Smartgroup Corporation Ltd (SIQ) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and thank you for standing by. My name is Regina and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the SIQ Half Year 2023 Results Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Scott Wharton, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Regina. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call today. My name is Scott Wharton, and I am the Managing Director and CEO of Smartgroup. Joining me on the call today is Anthony Dijanosic, our Chief Financial Officer; and Sarah Haas, our Chief Operating Officer. First, I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I'm speaking to you, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. As this event is broadcast nationally, I would also like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the various lands on which you all joined this call. I recognize their continuing connection to land, waters and culture and pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging. Today, I will cover some initial observations from my first weeks as CEO and the key headlines of the results. Anthony will then cover the highlights for the half year to June 2023, provide an overview of our financial performance and share some more detail regarding what we are seeing in terms of electric vehicles. Sarah will then take you through some key operational performance details and progress on the rollout of our car leasing port. I will then share with you some details regarding what we are seeing so far for the second half. But before we get into those details, I would like to thank Tim Looi for his dedication and service to Smartgroup over the past 14 years and for helping to make my transition into the role of CEO a smooth one. We all wish him well for the future. Now let's turn to Page 2 of the investor presentation. For the first half of 2023, Smartgroup delivered a solid financial result recording NPATA of $29.4 million. The business has good momentum, recording revenue, EBITDA and NPATA growth versus the second half of last year and letting demand remains strong. Our financial performance and high level of cash generation has enabled us to declare a fully franked dividend of $0.155 per share, representing a payout ratio of 70% of NPATA. My first few weeks at Smartgroup has confirmed what I saw from the outside. The company has an impressive focus on customer service and has made solid progress on streamlining and digitizing operations. From the client discussions I've had to date, it is apparent that the Smartgroup team has built strong relationships with our clients. I can see that the team is passionate about what they do, helping Smartgroup's clients improve the lives of their employees. In recent years, Smartgroup has started investing in technology and operational foundations, which will support ongoing improvement in service offerings and customer outcomes. The result of this hard work and commitment to our clients positions Smartgroup as a market leader in the salary packaging and novated leasing markets. We have highly resilient earnings and an enviable record of cash flow generation as evidenced by Smartgroup's long history of paying out fully franked dividends to our shareholders. This is backed by a capital-light business model and a strong balance sheet. With the introduction of new government EV incentives, the trust we have built with employer clients and their employees means we can play an important role in our clients' e-mobility and ESG agendas. This includes assisting their employees to make informed decisions in their personal EV transition. I'm looking forward to working with the Smartgroup team to deliver its next phase of growth as well as sustainable returns for our shareholders. I'll now hand over to Anthony to take you through the half 1 highlights.

