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

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to SkyCity Entertainment Group Full Year 2026 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I'd now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Jason Walbridge, Chief Executive Officer of SkyCity Entertainment Group. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Jason Walbridge, Chief Executive Officer of SkyCity Entertainment Group. Welcome to SkyCity's presentation of our full year results for the financial year 2026 we announced to the NZX and ASX this morning. Before we begin, I'd like to acknowledge the tangata whenua of our SkyCity sites, Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, Waikato-Tainui, and Ngāi Tahu, and acknowledge the Kaurna people, the traditional custodians of the land in Adelaide. With me today in Auckland is Blair Woodbury, our Chief Financial Officer; and Callum Mallett, our Chief Operating Officer. On the call today, we will be going through the full year 2026 financial results presentation, and there will be time for questions at the end of the presentation. Let's move to Slide 5 for an overview of our FY '26 results. We've delivered on our earnings guidance provided in May of $181.6 million, which is down 22.3% or $52.1 million on last year. Reported EBITDA is $120.5 million, down 44.2% or $95.6 million compared to last year due to several significant accounting adjustments, which Blair will talk to later in the presentation. Visitation remains strong across the group with the small reduction due in part to changes in the way we measure visitation and the introduction of Carded Play. Revenue was flat on last year. However, total gaming revenue is down 5.9% or $34.7 million with lower revenue across both gaming machines and tables. The lower gaming revenue is predominantly due to the introduction of Carded Play across our New Zealand casinos that went live in July 2025 and is in line with our expectations and guidance. We also experienced a lower level of activity in premium play compared to the prior period. Growth in our non-gaming revenue largely offset the lower gaming revenue with the opening of the NZICC in February now included in revenue, plus growth in our hotels and food and beverage operations, particularly in Auckland. Costs increased over the year due to the opening of the NZICC, investment in our online operations, higher labor costs and ICT investment due in part to the implementation of Carded Play. We have seen a significant improvement in the cash flow from our operations, noting the prior period included one-off penalty and interest duty payments. We are responding to this change in our operating environment, particularly in Auckland and Adelaide with a significant reset of our operating model, which I will talk to shortly. Turning now to Slide 6. In August last year, as part of the equity raise, we made a number of commitments to our shareholders, and we have taken important steps and made meaningful progress this year towards those. When we released our interim results for FY '26 in February, we were still on track to meet the full year guidance we had provided in August 2025, and we're starting to see signs of improving consumer spending levels in New Zealand. However, the Middle East conflict in early March and the resulting higher fuel prices had an immediate and significant impact on consumer spending, and we saw the earnings impact in March and April triggering the revised guidance we provided in May. We have estimated the EBITDA impact in the fourth quarter FY '26 was approximately $20 million when compared to the third quarter. Pleasingly, both our Hamilton and Queenstown properties were not noticeably impacted by these factors. We are well on track with our asset monetization program and expect to exceed our target with gross proceeds of $275 million to $300 million expected by December 2026. We have identified further cost-out initiatives to deliver $30 million in realized benefits in the current financial year, increasing to $70 million in FY '28. I will talk more to this shortly. We successfully implemented Carded Play across our New Zealand casinos in July 2025, and the financial impact for the year was in line with the $20 million to $30 million EBITDA guidance we provided to the market. The NZICC opened in February and has held 141 events, attracting 100,000 visitations over the balance of the year. Pleasingly, the feedback from visitors to the convention center has been very positive. We have reached a non-binding agreement with our Adelaide regulator for all the outstanding regulatory matters, which includes a fine of AUD 21 million payable over 2 years. As regulatory matters near resolution and the B3 program progresses towards completion, we are now undertaking a strategic review of the Adelaide business. Our key priorities for FY '27 are resetting the balance sheet through our asset monetization program, introducing a new operating model to reduce costs, securing a future path forward for Adelaide through the CBS settlement, B3 program and strategic review as well as entering a new and complementary gaming market in New Zealand with the regulation of online gambling. I will now talk to each of these in more detail. As I mentioned before, we're well advanced with our asset monetization program and expect to deliver gross sales proceeds of between $275 million and $300 million by December this year, assuming the current non-binding Heads of Agreement for the sale of the Grand Hotel settles. We recently confirmed the unconditional sale of the commercial office properties at 99 Albert Street and Victoria Street for $74.5 million with settlement due in September 2026. The purchaser is New Zealand-based Mainland Capital and Russell Property Group joint venture. And based on discussions with [Audio Gap]. I'll start again on Slide 7 for asset monetization. As I mentioned before, we're well advanced with our asset monetization program and expect to deliver gross sales proceeds of between $275 million and $300 million by December 2026, assuming the current non-binding Heads of Agreement for the sale of the Grand settles. We recently confirmed the unconditional sale of the commercial office properties at 99 Albert Street and Victoria Street for $74.5 million with settlement due in September 2026. The purchaser is New Zealand-based Mainland Capital and Russell Property Group joint venture. And based on the conversations we've had with them throughout the process and their plans for the properties, I'm confident they're going to be a great neighbor for the Auckland precinct. We are well advanced with the sale of the Grand Hotel and in due diligence with an exclusive bidder. The sale proceeds of both transactions will be applied to reducing our debt levels, and we expect to be below our targeted level of 2x debt-to-EBITDA at the end of FY '27, and this will be before any costs associated with an online license. This is also consistent with the commitments we made to S&P at the time of the capital raise regarding the steps needed to remove the negative outlook we currently have on our credit rating. Turning now to Slide 8 and our cost-out program. Over recent years, we've seen a structural change in the revenue and earnings from our land-based operations, driven primarily by the change in regulatory settings across the gaming industry. The regulation of online casino gambling in New