Smart Parking Limited (SPZ) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Okay. I hope everyone is here. No way of knowing because we're in a virtual meeting. So welcome to everyone that has joined. I'm a bit casual here because I'm in Queensland. Paul is very traditional at the time, which it is, just a casual New Zealand out there, they're normal. That's why I'll introduce the Board members, right? And then we got the lovely Fiona, who is -- who we love dearly. And Jeremy from -- who is isolating in WA probably for the next 5 years before he can [ get in here ]. I'm Chris Morris, and I'm the Chairman of Smart Parking. And I'll be chairing this meeting today. I'd like to introduce my directors, which I've already done. And Richard, I've done as well. And also, I'd like to welcome the company's auditor, Grant Thornton. I'm advised that maybe -- that there's a quorum present. Therefore, the meeting is properly constituted, and I declare the meeting open at 12:00 Queensland time, 1:00 Eastern Standard time. Questions. If shareholders wish to ask questions during the meeting, I confirm that there will be an opportunity before putting any resolutions to the meeting to ask questions of the Board as they relate to the formal items of business of this meeting. [Operator Instructions] Please note that while you can submit questions from now on, I will address all questions at the same time at the relevant stage of the meeting, which will be after all the items of business and proxy positions have been presented. The Notice of Meeting contains details of how to vote and is also shown on the screen. Voting today will be conducted by way of a poll on all items of business. In order to provide you with enough time to vote, I will shortly open voting for all resolutions. Just getting the minutes up on my screen. There, good. At the time, if you are eligible to vote at this meeting, a new polling icon will appear. Selecting this icon will bring up a list of the resolutions and present you with voting options. To cast your vote, simply select one of the options. There is no need to hit a submit or enter button as the vote is automatically recorded. You do, however, have the ability to change your vote up until voting closes. I now declare voting open on all items of business. The polling icon will soon appear. Please submit your votes at any time. I've instructed Lumi to keep the voting open until the conclusion of the Managing Director, Paul Gillespie's business update, after which the poll will close. Following the meeting, votes will be compiled by Lumi and released to the ASX. I now declare voting open on all items of business. Please refer to your screen for a summary of the proxy votes received for each resolution. Where a valid proxy vote has been given to the Chairman without voting instructions, please note that in all cases, I intend to vote in favor of the resolution. Information on how to access the Notice of Meeting and explanatory statement dated 15th of October 2021 was distributed to all shareholders, and I'll take that notice as read. All resolutions contained in the Notice of Meeting and to be put to members today will be displayed on your screen, so I will not read out any proposed resolution. We will now move on to resolution 1, which is the adoption of the remuneration report. The resolution terms and the proxy votes for resolution 1 are now shown on the screen. Are there any questions on this resolution? Nothing, Richard? All right. I'll now put the resolution to a vote. [Voting]

Resolution 2, allocation of equity to Managing Director under the employee share scheme. The resolution terms and the proxy votes for resolution 2 are shown on the screen. Somebody still likes you, Paul. So that's okay. Are there any questions on this resolution? Okay. No questions. I assume questions go to you, do they, Richard?

They do. Yes, there's no questions, Chris.

Right. And I put the resolution to a vote. [Voting]

Resolution 3, approval of 10% placement capacity. The resolution terms and the proxy votes for resolution 3 are shown on the screen. Any questions on this resolution? I'll now put the resolution to a vote. [Voting]

Resolution 4, reelection of Director Fiona Pearse. The resolution terms and proxy votes for the resolution are shown on the screen. Fiona, would you like to say something? That's what we do, I think. Why people -- why you should be a director of this company?

Well, thanks for the notice, Chris. Look, I had a career for about 20 years at large listed companies, BHP and BlueScope Steel, so understand large, complex, global companies and for the last 10 years have been a director of a variety of different companies. I chair the Audit Committee and hopefully will make a fairly strong contribution there and give quite a bit of input and challenge around just growing the business and different ways that we can be driving our profit. Thanks, Chris.

Thank you very much. Sorry to put you on the spot. [ Glad I'm not a candidate ].

No worries, anytime.

It would be very dour and boring maybe if I were that candidate. So are there any questions on this resolution? I'll now put the resolution to a vote. [Voting]

Amendments to the constitution. The resolution terms and the proxy votes for resolution 5 are shown in the screen. Excuse me, what are we changing, Richard?

