Smartgroup Corporation Ltd (SIQ) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and welcome to the Smartgroup Corporation SIQ FY 2023 Results Release Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] And finally, I would like to advise all participants this call is being recorded. Thank you. I'd now like to welcome Scott Wharton, Managing Director and CEO of Smartgroup to begin the conference. Scott, over to you.

Great, great. Thank you, Gavin, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call today. My name is Scott Wharton, as Gavin mentioned and I'm the Managing Director and CEO of Smartgroup. Joining me on the call today is Anthony Dijanosic, our Chief Financial 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 join this call. I recognize their continuing connection to land, waters and culture and pay my respects to their elders, past and present. We will now turn to Slide 3. Today, I'll start by providing some of the key performance and ESG highlights of 2023. I will then talk to the strategic priorities we have identified for the group and how we will position Smartgroup to unlock more growth in 2024 and beyond. Anthony will then take you through the financials for the full year in more detail, and finally, I will provide a quick trading update. Now let's turn to Slide 5 of the investor presentation. 2023 was a good year for Smartgroup. Revenue increased 12% versus 2022 to $251.6 million, EBITDA increased 7% to $100.3 million and NPATA increased 3% to $63.2 million. We also increased active salary packaging customer numbers to 396,000 at the end of December 2023, an increase of 4% versus December 2022. Novated leases under management increased 6% to 61,100 and fleet managed vehicles increased 16% to 30,400. Strong order levels and stabilizing vehicle supply meant that we increased novated leases settlements by 26%. Demand for novated leasing was strong during the year. We have seen growth in EVs in particular, following the introduction of the federal government electric car discount policy in late 2022. In the second half of 2023, EVs accounted for 41% of our total new car orders. This speaks to the role that Smartgroup plays in helping Australians transition towards a more sustainable future. While the EV share of our novated lease portfolio is growing strongly, internal combustion engine vehicles remain an important part of our business. And in the second half of 2023, the number of ICE vehicles ordered was similar to the first half of the year. Pleasingly, yields increased 9% versus 2022, driven by increasing EV volume, a high proportion of new car leases versus refinancing and supply chain renegotiations. Our solid financial performance and high level of cash generation have enabled the Board to declare a final ordinary dividend of $0.16 per share fully franked and a special dividend of $0.16 per share fully franked, representing 100% of calendar year 2023 NPATA. Now we turn to Slide 6. During the year, we continued to progress our sustainability strategy and delivered various achievements and exceeded our goals in a number of areas. In 2023, we were included for the first time in the global Dow Jones Sustainability Indices. And we were also ranked in the 87th percentile worldwide in the S&P Global ESG score. Both of these outcomes recognized our performance on ESG and we are very proud of our results. We maintained our 40-40-20 gender diversity targets in 2023 and continued to be acknowledged as an Employer of Choice for Gender Equality by WGEA. And we again received the Inclusive Employer recognition from Diversity Council Australia for 2023-'24. Importantly, we continued progress towards our target of net zero carbon emissions from direct operations by 2030 with a significant reduction of 35% across Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions compared to the prior year. In addition, during the year, we adopted our human rights policy and received endorsement for our Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan from Reconciliation Australia. We are also partnering with Supply Nation to further support closing the gap for Australia's indigenous peoples and communities through our procurement. During the year, we continued to invest in our communities through the Smartgroup Foundation with almost $250,000 of grants to 19 charitable courses around Australia. And to help our customers make more sustainable choices, we provide them with vehicle-specific environmental and safety ratings on our lease quotes. And we have developed educational content on how our customers can use their vehicles in more environmentally sustainable ways. We also offer our customers the opportunity to participate in our carbon offset program. You can find more information about our sustainability strategy and other highlights in our sustainability report released to the market today. Turning to Slide 7. In 2023, we delivered growth across all our key product lines. Salary packages increased to 396,000 in December off the back of increased uptake in existing clients and the onboarding of new clients. In practice, many of our customers maximized their various fringe benefit tax caps before December each year. Then, restart packaging in April at the start of the next FBT year. So the total number of customers we have provided services to in the last 12 months is actually 493,000, up 19,000 on 2022. We'll continue to report that number going forward as it's a better illustration of the number of everyday Australians we help. Novated leases under management grew strongly in 2023, with growth accelerating in the second half. This is notable after several years of reductions driven by vehicle supply shortages. Our fleet business also performed well despite vehicle supply constraints continued to impact volumes. And our funded lease pilot program continues to resonate with our clients as we