Zealand is also likely to bring more change, and we want to participate in this important opportunity. Consequently, we're undertaking a group-wide reset of our operating model to become a simpler, smarter and more connected business that has fewer layers, clearer accountability and makes decisions faster. We're targeting realized benefits of $30 million in FY '27, increasing to $70 million in FY '28 and have a clear line of sight on where these benefits are coming from. Our organizational redesign in New Zealand is complete, and we're now moving quickly into implementation. Resetting our business for the future means less roles across parts of the business, and we have commenced a consultation process that potentially impacts between 200 and 250 of our employees predominantly across the New Zealand corporate and back-office functions. No final decisions have been made at this stage, and we are actively engaging with everyone involved in these proposals. To increase visitation, grow our revenue as well as continuing to reduce our cost base beyond the initial reset, we have identified a large number of initiatives that are being assessed and are moving at pace to implement those that will deliver more benefit. Advances in technology, particularly in AI will allow us to speed up current manual processes, making us more efficient and importantly, shift us to being more digitally driven as an organization, solving problems using technology rather than manually. Our investment in technology will be disciplined and measured and focused on real tangible benefits for our employees, customers and financial performance. Our future operating model sees us with 2 New Zealand franchises, land and online, with Adelaide operating more as a stand-alone business. Turning now to Slide 9 and Adelaide. We have signed a non-binding Heads of Agreement with CBS, our regulator in Adelaide that once formalized, will conclude their enforcement action following the Martin independent report. Included in the agreement is a fine of AUD 21 million payable in 3 equal installments over 2 years with the first payment due once we have finalized the agreement. We also now have more clarity on the operating and governance model and the regulatory framework that is required in Adelaide going forward. These enhanced governance, compliance and operational commitments will be implemented by July next year and the independent Board and new operating model seeing the business operate more stand-alone will be in place by January 2028. This has been a long process, and I'd like to acknowledge and thank CBS for the constructive approach that they have taken throughout these settlement discussions and the tremendous amount of work done by our team involved in this matter. We've also been progressing the B3 or building a better business program are well advanced with this detailed and comprehensive remediation effort. We now expect this will be completed in early FY '28, which reflects the pace of approvals along with casino system delays. An updated independent valuation has been undertaken of the Adelaide business. And due in part to the changes outlined above, we have written down the carrying value of Adelaide by AUD 42.9 million. The key priorities for us going forward in Adelaide are finalizing the CBS agreement, progressing B3 and with the clarity I spoke to earlier, the commencement of a strategic review of the business with advisers appointed. We are proud of the Adelaide business. It's a valuable part of the group. We are well placed to be patient and deliberate about the path forward, and we expect to update the market during FY '27 on the strategic review. Turning now to Slide 10 and our online opportunity and business. The New Zealand government has passed the legislation enabling the regulation of the New Zealand online casino gambling market with the market expected to go live in the first half of 2027. This represents a very significant opportunity for SkyCity and one we're very keen to be part of. The New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs released a paper looking at the current online gambling market, and I would recommend you have a read of it. It's available on their website. It provides an independent overview of the current size and structure of the market, including recent growth rates. It's based on analysis of customer spending information done by a firm called Dot Loves Data, utilizing data from one of New Zealand's big 4 banks. It provides detail on a very significant existing market of around $1.4 billion, of which it appears casino gambling is a very large part. The analysis also highlights the very attractive growth rates in this market. We have submitted our expression of interest to participate in the upcoming license auction in September. Because of the license -- because of the auction structure, all successful bidders will pay the same price. A full application is required to be submitted by the successful bidders and the regulator needs to approve detailed business plans and strategies relating to advertising, marketing, consumer protection, harm minimization and regulatory compliance. Once these have been completed, licenses will be issued, and we expect that the market will open in early 2027 with operators going live no later than the 1st of June. We have provided further details on the legislation and regulations for the online casino gambling market in the appendix. We believe that we're well positioned to successfully participate in what will be a very competitive market. Importantly, we have a disciplined approach to any financial investment required through the process with a phased investment pathway with specific gateways agreed with our Board that have associated return targets in line with the return hurdles expected with this type of investment. Turning now to Slide 11. A major highlight for SkyCity this year was the opening of the NZICC on the 11th of February. And since then, we've hosted 141 events with approximately 100,000 visitations over FY '26. We've received positive customer reviews and have already seen a number of events rebook. The pipeline for FY '27 is encouraging with approximately 350,000 visitations spread across more than 350 events. This includes major international conferences with some of these outlined on the slide, and we look forward to welcoming these international visitors to Auckland. We had set ourselves a target of achieving breakeven EBITDA for the NZICC on a stand-alone basis in FY '27. We will get close to this, but due in part to the current economic conditions, we now expect to achieve this in FY '28. We've started to see the benefits of the increased visitation across our Auckland precinct, particularly in our hotels and F&B outlets. The teams are doing an incredible amount of work analyzing the movements and behaviors of the visitors to the NZICC and are looking to ensure we have the right offerings in place to maximize cross-precinct spend. For example, the Coral Reef Symposium was held in July and attendees had a dedicated website that included a range of offers to take advantage of the many attractions available across the Auckland precinct. The NZICC is a fantastic addition to Auckland and New Zealand, and I'm very confident it will deliver the growth in visitation, revenue and earnings that we are expecting in the future. I'll now hand over to Blair Woodbury to discuss the group financial results in more detail.