So Chris, the amendments are all fairly administrative in nature. So for instance, changing the registered office from -- sorry, Western Australia to obviously Victoria and allowing shareholders to use electronic communications. So very administrative in nature.

Right. Thank you. Is there any questions on this resolution? Now I put the resolution to a vote. [Voting]

Just a reminder, the results of the meeting will be released to the ASX later today. I've instructed Computershare, and I'll give them the [ mic ] now, to keep the voting open until the conclusion of our Managing Director, Paul Gillespie's presentation, after which the poll will be closed. We now have completed the matters contained in the notice of the Annual General Meeting of shareholders, and I declare the meeting closed. Our Managing Director, Paul Gillespie, [ help ] himself and he's got to give a presentation. So go for it, Paul.

Thank you, Chris. It's obviously always good to try and talk to our shareholders on a regular basis, as you know. But if you bear me one second, I'll just bring up some notes that I'd like to talk through. And thank you to everybody joining us today at our AGM from what I believe is actually an exciting time in Smart Parking's development. So before we get into these slides, there's a few points I'd just like to clarify. SPZ delivered a resilient performance in FY '21. It was a challenging year with COVID interruptions and lockdowns, as we've all come to know and love, unfortunately. However, it was the deliberate decisions we took during the pandemic that have ensured we've come out of this as a stronger and more efficient company. Those decisions are now paying off. We took advantage of our market-leading technology, our specialist expertise and strong balance sheet to drive accelerated growth and greater returns. Second point I'd like to make is the recovery is well underway. Rebound in the fourth quarter in the U.K. has continued into the first half of FY '22. We've started the current year strongly with pleasing results. We have more sites generating more revenue. And we're delivering operational gearing, which is driving margin growth, and I'll talk more to that later. The third point is we have some new guidance targets. Today, we're releasing guidance for both the first half of FY '22 and a new elevated midterm growth target. These are signals of our strength and confidence and ambition as we move forward from the pandemic. For the first half of FY '22, we expect to report around 64% revenue growth versus PCP and over $4.4 million of EBITDA. Shareholders will remember that we delivered $2.2 million of adjusted EBITDA for the whole of last year. And by June 2025, we expect to have over 1,500 sites under management. That's effectively double where we are today. Again, it's a sign of our increased ambition and capability as we move on from COVID. If we look at FY '21 in review now and to just touch on some of the highlights of FY '21. For us, the year was really a tale of 2 halves with the first half heavily pandemic-affected, then seeing an emerging and strengthening recovery in the second half. U.K. parking services experienced rapid growth as COVID-19 restrictions eased. Q4 PBNs were up 278% versus PCP. And while the recovery helped, it was the disciplined execution of our growth and profitability strategies that really drive these results. We grew the number of sites under management and closed the financial year with 619 sites. You'll see from our recent updates that we've continued to grow this number in the first 4 months of the year, and I'll talk more to this later in the deck. We expanded our addressable markets. And now it's important to understand that we can leverage our core technology and domain expertise into new large addressable markets that have similar regulatory frameworks. With that, we've established the Australian Parking Services business this year, and we already have sites under management in Queensland. We also launched the New Zealand Parking Services business and had 6 sites under management at the 30th of June. These markets are attractive to us and we believe have scope for extended growth. In technology, the business delivered a maiden profit. And whilst this is a reasonable result in such a challenging year, the business adds significant strategic value to the Parking Management operation. The platform facilitates growth and enables our entry into new territories and has a strategic value beyond its own financial contribution. And finally, on this slide, we also managed our costs and capital carefully. Cost saving initiatives reduced overheads by 20%. We also resolved legacy issues, in particular, the VAT dispute. With a cash refund of $2.9 million, we used the proceeds to support a share buyback with $1.1 million spent, an average of $0.17 per share. Looking at the next slide. This shows the recovery underway on this page in our pandemic tracker, the strong recovery in U.K. PBNs and car counts since February when restrictions started to ease in the U.K., in particular. By July, all legal limits on social contact were removed. And the results -- and as a result, we've seen the benefit of the work we've put in during the year. PBNs now exceed our pre-pandemic levels. Given we have 3 drivers -- 3 revenue drivers, PBNs, the number of U.K. sites and then new sites in new territories, the recovery in issuance is clearly significant for us. So moving to the next slide. Let's look at how this momentum has carried us into the first 4 months of FY '22. As I said, we're having a strong start to the new financial year with revenue growth to October at 53%, record margins at 30% EBITDA, which is up 820 basis points, parking services clearly enjoying rapid growth with 758 sites under management as of October 30. By way of an update, recently, we've highlighted with shareholders the new parking bill that's been discussed in the U.K. Parliament. The details of the bill are still being worked on by ministers and industry representatives and will encompass several