Thanks, Scott, and it's good to be with you all on the call today. Turning to Page 4. We're pleased with our performance for what's been a half year that's had some challenges. Having said that, we're seeing positive developments regarding some of the headwinds we've been dealing with for a while. Vehicle supply is stabilizing with improvements in certain makes and models. The tightness in the labor market is less of an issue and interest rate rises have slowed. These positive developments are now translating to top and bottom line growth. This can be seen in the meaningful revenue and earnings uplift when comparing to the second half of last year. The summary of our first half performance is as follows. First, we delivered NPATA of $29.4 million. Revenue of $116.6 million is 3% higher than PCP and 5% higher than last half off the back of higher settlement volumes. EBITDA and NPATA are lower than PCP, reflecting higher operating costs, but the 7% EBITDA uplift and 2% NPATA uplift on half 2 last year shows that we have built momentum. Regarding operating costs specifically, like many businesses and as we've previously flagged, we've seen both wage and non-wage inflation over the last 12 to 18 months. At the same time, is taking concrete actions to mitigate that cost pressure. We have continued to invest in our revenue-generating areas. This investment will ensure we take advantage of the strong leasing demand we are seeing. While we see the cost of this investment in the short term, the revenue benefit should largely begin to flow through later this year and into next year. Second, we continue to generate a good level of leasing demand. Leasing leads grew 27% versus PCP and 20% versus the second half of 2022. We also recorded a further $1 million increase in the new lease vehicle order pipeline revenue to $20 million. Pleasingly, as a result of this leasing momentum and car supply now stabilizing, we are again growing the number of novated leases under management. This is the first time we've seen growth in novated leases under management since supply issues began in late 2020. Third, demand for electric vehicles is high, following the passing of the federal government electric car discount policy late last year. The policy enables customers to get into new EVs in a cost-effective manner. Electric vehicles made up over 1/4 of all of our new car lease quotes, orders and settlements for the half. As more lower-priced EVs come into the Australian market, we expect this to grow further. There's relatively good availability for the EVs that we have been launched to the Australian market and we're seeing some promising results. Now by way of example, EVs represented almost half of our corporate segment new cost settlements in June. Now traditionally, our corporate segment has seen modest novated leasing uptake. However, the government policy appears to be activating this segment. We have hundreds of corporate clients and are well-positioned to help their employees get into the EV that is right for them. I'll share more details on this later in the presentation. Fourth, we are seeing positive results from our car leasing portal in the form of a 35% uplift in quotes from our pilot clients. This digital tool enables our customers to self-serve a leasing quote with us 24/7 365 days a year. We now have around 200 clients live and we'll progressively roll this tool out across our client base. Sarah will share more details on this later in the presentation. And finally, our capital-light business model means we continue to generate a strong level of free cash flows. After-tax operating cash flows were at 101% of NPATA. As mentioned by Scott, this strong cash flow and our low debt levels have allowed the Board of Directors to declare an interim ordinary fully franked dividend of $0.155 per share. This represents a payout ratio of 70% of NPATA. Turning to the profit and loss on Page 6, you'll see that we achieved a modest revenue growth versus PCP. However, the 5% increase from the last half is more significant and demonstrates the momentum we have. This was primarily driven by increases in settlement volume and leasing yield. The increase in settlement has been aided by vehicle supply stabilizing and Sarah will cover that as well in a little more detail shortly. Now the revenue we booked excludes the $1 million increase in the open order pipeline as we only record revenue on settlement of novated leases. As mentioned, our total order pipeline is around $20 million now. These open vehicle orders will translate to revenue as vehicle supply improves. Now novated leasing resource levels have been increased to meet the demand we are seeing, including from the increase in EV inquiries. In addition and as previously disclosed, inflation has come through on the staff cost line primarily to keep us in line with market pay rates. Cost management continues to be a focus in the months ahead. Further, as vehicle supply improves, we'll see less rework, which will improve efficiency. Our operating EBITDA margin is strong at 40% and that's in line with half 2 of last year. With the actions to manage the cost base, our margins should remain strong. You'll also see that net profit after tax and amortization and NPAT have now largely converged. So to explain that, I draw your attention to the amortization line and the add-backs below the NPAT line. These have reduced as acquired intangible assets are now almost fully amortized. Amortization for half 2 will primarily relate to capitalized IT development costs, so will not be added back to our profit as part of our NPATA calculation. The NPATA add-backs related to amortization will remain negligible in the absence of further acquisitions. Page 7, again highlights our strong cash flow conversion at 101% of NPATA. This is lower than last year, where we negotiated a one-off upfront payment of future performance fees from St. George. This payment was on completion of the transition of novated lease funding to other financiers. And I would also note that we are again earning a modest amount of interest. However, as a result of higher interest rates, our interest cost has also increased. Capitalized IT development costs have reduced from $6.4 million to $0.3 million for the half. This was the result of increased use of internal resources as previously flagged. The timing of delivery of the current projects in the portfolio has also been a factor. We also continue to provide a small amount of on-balance sheet fleet funding as part of our ongoing pilot. And we expanded that pilot from 12 to 25 organizations during the half and have now funded around 300 fleet vehicles. Our fleet offering continues to resonate with clients. The balance sheet on Page 8 shows that we ended the half with a small net debt position of $40.3 million at 0.4x leverage. This follows the payment of $18.5 million in special dividends in March this year. The 2023 interim dividend declared amounts to $20.7 million to be paid in September. And with that payment, we forecast our net debt position to remain low around 0.5x EBITDA. The business is well-positioned for the half year, at the half year. We have a strong cash-generative business model, together with a conservative balance sheet with minimal debt. We're seeing some good trends in terms of EV adoption. We're taking well-balanced actions to manage our cost base, both of which have resulted in earnings momentum. Turning to Page 9. And now that EVs have become a meaningful contributor to our financial results, I'll go into a little more detail regarding what we're seeing. The introduction of the federal government electric car discount policy in November '22 provide substantial savings to our novated leasing customers. In February and May this year, we provided some detail regarding this impact, the impact of the legislation on the EV demand in our cost base and these positive trends have continued. Now when the policy was first introduced, there were some questions as to whether the interest would convert into orders. And you could see from the top graph on this slide that EV quotes accounted for over 1/4 of total new car lease quotes in the half and that figure continues to grow. And for half 2, EV quotes increased to around 1/3 of new vehicle quotes. The bottom graph shows the big demand for EVs coming from all clients, but particularly from the corporate and government customers where in June, EV quotes were 45% and 42%, respectively, of new car quotes. In recent months, there have been a few EVs coming to the market below $40,000. And as more of those become available, we expect the level of interest in hospitals and PVIs to increase. We have a large number of customers in those client segments that are already familiar with salary packaging. As cheaper EVs coming to the market at the price points we currently see cars purchased in these segments, this will provide us with a significant novated leasing opportunity. Now our early data indicates that quote-to-order conversion rates for EVs are in line with that of ICE vehicles, demonstrating good customer commitment. It's early days for the new government policy is making EV ownership more affordable, is encouraging uptake and increasing the range of EVs available to Australian consumers. On the following page, we have provided details regarding what we are seeing for orders and settlements. And you can see by the solid purple line in both graphs that EVs are approaching half of our new car orders and settlements in the corporate segment. And that the government segment dashed yellow line is not too far behind. You can also see that the other segments, while lower are growing as well. As I've mentioned, as cheaper EVs come into the market, this will provide us with a significant novated leasing opportunity. Now when you compare those graphs to the previous slide, you can see that the conversions from quote to order are in line with non-EVs. Basically, you can see that EVs are making up a similar proportion of our new vehicle quotes as they are orders. While EVs made up around 16% of our total settlements for the half, so that's inclusive of refinances and used cars. This was not a significant driver of year growth. Although EVs generally represent higher vehicle values, the yield we are seeing is largely in line with that of non-EVs. Now that's largely due to pricing competition and the nature of the buyers in the corporate and government sectors. Overall, novated yields for the half are up 2% versus PCP and the last half with some supply and renegotiation benefits flowing through. Now Sarah will take you through some operational highlights.