Thanks, Jason, and good morning, everyone. Jason has spoken to the key aspects of the results, so I don't intend to go into too much detail. As noted previously, the underlying EBITDA of $181.6 million is within the updated guidance range we provided in May. This includes the impact of the conflict in the Middle East had on our business. Prior to this, we were well on track to meet the guidance we provided in August last year. FY '26 has a number of nonoperating items that I'll step through shortly. The flat revenue we saw in FY '26 when compared to FY '25 masks the compositional change we saw with lower gaming revenue, driven by Carded Play impacts and lower consumer discretionary spend, offset by an increase in our non-gaming revenue, driven by the opening of the NZICC and higher accommodation and food and beverage revenues. The team has been looking very closely at how we can return to growth in gaming revenue, particularly in Auckland now that we have moved to Carded Play. Callum will talk to this shortly. The opening of the NZICC provides SkyCity with a significant increase in visitation to its Auckland precinct, and we're expecting non-gaming revenue will grow at a faster rate than gaming revenue. We are already seeing the benefits of its opening in February, particularly in our hotel and food and beverage operations. Underlying expenses were up $50 million year-on-year, with $14 million of the increase driven by the NZICC operations since February. We remain very focused on reducing our cost base to ensure we have the appropriate operating model in place for the future shape of our businesses. This is a key area for me as CFO, and I'm very confident we will be able to realize the benefits we've identified. The work we have done with Alvarez & Marsal has been thorough, detailed and has identified a wide range of initiatives that will increase visitation and revenue as well as lower our costs. We will move at the appropriate pace to ensure we realize those benefits without compromising our compliance obligations and continuing to deliver an excellent customer experience. I'll now talk to the nonoperating items that impacted reported profit. You will see in this result, we have several significant accounting adjustments, and I'll talk briefly to some of the major ones. derecognition of the tax assets. As flagged at the first half results, we no longer recognize the potential tax benefit from accumulated losses. Whilst the $180 million odd of tax losses remain available to the business to use against future taxable profits, we deemed it prudent to remove these from the balance sheet. So here, you will see a $32.5 million charge to the tax expense in the P&L. As Jason touched on, we have taken a noncash write-down, NZ $52.2 million of the carrying value of Adelaide. This write-down has been driven by a combination of revised forecast reflecting current trading and future economic environment, the expecting operating model changes as agreed with CBS, including Adelaide operating as a more stand-alone business and increased CapEx mainly on the railway building in Adelaide. Recognition of a $23.9 million provision for the AUD 21 million fine agreed with CBS. The $23.9 million Kiwi represents the net present value of the expected payments as required under accounting rules with the fine payable in 3 equal installments. The unconditional sale of the Auckland commercial properties has triggered 2 impairments, reflecting the way we have historically accounted for those assets. For the SkyCity occupied portion of 99 Albert Street, there is a write-down of $10.3 million, and we have recognized $6.1 million of fair value losses on the remainder of the Auckland investment properties that we are selling. As part of our ongoing cost reduction and simplification activities, we disposed of certain offshore entities that had been used as part of previous financing structures. With their disposal, we have to release the cumulative foreign currency translation movements totaling $55.3 million. Finally, on completion of the NZICC, we closed out the accounting for the deferred license. These accounting entries had the effect of creating a deferred tax asset of $73 million as the license was recognized against the NZICC assets. The deferred tax asset will reduce over time as the NZICC assets depreciate. Turning to Slide 15. I'll start with reiterating that we continue to meet our debt covenants. We are making good progress on delivering the balance sheet reset through the asset monetization program. The debt-to-EBITDA ratio used in our banking covenant calculation is at 3.1x. It's marginally above the level we indicated in August last year of 3x due mainly to the lower level of earnings in the fourth quarter of FY '26. The metrics are also before the receipt of the sale proceeds from the Auckland commercial properties and the Grand Hotel. We've given you an indication of where these metrics would be should both of these assets sell at the prices in their respective agreements. We are now unconditional with the Auckland commercial properties and the gross sale proceeds of $74.5 million will be received in September. We also expect to update you on the Grand Hotel sales process around the end of September. We're also expecting a review of the current S&P negative outlook on our BBB- credit rating post the settlement of the Grand Hotel sale. We remain committed to a debt-to-EBITDA ratio of below 2x by the end of FY '27. This excludes any payment we may need to make for any online licenses, as Jason just touched on. You will -- we will be able to provide an update on this in October following the conclusion of the online license option. We are pleased to have refinanced a portion of our banking facilities in July, increasing that part of the facility to $140 million, extending out to September 2029 and consolidating 2 previous tranches into just 1. As previously guided, there is no dividend payable in FY '26. Switching to Slide 16. With the opening of the NZICC in February, FY '26 marks the end of the CapEx investment in this asset, and we now have less than 100 matters from nearly 20,000 to resolve, leading to the final retention payment that will become payable in FY '27. The notional free cash flow from our New Zealand operations is the core part of the group's cash flow. And with the increased visitation and on-spend opportunity across the Auckland precinct, we are positive about the future cash flow generating capability of these assets. In FY '26, New Zealand generated $121.7 million of notional free cash flow, an increase of $21.2 million, driven by reduced addition to assets. We have access to a large amount of liquidity through our undrawn bank facilities, $30 million on term deposit and $84 million of cash, even allowing for a full repayment of the retail bond. As shown on the slide, I'd like to highlight that upcoming repayment date of the retail bond in May 2027. We are working with the Board later in calendar 2026 to determine the balance sheet settings and optimal debt structures once we are on the other side of the online option and confirmation of sale proceeds from the grant. As noted on the previous page, after allowing for the retail bond payment, we currently expect to have access to $186 million of liquidity. Turning to Slide 17. As I just spoke about, FY '26 marks the end of our NZICC investment. CapEx, excluding interest, was $95.4 million, a decline of $43 million from FY '25. When I joined, I recognized the impact of higher fuel and reduced consumer discretionary spends back in March, and we immediately reviewed and reduced our CapEx program to partially offset the lower earnings. NZICC CapEx for FY '26 accounts for over 90% of our growth investment. In addition to the B3 program operating costs, we spent approximately $10 million in FY '26 across New Zealand and Adelaide to lift our regulatory capabilities. We will continue to manage our capital expenditure in a disciplined way, ensuring any money spent improves the customer experience, enhances our regulatory compliance capabilities and delivers the appropriate returns that we demand. Going forward, we expect our future CapEx to be within a range of $80 million to $100 million before any investment on an online license. And in FY '27, there is the final payment of $10 million for NZICC. $8 million is also allocated for payments associated with upgrading the railway building in Adelaide. We will have a reset of our asset base and therefore, our forecast Auckland CapEx following the sale of the commercial properties and the Grand Hotel. However, we do need to catch up on some expenditures that were deferred over recent years, particularly in some of our customer-facing areas such as the Auckland gaming floors and some of the food and beverage outlets. We also need to invest in the process improvements that will support the reduction in headcount that Jason touched on earlier. With that, I'll hand over to Callum.

