastic foundation already in place with our people and properties, and I'm committed to ensure we build on this to drive improved returns for shareholders, which includes getting back to paying dividends. I will now hand over to the operator to manage the Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Kieran Carling at Craigs Investment Partners.

Welcome, Jason, and thanks for the presentation. First question from me is just around the impact of Mandatory Carded Play. Do you expect to implement mandatory precommitment limits following that change to Carded Play? And has that been factored into your analysis in any way? And can you also just provide some more detail around the review of the $5,000 daily cash limit in Adelaide and what potential changes we might see there?

Thanks very much for the welcome. I'll just start with a couple of opening comments on Mandatory Carded Play, and then I'll hand over to Callum. But look, first of all, MCP is an important part of our group-wide transformation program and stepping up our ability to care for customers. It's going to allow us to monitor the time that our customers and also our customers have been playing so they can take breaks at the appropriate time. I'll hand over to Callum now to talk specifically to your question.

Thanks, Jason. Kieran, thanks for the question. As you know, today, we already offer our customers the ability to utilize precommitment for their play. And it's -- we are still working through A., with our potential technology providers, but also with both the regulator and the Gaming Commission on exactly what shape and form things will take. The first and foremost, though, that we want to hit for New Zealand and July next year is to ensure that the machines won't work without a card in them and that at the required times those machines will disable themselves to allow the appropriate breaks to have. So those are the key focuses at this stage. As far as the review of the $5,000 day in Adelaide, that's very early stages. As you know, we've made some management changes in the business there, and we continue to focus on that business as you would expect. And we would expect to have that review completed within the next month or 2.

The next question is from Adrian Allbon at Jarden.

Perhaps the first question just for Callum. Just when you were sort of quoting, I guess, the average win per day sort of trajectory for Auckland in particular. Can you comment on how that's sort of tracking -- how has it tracked across the half and what you're sort of seeing in the first couple of months of '25?

Yes. Thanks, Adrian. Whilst we're still cautious, we do think that we've -- we're bottoming out. We're seeing some consistency across the last few months. Clearly, as you would expect, up until sort of, let's call it, the March, April period, we're still getting the benefit of that international tourism more than we are now. So we are seeing some stabilization now and obviously hopeful with things like the Reserve Bank's announcement that things will gradually improve moving into Christmas, but not expecting a quick turnaround.

Okay. And then just a comment on the bottom of that slide 16 around the margins, which I think you sort of cited there's a more sustainable level at 39% versus, I guess, been higher in 43% in '23. Is that sort of comment inclusive of how you track forward with multiple changes to that property? Like you've obviously got the hotel flipping and you've got the ICC, which I presume is a lower-margin product. You've got Mandatory Carded Play with all that in the mix, would that comment still hold?

Look, we will still target that mid- to high 30s. But to your point, that mix, particularly with the impact of Mandatory Carded as well, we'll see that move around. We know that particularly with that win per unit per day this year, AGMs was impacted and also with our desire to drive occupancy in the hotels also impacted margin in the hotels. So whilst as you rightly put it, margin in the NZICC, the box itself will be very low. We would obviously expect the impact of what business is attractive to the NZICC to flow through the business balanced off clearly with the impact of Mandatory Carded. So whilst early days, and we will need to see where we're heading. Our target is to keep it in that mid to high 30s for Auckland.

Okay. That's understood. And maybe just the second question, just transferring to Adelaide. Like, I guess, in Jason's comments, you sort of noted the point was sort of some of the management there. But the actual result itself looks okay. Like I know obviously, you probably buoyed a lot by sort of cost out. But what would be the expectation like for the '25 year for Adelaide -- like is '24 a reasonable base, like accepting that '26 onwards has got the Mandatory Carded impact, which you've spoken about?

Yes, look, we consider that the Adelaide business is rebased, Adrian, particularly around the tables. As you know, that impact from that change we made was reflected across the full 12 months versus only the 6 months in FY '23. So we think this is a good base to build from.

So as -- does appointment in the management more in terms of dealing with the regulatory sort of proceedings as opposed to the operating proceedings?

Look, I think we've made some good changes around cost as well throughout the year, and those have been borne through in the last 6 months. But certainly, there's been a real focus for us on advancing where we're at from a regulatory perspective in that business. And I'll let Jason comment on that as well, Adrian.

Yes. Adrian, what I would say additionally to Callum's comments is, look, the focus of the business over the last year and in particular, the last 6 months has been very much about putting together the program of work that we've submitted with Kroll to the CBS Commissioner, and we expect to get that approved shortly. And then we'll be stepping off and executing on that program. As I mentioned in my comments, that focus on getting that program done hasn't necessarily enabled us to get an equal focus on the performance of the business. And we've seen with recent management changes, a little bit of that focus coming back. And I'm hopeful that we'll see more of that going forward.

Okay. Just maybe just a follow-up question because obviously, Adelaide took a quarter, has taken a further in sizable impairment. Like are you able to give us a sense, and I don't know -- sorry, if you've noted on the accounts, but are you able to give us a sense of like what the sort of medium-term EBITDA now looks like for EBIT for Adelaide like vis-a-vis what you've sort of flowed through your impairment calculations?