Thank you, Anthony. Turning to Page 12. We recorded an increase in uptake of salary packages to $385,000 off the back of both organic growth and the onboarding of new clients. The stabilizing vehicle supply has seen our novated leases under management grow again for the first time since the onset of COVID, which is particularly pleasing. The vehicle supply headwinds we have faced has meant that our novated vehicles under management is artificially low due to deliveries being held up in the pipeline from supply chain delays. The vehicle supply shortage has also led to more customers paying out their novated leases at lease end. When car supply normalizes, we expect to see more cars being delivered and customers choosing to change over current vehicles for new vehicles. This should increase the rate of growth in leases under management. Finally, on the right, our fleet managed vehicles have been largely stable in spite of the ongoing vehicle supply constraints. Our funded lease pilot program has been expanded from 12 to 25 clients. This is an offering that is resonating and strengthening our client relationships. Turning to Page 13. We are seeing positive results across our novated leasing business. Total leads for the half are up 27% from the prior year, primarily driven by an increase in digital leads that are up by around 1/3, but we are also seeing good growth from our inbound and field channels as well. At 30 June, our level of open leads is 45% higher than the same point last year. We have been investing in further resources in our novated leasing team and we will be well-positioned to take advantage of this additional demand if vehicle supply continues to stabilize. The results from this investment should flow through later in half 2 and into 2024. New leased vehicle orders saw further improvement in the half and are now in line with pre-COVID levels. While the average time from order to delivery is still well above historic levels, the relative stability, vehicle supply means that increased order levels are driving an increase in settlement volume. Notwithstanding that, our vehicle order pipeline backlog grew by around $1 million in the half. Our total order pipeline now sits at $20 million. As Anthony mentioned, we have seen an increase in yield, both compared to PCP and the last half and are seeing some modest deal benefits flow through off the back of some supplier renegotiations. Turning to Page 14. We have shown this graph previously, depicting how the average vehicle order to delivery time frame for Smartgroup's top 30 car models has moved over time. Each half, we also update the graph to reflect any changes in the makeup of the top 30 models. And what you are seeing here is a slight improvement that is driven by a change in mix. We have a number of EVs with good availability that unsurprisingly have come into our top 30, which has seen the delivery time frame for the top 30 improve. However, there is still significant variation in delivery time frames by make and model across our book. And as a whole, those time frames are relatively static. The current average delivery time frame for our top makes and models remains much longer than the prior year and pre-COVID. As previously highlighted, the lengthy and also changing delivery schedules have caused additional rework in our sales pipeline in the form of credit re-approvals and logistical work and we've had to increase resourcing to continue to meet this additional demand. Although stabilizing, we think supply constraints are likely to continue throughout the year. Moving to Page 15. You will see the dotted vehicle order line and solid settlement line on the graph converging in quarter 2 of this year. We last saw that in mid-2020 prior to the onset of vehicle supply issues. This is primarily a result of the stabilizing vehicle supply environment. We are seeing relatively good supply of electric vehicles. And if that continues and EVs as a proportion of our business continues to grow, we should see our overall sales cycle shorten. Pleasingly, despite the rising interest rate environment, our order cancellation rates have remained at mid-single-digit percentages. Our credit approval rates also remain high at the mid-90%. A key focus continues to be educating customers so that they understand how novated leases can make even more sense in a higher interest rate environment. Turning to Page 16. In late February this year, we rolled out our car leasing portal to around 100 clients, enabling customers to interact with us after hours, expanding and extending the sales opportunity. What we have seen from those clients is a 35% uplift in quote levels since going live with the portal. In April and May, we then went live with around over 100 clients and early data indicates a meaningful uplift in quote volumes from that group of clients as well. The new clients currently live on the portal account for around 25% of all our new lease quote volume and we will be progressively rolling clients onto the portal. We continue to enhance our car leasing portal, focusing on delivering a better customer experience. This continuous improvement process, together with a progressive rollout to clients, will ensure a lower customer cost of acquisition for novated leasing over the longer term. I'll now hand back to Scott.