Thanks, Blair. Good morning, everyone. Turning to Slide 19 and our Auckland property. FY '26 site-wide visitation across our Auckland precinct was broadly flat on the prior year with lower gaming visitation offset by an increase in non-gaming visitation. We did see a noticeable impact in March from the flow-on effects of the Middle East conflict with higher fuel prices resulting in lower levels of visitation as consumer discretionary spending weakened. We responded to this change in customer behavior by introducing discounted parking and food offers. These were well received by our customers, and we saw visitation stabilize at these lower levels for the remainder of FY '26. The implementation of Carded Play significantly impacted gaming revenue for the year, but was in line with our expectations and the guidance we provided to the market. We were generally pleased with how the rollout went. The work we put into minimizing and managing the extra requirements we imposed on our customers helped maintain customer satisfaction at levels consistent with those prior to the rollout. And we have also seen strong opt-in to the loyalty program show by SkyCity. As Jason mentioned earlier, we rolled out Phase 2 of Carded Play in July, and these upgrades are not expected to impact earnings. We are focused on continually improving the experience for our customers from Carded Play and are focused on utilizing the data we now have on all our gaming customers. The implementation of new technologies such as [ Angeli Complete ] and QCI will help drive gaming personalization and growth in FY '27, along with the rollout of new gaming product, including the introduction of Aristocrat's new game, Phoenix Link. We successfully opened the NZICC in February and have been pleased with early trading. We've been able to learn much about the behavior of visitors to the NZICC across a wide range of events, and we'll take these learnings into how we optimize visitation across the Auckland precinct. The growth in revenue from the hotel portfolio illustrates the benefits of events at the NZICC with improvements in occupancy providing the opportunity to optimize the average daily rate. Food and beverage, car parking and the Sky Tower also benefit from this growth in visitation, and we continue to evolve our offerings to ensure we maximize the on-spend benefits to the Auckland precinct. We see the opening of the CRL in September as a positive catalyst for visitation to both the CBD and our precinct. Turning now to Slide 20. We were pleased with the performance of both Hamilton and Queenstown over the year, with the impact of Carded Play being less than expected, especially in Queenstown. We also saw minimal impacts from the Middle East conflict on fourth quarter trading across both Hamilton and Queenstown. The visitation changes in both gaming and food and beverage are primarily due to the change in how we measure our visitation across both casinos, with the key driver being the introduction of Carded Play, allowing us to more accurately track player metrics. This makes a direct comparison with the prior period less relevant, but you will also see a corresponding increase in spend per visitation. A strong rural economy has benefited our Hamilton site with property investments such as the expansion of an outdoor gaming balcony being well received by our customers. We submitted our license renewal application for the Hamilton casino during the year, and we will work through this process over FY '27. Queenstown continues to benefit from strong international visitation, especially from Australia, helped by increases in Trans-Tasman aircraft capacity. The Queenstown casino license was successfully renewed for a further 15 years from December '25. We recently refreshed the Level 2 bar and lounge offering in Queenstown with the area now providing a more relevant customer experience as well as delivering greater operational efficiencies. Turning now to Slide 21 and our Adelaide operations. Gaming revenue was slightly down year-on-year with growth in both local EGMs and local tables being offset by lower play in our premium tables segment. We ended the year with an improvement in our market share in the South Australian EGM market, improving from 7.9% in June 2025 to 8.3% at June 2026. Non-gaming revenue was up by 3.9% for the year, with spend per visit increasing in F&B and both occupancy and rate growing on the back of strong events-driven visitation to South Australia and the opening of a new restaurant, Huami. We had a strong cost focus in the second half of FY '26, and we're able to reduce the cost base by AUD 10 million, in line with our expectations that we spoke to in February. We are continuing to work hard on the B3 program and are now targeting completion in early FY '28. The timing for the implementation of Carded Play into Adelaide is yet to be confirmed but will not occur in the first half. I will now hand back to Jason.