Yes. I think, Adrian, I'm 6 weeks in the job, and Peter is 3 weeks. And as I mentioned in my remarks, we're going to have a look at the whole of the business and all the different assets. Spend a lot of time looking at Adelaide in the last few weeks. But I'd really like the opportunity to operate the business for a period of time, and then we can come back and give you some thoughts.

[Operator Instructions] We do have a question from Hugh Lockwood from Forsyth Barr.

Thank you for the presentation. I'm just wanting to talk a little bit further about Mandatory Carded Play. So to clarify, that 15% to 20% reduction, that's of the 35% of Auckland revenue and 30% of Adelaide revenue that's uncarded currently?

Correct. That is a high-level working assumption here.

Yes. And I recognize that there's quite a wide range of possibilities. But could you just talk a little bit more about what's driving your expectation of the revenue reduction and any strategies you're likely to employ to reduce the impact?

Yes. Sure. Thanks, Hugh. So key to that is obviously our base of Carded Play today, as you have already pointed out. Second, that, particularly in New Zealand, we've had the opportunity, obviously, to see what's happening over in Australia, particularly with Crown and recently Star and obviously, it gives us an ability to see what they're doing, what seems to be working and where there may be opportunities to improve our rollout. The competitive scape in New Zealand versus Australia is obviously a factor in our assumptions. And a good example of that, obviously, is the market share that we have in Auckland at 50% versus as an example, and Adelaide, just on 10%. So a significantly different competitive environment. We also know in comparison to some of the competition who have implemented Mandatory Carded Play that our initial carded base is higher. On top of that, in New Zealand, we do have the advantage from the COVID trial. And that's when we were limiting the number of people back in, and we were carded only. And we know even with that carded only 80% of people roughly were using cards all of the time when they were in. So we know that, that base we're coming off is probably a little higher than it actually looks like as well from people that aren't always using their cards. And so rolling those factors and then being laser focused now and for the next 9 months on the customer journey and in particular, the onboarding for the customer. We know that has been a challenging issue for those who have implemented thus far, and we need to make sure that, that customer journey to sign up, in particular, is easy for them to navigate. That's the rationale for our thoughts bearing in mind these are our working estimates and we'll know a lot more, obviously, 3 to 6 months in.

That's great. And just a follow-up on Adelaide. So you've agreed with DIA to introduce Carded Play in New Zealand. But just interested in the rationale for introducing in Adelaide as well. Is this front footing an expected regulatory change? Or is this just a way to highlight your commitment to being a responsible host?

It's absolutely the latter. Yes, we believe that the technology is going to help us around monitoring the time on device by players, both themselves and ourselves. And it's just part of our overall commitment to uplift of our capabilities and anti-money laundering, preventing financial crime and caring for our customers. So we want to be on the front foot here leading.

The next question comes from Paul Mason at E&P.

Hi, just a quick one on online gaming. I was just wondering if you had any color that you could share around sort of the direction that you think the government is going to go in terms of how to regulate whether they're going to like beef up enforcement resources or look at something like getting with telcos to geo block unlicensed gaming operators? Like what the approach looks like it's going to be if you've got any detail you can share?

Paul, yes, happy to talk about online. Look, first and foremost, it's a great opportunity for us that's coming down the track in the future. Very encouraged by the Minister's recent announcement that provided a little bit more color on the regulatory framework. We hope to and believe we will hear more on the framework over the coming months. And as I mentioned in my remarks, that will help shape how we enter the market ultimately. In terms of the things that we would like to see, first and foremost, we believe that fewer operators is better. And that speaks to part of your question around the Department of Internal Affairs ability to enforce those regulations. With respect to what they may be doing resourcing-wise, it's obviously not appropriate for me to comment on that. But we hope to -- well, we do have dialogue with him today, and we'll continue our dialogue with them in the coming weeks and months to put our thoughts forward on what the regulation should look like, including such as the things you spoke about.

The next question is a follow-up from Kieran Carling at Craigs Investment Partners.

Just another question on the online opportunity. So now the government has started firming up some of the detail there. Are you able to comment on how competitive you expect the auction process to be? And who are the key competitors that you'll be coming up against are?

Good morning Keiran. Look, the only detail that the minister has provided is in that media release around the auction. So we don't know the structure yet. So difficult to give you a sense for how competitive it might be. We do know today there's a number of offshore illegal operators targeting New Zealand. And we are certainly, in our conversations with government and the regulators advocating for a very strict regulatory regime here that ensures that we've only got fully compliant operators coming onshore. And I spoke to before about enforcement is a key part of that, limiting the number of licenses is conducive to that sort of environment, strict limits on advertising, which the minister did come out and support of and we're very supportive of ours as well.

There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back for closing remarks.

Well, thank you very much for all your questions. As this is Julie Amey's last results call as Chief Financial Officer, I would like to acknowledge and thank Julie for her contribution to SkyCity over the last 3 years and Julie all the best for the future. I'd also like to extend my thanks to all of our employees, the Board and the executive team for everyone's really hard work and support of SkyCity. And thank you to everyone listening in today, being my first call and your interest in SkyCity. We look forward to engaging with many of you over the next week or so as we complete our investor roadshow. Thank you.

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