Thank you, Sarah. Before moving on further, I thought I would share with you some early thoughts and near-term plans. After only a short time as CEO, it is clear to me that the company has a great client base and highly capable people. These and the company's recent investments in technology provided with strong foundations for the future. Our position as a leader in the salary packaging and novated leasing markets is one that I will be looking to build on in the months and years ahead so that we continue to deliver great customer and shareholder outcomes. I'm excited about working with the Smartgroup team to plan and deliver its next phase of growth as well as sustainable returns for our shareholders. As part of that process, we will look to, firstly, understand current and future customer needs and how we better meet those needs. That will include, but it's certainly not limited to how we will build on the strong demand for EVs. Secondly, we will identify areas of growth and what it will take for us to deliver, including what that means for our supply chain relationships. Thirdly, we will articulate the capabilities, including technology that we will need. Smartgroup has made investments in digitization over recent years. Success will require us to further scale and evolve our digital platform. And finally, we will map our changes to how we operate to drive sustainable growth, including identification of productivity opportunities across the group. I will share my perspectives with you at our full year results day in February, if not sooner. Turning to Page 18 and in summary. We have grown salary packaging numbers, both organically and from new client wins. We've achieved strong leasing lead growth in the half. Our elevated level of open novated lease represents a good opportunity for continued momentum. Vehicle delivery time frames appear to be stabilizing, though with variability across different makes and models. Over the last 2 years, Smartgroup has rolled out a number of important digital assets, more sophisticated leasing and salary packaging calculators, new websites and educational content to help people self-educate on the benefits of salary packaging and a new appointment booking tool that helps our field-based sales team to engage with prospective customers more effectively. We have now added to that list our car leasing portal launched early in the half. We are pleased with the early progress, and we'll be rolling out this digital portal to our broader client base. Interest in electric vehicles is high, following the passing of the government policy last year and that interest is converting into orders and settlements. When I've been out speaking with our clients over my first weeks, there is a lot of discussion about e-mobility. In particular, clients want to know how we can help their employees transition to EVs, knowing it will also help their organization's ESG goals. They also see Smartgroup playing an important role in helping their employees make choices that are right for them personally as they transition to EV ownership. From a financial perspective and turning to Page 19, we have delivered a solid half 1 result with revenue and earnings growth over the second half of last year. Our profitability has been adversely impacted by the continued car supply constraints and higher operating costs. This is partially as a result of us investing in resourcing to take advantage of the strong level of leasing demand we are seeing. Our capital-light business model continues to generate strong cash flows with conversion at 101% of NPATA. This has enabled us to declare an interim fully franked dividend of $0.155 per share, reflecting a payout ratio of 70% of NPATA. Looking forward and moving to Page 20. We are expecting a good level of growth from our fleet business. And novated leasing demand in the early stages of half 2 continues to be stronger than last year. We will continue to take sensible measures to manage the cost base in the second half. Moving forward, we will be focused on investing in our digital assets to drive better customer experience and engagement and lowering our cost to serve and cost to acquire. My first weeks with Smartgroup have been exciting and positive. A big thanks to the Smartgroup team, our clients and our partners. I've enjoyed meeting many of you in recent weeks and look forward to engaging with you all more very soon. With that, Regina, I'll hand back to you for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from the line of Scott Murdoch with Morgans.