Thanks, Callum. Turning to the outlook for FY '27 on Slide 23. I'd now like to speak briefly about current trading and the outlook for earnings going forward. When we updated our FY '26 earnings guidance in May, we noted the material impact of the Middle East conflict had on discretionary spend, particularly in our Auckland and Adelaide properties, and I spoke about this earlier. The earnings impact on EBITDA we saw in the fourth quarter of FY '26 was approximately $20 million when compared to the third quarter, and this has continued into early first quarter FY '27 trading. We expect to see the benefit from the cost-out program impact our reported earnings in FY '27. And the CapEx for FY '27 is expected to be in the range of $80 million to $100 million, which includes retention payments for the NZICC but excludes any costs for online licenses. We note that there's heightened levels of volatility and uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment currently influencing consumer sentiment, and we are not providing earnings guidance for FY... [Audio Gap] Just to outline briefly about current trading and the outlook for earnings in FY '27. We updated our FY '26 earnings guidance in May, and we noted the material impact the Middle East conflict had had on discretionary spend, particularly in our Auckland and Adelaide properties. And I spoke about this earlier. The earnings impact on EBITDA we saw in the fourth quarter of FY '26 was approximately $20 million when compared to the third quarter for FY '26. And we've seen this continue into early first quarter FY '27 trading. We do expect there to be some one-off costs from the cost-out program impact our reported earnings in FY '27. And for CapEx in FY '27, we do expect that to be in the range of $80 million to $100 million. And as Blair outlined, this includes the retention payments for the NZICC but excludes any costs for out online licenses. We note that there's heightened levels of volatility and uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment currently influencing consumer sentiment, and we're not providing earnings guidance for FY '27 at this time. In this morning's presentation, I've outlined our key priorities for FY '27, completing our asset monetization program, resetting our operating model and realizing the meaningful benefits from our cost reduction initiatives finalizing our agreement with CBS while continuing the Adelaide remediation program and now commencing a strategic review of that business and entering New Zealand's regulated online casino market, which we see as a significant growth opportunity for ourselves. Together, these priorities provide a clear pathway to sustainable earnings growth, and our focus continues to be on disciplined execution, restoring positive cash flow and once achieved, reinstating dividends for shareholders. We'll, of course, provide a trading update at the Annual Shareholder Meeting in October. Thank you for listening this morning, and we will now take questions, hopefully, with no further technology interruptions. Let's see how we go.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from the line of David Fabris from Macquarie.