things like a single appeals process, new -- potentially new charging mechanisms and a single code of practice. Whilst we don't have all the details yet, we see the bill as an important positive driver for long-term industry standards in governance, which will be good for the U.K. parking industry. We will, of course, keep shareholders updated on the progress of this bill as the new information comes out or is available to us. In August, we completed the acquisition of Enterprise Parking Solutions, which added 68 new sites. Disciplined M&A can add to our sites under management, add new technologies and be accretive to earnings for shareholders. We're pleased with the way EPS is performing, and the EPS business will be fully integrated by the half year. As with the U.K. in FY '21, COVID and lockdowns have impacted our early progress in New Zealand -- in the New Zealand and Australian Parking Services business. However, with lockdowns starting to ease, we are pleased to see car counts increase and with that, PBN issuance. Provided we have no more lockdowns, we expect to see the APAC market grow in the second half. Similar with the services operation in APAC, the technology business has been challenged with travel restrictions, which have hampered our ability to install projects. The technology order book still stands at $3.3 million of contracted work, which we expect to deliver in the second half. And finally, on this slide, given we're halfway through Q2 and we have these tailwinds of more sites and ongoing recovery, we are releasing guidance for the first half. At the half year, we expect to deliver $16.4 million to $16.9 million of revenue, which is a 64% increase on PCP using the midpoint, and around $4.4 million to $4.7 million of EBITDA, which is up 223% from PCP. I look forward to reporting these results to shareholders in February. On the October year-to-date slide, you can see some of the headline growth numbers. There are 3 points I'd like to call out here. Number one, operational gearing is coming through. 53% revenue growth and 130% growth in EBITDA, margins are at a record level of 30%. Second point, being cash -- being free cash flow positive, we are able to self-fund our growth strategy. We have cash reserves of $10.3 million and positive free cash flow. Again, the benefits of scale are starting to come through. And the third point, we are on track to have 1,000 sites under management by June 2023. That target is intact and reaffirmed, but we are also starting to raise our sights on further strong growth. Today, we're launching a second target of 1,500 sites under management for the group overall by June 2025. We have confidence in our ability to execute given our technology advantage and industry capabilities. On the next slide, on Slide 8, I won't dwell on this page. But as you can see, it's a good news story. And the sharp recovery from COVID lows are highlighted well here. If we move on to the estate growth slide, please. This page puts our new medium target -- medium-term target into context. It gives me confidence that it's achievable. Over the last 3 and 1/3 years, we've increased our sites by 165%. We've added 472 net new sites, effectively tripling our business. This was mainly organic with a contribution from EPS as well. The new target is roughly double where we are today. So where do we get this growth from? If we look at the next slide, it's our new medium-term target, guidance target. We talked earlier of the revenue drivers, PBN issuance and sites under management. We clearly can't control the issuance, but we are executing a clear growth strategy to increase sites, which in turn will, of course, grow issuance and revenue. We can continue to grow in the U.K. 1,000 sites under management by June 23 is intact. We will also grow the APAC region, where we estimate there to be a potential 5,000 sites across New Zealand and Queensland, plenty of room for sustainable growth. We expect to add 740 sites in the next 3.5 years. You can see here that conservatively, our addressable market is around 50,000 sites. This doesn't include our latest new territory, which we can discuss today. We see a constructive regulatory framework for our technology solution in Germany. We are looking at providing our managed service offering to German landowners and believe that the size of the market are a new opportunity to introduce ANPR as a compelling proposition. I look forward to updating shareholders on the German progress at the half year results in February. Looking now to technology and R&D. As I said earlier, it is our core proprietary technology platform that's enabling us to grow quickly and facilitates our entry into new markets. Our best-in-class platform, SmartCloud, is now used right across the group to manage sensor movements, mobile phone payments, camera image, plate matching and end-to-end compliance management workflow. SmartCloud is built using Google IoT core technology, is completely scalable and will service the group for years to come. It's the flexibility of SmartCloud that gives us the ability to expand customer relationships with the likes of KFC and their click-and-collect project and our municipal customers with the compliance management system. In short, the technology business holds strategic value for SPZ. Let me go to the final slide. Throughout this deck, I've talked about our ambitions of how we will grow the business. However, not only do we have increased growth ambitions, we also know very well it's the continued disciplined execution of our strategies that will drive profitable growth for shareholders. I can assure you this is front of mind for me and the team at SPZ. We have a compelling value proposition for site owners. We can leverage our technology to scale. We know the markets well, and we have the balance sheet strength to fund our growth. As I said at the top of the presentation, it is an exciting time at SPZ, and I thank you once again for your support. That concludes my presentation. We can now open up the lines or take some questions.