Just a couple to kick off with. Just interested in a little bit more color, if we can, on the current order take. I guess you've given us the up 12% like-for-like and we know the EV composition, but just interested in a bit more color around the sort of the conversion of the existing customers coming off lease, I guess, what the penetration of new and existing clients are in that order take versus sort of your core business versus reignited new clients?

Sure. Thanks for the question, Scott. Anthony speaking. So certainly, what we had seen, I guess, over the past so it was a bit of a reduction in our retention rate at end lease. Certainly, when people get to the end of the lease and there are cars available, they are more likely to pay out rather than go for another lease. That's somewhat stabilized. And what we're seeing in terms of order rates is we're seeing a really good mixture of existing clients and also new clients, some of which is coming from EV interest. And as mentioned, the EV legislation is really stimulating and activating that corporate segment and we're certainly seeing an uptick both in that and government as well.

Just secondly on conversion, I think you mentioned here that the EVs are converting at your typical rate. I'm not sure if there's any mention in terms of how you're going with conversion. Is conversion on whole improving? And I guess, when we look at leads versus orders, I mean, ultimately, if your conversion remains stable, those orders should match the lead growth you're seeing. So just interested in some color there, please.

So certainly, on a channel-by-channel basis, the conversion rates are pretty stable. We will get some changes in overall conversion based on change in mix in leads, but by and large, the conversion rates we're seeing are relatively stable.

I'll just ask one more because I know you have one on the line. Certainly, your comments are interesting around no growth in the yield on the EV coming through at a higher average transaction value. I mean, I guess that implies that your percentage on those vehicles is a lot lower. You mentioned the competitive funding environment, I guess, also, there was a call out around the supply negotiation flowing through. Just interested if we can have a bit more information on that supply renegotiation and also I guess, what kind of deductions you're having to take to convert the EV and the EV customer versus the traditional business?