Can we just start off with the asset monetization program? I appreciate there's a couple of transactions going on there and you've shared the gross proceeds. Can you maybe share the EBITDA benefit you got from or the earnings from those assets in '26, so we can think about the impact once you do get that Grand Hotel transaction away?

David, I will hand over to Blair and get him to share that.

Yes. On a normalized basis, the Grand is the big one, obviously, and that would be in high single-digit EBITDA impacts on an annualized basis.

Okay. Perfect. That's fine. And then...

Commercial ones, to be honest, lost in the roundings. By the time you factor in all of the cost of maintaining the buildings, it's barely $1 million to $2 million EBITDA impact.

Okay. Appreciate it. And just thinking about the cost out, it looks like it's mostly contained to SkyCity Auckland and the corporate costs. Are you able to provide guidance on the FY '27 corporate cost line? And then just thinking about Auckland, maybe you can set the framework on how we should think about margins, like a range would be really helpful given the moving parts?

Yes, I'll cover the cost part and Callum can cover the margin part. We're not giving guidance on the exact cost in detail at this point, mainly because the large proportion of it comes from people-related costs, and we are still in a consultation process, and it would be rude of me to presuppose what that outcome would be. But it will be a combination of people-related costs and third-party spend. Callum, on the margins.

Yes. David, so look, on margins for Auckland, obviously, we saw a drop in '26, 3 factors there, obviously, one, introduction of MCP, so therefore, the lower gaming revenue, impact of fuel and then obviously, the opening of the NZICC and what you'd sort of call a soft opening in the first few months, not the traditional business that we would expect to see in a sort of 4-month period. So we would hope looking into this year, that margin will improve demonstrably on the back of NZICC operations, the larger international conferences beginning to come through and that on spend, albeit as Jason has alluded to previously, we do see growth in non-gaming outstripping gaming growth. And obviously, that comes at a lower margin than gaming.

Yes. Okay. And just to clarify, does that margin guidance of the improvement include the impact of the Grand Hotel?

Not at this point. until we've concluded.

Okay. And sorry, one final question for me. Just on the online piece, I'm hoping you can share some thoughts around the license cost potential. I assume that you're going to bid for 3 as well. And then just to round it out, just your thoughts or aspirations on market share and just your confidence in the market size because you're talking north of $1 billion now. I think back in early 2025, you were speaking to a $700 million market. So it's moved up quite significantly from there. So any comments around those parts would be helpful?

David, I'll take that one. I'll start with market size. Yes, the information that I've shared this morning has come from the Department of Internal Affairs and some research that they commissioned. So you're right, the market has grown significantly over the last 2 years to 3 years. The growth rate is double-digit percentages. In terms of license costs, we know there's going to be up to 15 licenses that they're going to be awarded through an auction process. That auction process is going to result in everyone paying the same price. We expect that other bidders like ourselves will take a very disciplined and rational approach that the price paid at auction will be relative to the value that we all believe from getting into the market and the returns that we can deliver. We haven't provided any specific information on what we think a license could be worth. As you would obviously understand that we're about to enter a competitive bidding process, and we wouldn't want to tip our hand there. The third thing I think you asked me was just around market share. Look, we haven't provided any further color on that at the moment. We believe we're well positioned in the market. We think that we've got the opportunity to be the local hero, the New Zealand company offering online casinos for New Zealanders. We've been here for 30 years. We understand the regulatory environment. We understand New Zealanders quite well. So we're very optimistic and excited about what this opportunity presents us. I just want to underscore, though, we're going to take a very disciplined approach to this in terms of thinking through how we move forward through auction and if successful, through investment in the early phases of the market opening.