So Paul, there's a couple of questions from [ Simon Louis ]. So what are the high-level views on the approximate sites that may be installed for Germany?

Well, it's very, very early days. So I mean, the market is significant. Clearly, Germany is a much bigger market than the U.K. in terms of size and scale and, obviously, GDP in the country. So we do expect it to be large. I mean, there are some -- there are 1 or 2 operators there right now, what I'll call traditional operators, leveraging sort of legacy-type solutions, standard kind of parking management solutions, manual solutions, guys in hi-vis jackets, if you like. Certainly, there's a lot of that going on today. So not much in the way of technology. So we do expect it to be large, but we don't have a full estimate as yet. It's very early days.

Okay? And a follow-up question. So re: packing services in Australia, New Zealand and potentially Europe, what are the anticipated payback or return profiles? Are they similar to the U.K.?

Well, what we're seeing already in APAC and New Zealand, in particular, we're seeing actually better performance from the sites. But again, it's early days. We haven't got that many sites under management. There's only 10 sites that's installed and -- or is it 13 sites installed and up and running in New Zealand. But of course, the early signs are very positive and very good. And of course, there's been an education process obviously happening with our team over there, but -- that's going very well, I'm pleased to say. So I expect that to continue the way it is. But of course, as you get a bigger sample of sites, you'll be able to then see really what the true payback is. U.K. is obviously beneficial because we've got a lot more sites under management. Again, with Australia, quite early days. It's a slightly different framework here in Queensland, I should say. There are some higher costs, but we still believe it's a great opportunity for us. So again, we're monitoring that closely, and we'll be able to talk about those paybacks, I suspect, in the coming months when we talk at the next results meeting, I suspect. And Germany, again, very early days. I mean, slightly -- again, slightly different regulatory framework. I mean, the key for us is to be able to use our technology so we can access car ownership details. So we can send the infringements in the post. That's the model we have in the U.K. that works very well. It's starting to work well in New Zealand. It's starting to take off here in Australia. We believe we can do the same in Germany. So -- but there are other things to think about. So how much did it cost to get the -- keep the details in the first place, how high is the value of the ticket and so on, what's the recoverability like in those jurisdictions. So these are things we're working through right now. And we believe that the opportunity is significant, which is why we want to invest and go and set up in that particular location. But again, early days to give you real hard facts or hard data on what the payback will be in Germany right now.

Thanks, Paul. So another question here from [ Sean ]. For new markets, why not simply use a straightforward SaaS billing model?

Well, obviously, we are -- it doesn't really -- it's not the same type of service. We're obviously an enforcement -- parking enforcement operator. Yes, we've managed car parks on behalf of landowners, retailers, property agents with a view to ensuring there's always somewhere to park for legitimate customers of those particular sites. And so of course, we utilize our technology so that we can issue infringement as and when it's required. And it's a very important part of what we do. Now could we flip that model? So we obviously install everything, issue the tickets but only charge the landowner per ticket. I suspect that won't work because the way the landowners like to have things operate for them is we put the system at our costs. Obviously, we then make our money back through the infringements. So I suspect the landowner wouldn't want to get down that type of route. Sorry, does that answer your...

No other questions in the chat at the moment. So...

Do we have any more questions?

Okay. Well, there's no more questions. I will close the meeting. Okay. Thank you, everyone, for attending, and we'll see you again next year. Bye.

Thanks very much. Good to see you.

Bye.

Bye-bye.