Yes. So for commercial reasons, I won't go into the detail of supply renegotiation, but it is something we expect to be a recurring benefit there. When it comes to EVs, that's an interesting question. And the nature of corporate customers and government customers is such that they are probably a bit more, I think, sophisticated when it comes to financial matters, et cetera. And so they do look for sharper deals, but not just that they're also less inclined to buy additional product on top. So we see that the product yield is lower on those vehicles. But obviously, the higher vehicle value sort of offsets that and that's why we're seeing an equivalent [ IC ] yield to EV yield.

Your next question will come from the line of Tim Lawson with Macquarie.

Maybe just a couple to clarify from the answer you gave to Scott before I asked my question. So just trying to understand if the sort of retention rate is down, why is that sort of new car mix not increasing above 74% and therefore and also why is it not helping the yield?

So the comment about the retention rate being down. So we saw -- the comment was actually that it sort of stabilized. It had been down on what it was historically, but it's been lower for some time. So that's not necessarily a factor in any -- driving any yield for the last 6 months.

[Indiscernible] versus 3 years ago, for example.

Yes.

Could you just comment on the ICE volumes new versus used? It just seems to be the numbers you've given us on EVs implies there's negative growth in novated ICE volumes?

Certainly, we're seeing a mixture of substitution and new customers. So overall, the numbers are growing. We're seeing growth. But certainly, the government policy is designed to encourage substitution and that's certainly what we're seeing. But it's not necessarily just passive. So when someone calls in and they're inquiring about a vehicle, they might come into our call center and our sales team and be inquiring about an ICE vehicle. But part of the education process of our sales team is to let them know about the new government legislation and inform them about the benefits. And in those conversations, we are seeing people who might have actually wanted to get an ICE vehicle that actually sign up for an EV deal because they realize it's good for them.

Okay. So is that -- so can you just clarify that ICE volumes titles on new and used are still growing or flat at least?

No. So the ICE volumes are sort of flattish. They're relatively stable to possibly slightly down, but nothing significant, really.

And I think that, Tim, it's Scott here. I think it's beginning to get in the half also [indiscernible]. But as Anthony pointed out, overall, orders are up and that trend's continuing. But what we're seeing coming through aggressively is the intended impact of the government policy.

So as more models come in, maybe to sort of maybe hit the price point of the customers that are traveling in health and education at the moment, are you anticipating an increase in penetration into those clients or are you thinking the substitution offsets that?

Only brief comment on that and then I'll pass back to Anthony. But certainly, as we look forward, Tim, into the rest of this year and into next year and we've got that models like MG4 out to the next year, for example, the VW ID3 a better and more affordable price points coming into market. We see that, that's obviously, we talk to our customers and we look across the various segments that we support. But that's going to make EV transition far more accessible for those segments.

Yes. And just on that, I think if you think about the nature of the buyers in hospitals and education and charities, a lot of them don't buy new cars. What they might buy a 3, 4, 5-year-old used cars. Now as the government policy does what it intends and more cheaper EVs come into the Australian market, suddenly, there's people that have never really been able to afford a decent new car will be able to afford a new EV. And so we see that as a really good opportunity if we can execute it well on that.

Yes. And is that part of the reason why you've changed that chart to have a percentage of EVs just as of new cars in the sense that obviously, EV can't be in that used bucket yet?

Yes. Well, especially because we're very early on in terms of the new legislation and it was backdated to mid last year. So effectively, what is -- what it applies to is new EVs. And so we thought it would be important to show people how are things tracking through the actual pipe. So we've showed the quotes based on just new, we've shown the orders based on new and the settlements based on new. Just so you get a very good view as to actually what's happening in terms of the market that the EV legislation pertains to.

Just 2 final questions from me. You called out the leads from the new sort of pilot customers or new portal customers. Can you just comment or is it too late to comment on the conversion that you're seeing? Is that also holding up with what you're seeing across the rest of the business?

It is very early in terms of conversion. So as you know, the length of the sales cycle for novated is quite long. So we're seeing, I guess, conversion in terms of some of the really early quotes, but far too early to give a really good view as to what a mature conversion rate looks like.

And just last question for me, maybe to Scott, just with the increase in volumes that you're seeing and obviously assessing the business as being the new CEO, how are you seeing the sort of capability to manage the volumes that are coming through? And is that smart future investment going to provide the efficiencies you need to manage the volumes or there's more need to get done?