Got it. I appreciate that. But is the aspiration that you bid for 3 licenses, though?

Look, much of it is going to depend on the value of the licenses, David. So we're currently working our way through and evaluating those things at the moment.

We will now take the next question from the line of Paul Koraua from Forsyth Barr.

Maybe just picking up on online. I think it was quite encouraging to hear that you have a number of return hurdles set between you and the Board in terms of how much you're willing to spend. I guess my question is, is one of those return hurdles going to be based on the amount you want to pay for the license? And if you think about what you've talked about with resetting the business between land and online, it sounds like you're -- there's a little bit of presupposition that you are going to bid and win the license. So maybe just a comment on that.

Yes, I'll take the first part of that, Paul, and then I'll hand over to Blair to talk about how we're approaching the investment. The operating reset that we're going through at the moment is as much about reacting to the historical structural changes in our earnings due to regulatory shifts as well as getting ourselves fit for the future as well. That does obviously presuppose a world that we're involved in the online market, but also potentially not as well. We want to make sure that our land-based business is positioned well to offer great experiences for our customers regardless of whether we're in the online market as well.

Yes. And just picking up the return hurdles, as Jason touched on, a rational market is going to say there is a cost of entry called an online license. And then there are cash investments that you need to make to market your brands, acquire the customer and ultimately down the line, return -- retain the customer. And so we've got a raft of scenarios that we're playing out on what each one of those features may or assumptions might look like into the future. And then we put that through, as you'd expect, a normal cash flow model, discount that back compared to the returns that we definitely want above our cost of capital and any other investment options in front of us that could deliver same or potentially better returns, particularly in the land-based world. So it is complex at the moment. We are all playing a guessing game. And that's why it's been a bit challenging for us to be able to give guidance given timing is uncertain, the number of participants in the auction is uncertain, what the cost of the license will be. The one thing that we are probably better off is given that the online market does exist, we do know how current New Zealand players do respond to things like acquisition offers and retention offers, reactivation offers.

Appreciate that color. Maybe just secondly, moving on to Auckland. I think that's a business that's had a decent amount of disruption recently with City Rail Link, MCP, even NZICC finally opening, but all of that stuff seems to be behind us now or nearing completion. Can you just sort of talk to what part of that business you think there is significant room for improvement and where you think that's going to come from and what you guys can sort of do outside of waiting for the cycle to turn? I know cost out is one of them, but if there's anything else you can point towards?

Yes, you're right. Auckland has seen its fair share of disruption. We're obviously really thrilled getting the convention center opening and early performance has been encouraging there that Callum spoke to. CRL opens next month and the city is starting to get a little bit of a buzz back, which is quite nice. The here is very much leaning into the visitor economy, and there's a lot of encouraging initiatives in that regard. I'll hand over to Callum to perhaps talk about a number of things that he sees around the property.

Yes. Paul, look, first off, February, in particular, we really started to see what you're talking about, that what could we be post-recession with NZICC opening, et cetera. And then obviously, things were derailed a bit from March onwards. So look, we feel optimistic about the opportunity that Auckland has. You pointed out the disruption the entire city has had. That's certainly coming to much more of an end once CRL opens on the 13th of September. But for us, moving into this year, the obvious opportunity of that visitation through the NZICC -- their ability to drive hotel rate, which, as we know, rate once we've already above a sort of 80% occupancy, let's call it, has a very good margin in the hotels. We -- you'll remember, we invested 18-odd months ago in the production kitchen, not an insignificant amount of money to really make sure we could drive margin in F&B. And in a really tough market, the team has grown that margin to close to 20%. So we really see the ability to, especially with the NZICC, maximize that opportunity. We've got some opportunities, as Blair talked to, with some conservative and cautious capital expenditure, we think, to offer some really good customer initiatives, particularly around that sort of Level 3 area of the casino that links directly in with the NZICC. So hotels, yes, tower was hopefully growing international visitation into Auckland, but then certainly from gaming, we've lapped now a year of MCP. We've learned a lot. We'd like to think we've rebased that business, and we'd like to think that there's growth potential there.

Awesome. That's really good color. Maybe just last 2 for me on capital. Now the CapEx slide, I thought was good. It has a lot more color on there. I think the thing that sort of jumped out to me is you had -- you're talking to growth CapEx sort of coming to an end. And if you look at your bars, your maintenance CapEx is much lower than your forward guidance suggests. And maybe just sort of squaring that away. I know you talked about a bit of catch-up spend, but just eyeballing that chart, it looks like there's a decent bit more to come?