Yes. Thanks, Tim. Good question. And obviously, early days for me and I'm taking a careful look at everything in our current operations and I touched on and I could get my views together, we'll come back at the right time and share perspectives on what the future before us looks like and how we're going to execute on that. But near term, between now and end of the year, as Anthony touched on, we've made investment in additional capacity out leasing area to be well-positioned to, as optimistically back into this year, I was like cautiously optimistic back end of this year, if supply chain continues to stabilize. As we said, we see supply has started to stabilize. It's stabilizing, but we're well-positioned with resourcing to be able to take advantage of continued stabilization through the back end of the year and into 2024.

Your next question comes from the line of Phillip Chippindale with Ord.

Just a couple of questions from me. Just on Slide 10, that EV percentage of new car orders chart on the top right-hand corner. I think I missed the comment earlier, but I just want to capture it. Anthony, I think you said that for the second quarter, the average was just a little bit above 30% of new car orders. Is that right?

Yes, that's correct.

Okay. And then so effectively to calculate the EV percentage of all orders, we're multiplying that number by the 74%, 75% being the percentage for [indiscernible]. Is that right?

Yes, exactly. If you -- well, so you've got what we call 3 different prototypes. We've got new and used that refinance. So the refinance is, as mentioned, about 26%. So you can basically do the math to work out each of the individual components, yes.

Just switching to the cost base. There's obviously been a rise in the cost base, which you've outlined. And I think Sarah mentioned earlier in her comments some extra head count in that -- in the last 6-month period. What does that look like for the next 6 months? Do you feel like your team's at adequate size? Do you still need to invest in some additional head count? Just trying to get a sense of how that cost base changes over the next 6 months or so.

I think at the moment for the volume that we've got coming through in terms of leasing demand, I think we're very -- we are resource now. It did take us a while to get there, but certainly for a good part of this half, we've had some good levels of resourcing.

Last one from me. Just on the capitalized IT costs are pretty modest in the 6 months just gone. Again, can you give us a sense of where that's heading over the balance of the calendar year?

Yes, sure. So certainly, we had a number of projects that are in discovery phase, et cetera. And so there's no CapEx associated with that. They will -- a number of them will move into delivery in that second half. So we will see an uptick. It certainly won't be anything like the order of first half of last year because of the fact that we've changed that delivery model. But I do expect to see something a bit closer to, say, the back half of last year.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Richard Amland with CLSA.

Just had a quick follow-up question on the cost side. Employee benefits was up kind of meaningfully over the year and the half. And then admin and corporate came off a bit. Can you just add a little bit of color to should we expect run rates to remain flat from here or are we still looking at cost inflation on a per head basis?

Sure. Richard, no problem. I might just take a second to explain some of that movement as well. So I called out earlier that we some resourcing in-house as part of the IT delivery model. So previously, we had some external costs about $1 million or so that was flowing through other overheads, which is now actually going through the staff cost line. And that's a result of that change. So that will be an ongoing change in mix. Certainly, when it comes to the rest of the staff cost line, there's probably a 50-50 split between wage inflation and then the number of people we've invested in the leasing areas. So certainly, to the extent that we continue to see that strong leasing demand, we'll need that level of people. In terms of what happens with wage inflation over the course of the next 12 or so months, that's uncertain. But certainly, from a resourcing point of view, where we've got a good level of people now.

So just to confirm my understanding then, so the admin and corporate expenses, that's come off because you used to be plugging through some external IT people that have shifted into the in-house to the full-time employee base.

That's about $1 million a bit. Aside from that, we have been working very hard to ensure we try to lid on costs. And so cost management, active cost management will be a factor into half 2 as well.

[Operator Instructions] We have no further questions at this time. I'll hand the call back over to Scott Wharton for any closing remarks.

Thanks, Regina. Thanks very much for your time today and we look forward to speaking to you all very soon. Have a great day.

That will conclude today's meeting. We thank you all for joining and you may now disconnect.