Yes. We didn't break out FY '27 into the buckets yet, mainly because we're still waiting to see exactly how online will play out. In those bars, the gray bar is the $10 million NZICC retention payment. That is technically growth. hopefully, touch wood, the final payment on that investment. And then there is some, I'll call it, lumpy/catch-up CapEx, particularly in Adelaide relating to the railway building. That building is an awesome brilliant building, but it's old. And it just -- it needs some investment to keep it going, and that shows up why the gray bar is probably not what I'd call a normal year yet. But you'll see in the outer years, we're showing the direction of travel as some of that catch-up CapEx falls away. The other one that we're working through in real time in conjunction with our cost-out program is exactly what that level of expenditure might need to be to deliver the customer and process improvements. Under accounting rules, it might slip between CapEx and OpEx, particularly if we start leveraging a lot more SaaS rather than in-house application development.

Awesome. That makes a lot of sense. And then maybe just the last one from me. You talked to $275 million to $300 million of gross proceeds. You now have said that you're looking at what you do with Adelaide. Potentially, if you think of divesting that asset, you could get to a point where you've got no interest-bearing debt or no debt at all on the balance sheet. And that can be a good thing. But I guess from the market, what comfort can you give us that where those dollars go is in a place that can deliver the best risk-adjusted return for shareholders and not put in other places?

Yes, good call out. At this point, it's too early to say. For a start, we're just commencing the Adelaide review. So we don't know how that plays out. And so therefore, it would be presumptive of me to make any comments on what we may or may not do with the funds given that, that is very early in the process. And then when we set out with the original $200 million goal back in August last year, we didn't assume lower earnings related to Middle East conflict and lower discretionary spend. So once we get on the other side of the online license auction, once we get on the other side of completing the Grand Hotel, I'll be sitting down with the Board working out what are the right balance sheet settings moving forward, and we'll provide update to the market and investors at that time.

We will now proceed to take our next question from the line of Adrian Allbon from Jarden.

We just crossed over. The first question, maybe it starts with Callum actually. Just focusing on Auckland, the drop that you noticed with the Middle East and the fuel price, like can you give us -- like hopefully, with the benefit of card to play, can you give us a sense of what sort of buckets of customers were the most affected?

Adrian, yes, very easily. It was mass gaming visitation from the local drive market, and it was a number of visits. So when they actually came, they were still spending the same time and the same amount of money with us, but they were just visiting less. So that's why the key initiatives we put into the market were around parking and around F&B deals.

Okay. So it wasn't necessarily -- so to summarize that, it was the frequency of the visit and the mass, not the spend level. And once you sort of comp them with parking and F&B, they were happy to come back a little bit more frequently.

Correct.

Okay. Just staying in this area, like I know you haven't provided guidance, but if I kind of throw forward some building blocks that we might be thinking about, like it feels like your sort of fourth quarter EBITDA that you're sort of signaling is just short of $40 million. And you said that, that's sort of a level that you're experiencing in the first quarter. So if I sort of annualize that, we're talking at close to -- well, sort of $156 million to $160 million is the first building block we can make a judgment as to how long that lasts. Is the cost out number of $30 million, is that a gross number? Or is that a net number?

It's a net number.

Okay. Cool. All right. So we're sort of at, broadly speaking, $185 million to $190 million. Is there any other sort of building blocks going the other way or that we should kind of be thinking about?

Yes. The big one, which we're uncertain as to the timing is the online. So as you can imagine, when the online market opens and depending on how many months that is, we'll have a different profile of revenue and costs associated with that. And like any new market opening, the first few months are expected to be a drag on earnings. And so that's the negative building block using your parlance.

And just -- sorry, just on that, I didn't think you -- okay, so it might actually be open in the second half of this year is what you're saying?

Yes. Yes. It actually has to be open, Adrian. The legislation requires licenses to be issued and all operators to be up and running by 1 June.

Okay. All right. So that's the other shout out that we should think about just in that mix.

Yes that's right.

Just in terms of -- just a couple of housekeeping ones. Like on the asset monetization, you've talked in gross proceeds. What sort of -- do you have a sort of a crayon around what sort of like any potential tax implications like you have called out there, what the net proceeds might be? What are we sort of talking?

Yes. The big tax bill or depreciation clawback is likely on the grant. And so that is not a small number given that the way that we currently account for it is at sort of cost that we don't revalue the grant, not all of the grant. And so there will be a tax bill. We're working through the quantum of that. We're working through other potential offsetting tax benefits that we might get from other transactions. And the timing of the cash payment of that is more likely FY '28 because it will show up in our FY '27 tax returns. So we're just working through that. Obviously, the structuring options come into transactions for how you might seek to minimize tax impost.

Okay. So from our perspective, gross proceeds will largely flow into '27 and any leakage will happen in '28 on the tax side?