expanded it to around 530 vehicles to 31 clients. On Slide 8, as I mentioned earlier, EV orders made up an increasing proportion of our new car orders in the second half of 2023 and represented 36% of orders for the year. As we stated at the half year, the government policy is increasing EV demand with Tesla still the largest seller for our customer base. We are also seeing a broader range of EVs becoming available in Australia with more affordable EVs gaining traction in the market, leading to increasing demand across all our segments, including education, hospital and PBI. Smartgroup is very well positioned to help our customers as they look to make the transition to EVs. Moving to Slide 9. And as I mentioned, our novated leasing business has shown strong growth. Both order and settlement levels have increased significantly. We have taken some deliberate steps to improve performance in the year, including engaging more frequently with our clients, uplifting digital marketing and improving service in our contact centers and vehicle sales teams. The result of this is that second half new leased vehicle orders were up 33% on pcp and settlements were up 37%. Vehicle supply continued to stabilize in the year, with settlements increasing 26% in 2023. At the same time, new leased vehicle orders increased 21%, meaning that our pipeline revenue at the end of the year was only slightly reduced at $18 million. At the half year, we flagged that supply chain renegotiations for lifting yield. In the second half, yield lifted further. This was driven by continued supply chain renegotiations, a higher proportion of new novated leases and an increase in EV deals. Turning to Slide 10. You can see that although delivery timeframes are stabilizing, they remained too high. Some large manufacturers have long delivery lead times. And until we see that change, we are unlikely to see a meaningful reduction in our open order pipe. In addition, we anticipate continued inefficiencies related to credit re-approvals and general open order pipeline management. Turning to Slide 11. By the end of the year, we had successfully rolled out our car leasing portal to a little over half of our customer base. The main reason we invested in the car leasing portal was to give customers the flexibility to engage with us when and how they want. The investment is delivering results with almost half of interactions with the portal occurring outside business hours. At the half year, we were able to report a meaningful uplift in quotes from our pilot group of clients. And I'm happy to say that we have seen that trend continue with subsequent client releases. Clients offering the portal to their employees have higher orders compared to clients not yet on the portal. We'll keep improving and rolling it out to more clients in 2024. The car leasing portal is a good example of the digital foundations that we have laid. We will continue to build on these foundations through further digital initiatives to deliver improved customer experience. Turning to Slide 13. Before I provide an overview of our priorities moving forward, I would like to share some of my observations about our context. Smartgroup's products and services have never mattered more to our clients and their employees. Cost of living pressures are impacting many Australians. And Smartgroup's products and services are well positioned to help Australians with those pressures. For example, the benefit our salary packaging offering makes to a charity worker on $65,000 a year is significant, equivalent to an after-tax payer rise of almost 20%. Our employer clients are trying to manage their costs, too, while at the same time, competing for talent in the labor market. Through Smartgroup's products, they can offer an extensive range of benefits to their employees in a cost-effective manner. More and more, we are seeing employers using salary packaging to attract and retain talent. Our employer clients are also working hard to help Australia transition to a more sustainable future. Smartgroup's EV novated leasing products are helping our clients meet their carbon emission targets. Customer and client needs continue to evolve. Customers are looking for e-mobility solutions beyond the vehicle, home chargers are one example. And customer expectations continue to rise with many wanting a fully digital experience. When taken together, that is a very different context from 6 or 7 years ago when Smartgroup grew through acquisition and organic growth was harder to come by. We now find ourselves at a point where with the right investments and a keen focus on our core business, the organic growth opportunities are significant. We are coming from a position of strength. We are a leader in the salary packaging and evaluating market with strong client relationships and those clients employ over 1.5 million people. We operate in attractive market segments and our customer offerings are more relevant than ever. It's in this context that over the last several months, we have been refining our priorities for the future. Turning to the following slide. Our ambition is to simplify benefits and add value to our clients and customers while enabling businesses to attract and retain great teams as we build a more sustainable Australia. In a nutshell, smarter benefits for smarter tomorrow. Turning to Slide 15. Having now been in the business for just over 6 months, I have identified 4 key priorities. First, Smartgroup will focus on delivering an efficient and digital salary packaging offering that makes the most of our scale. To do that, we will invest in simplifying and consolidating our core technologies and processes, including moving to a single brand, Smart. These investments will enable more rapid digitization and scaling of operations and will improve employer and employee experience. Second, we will extend our leadership in novated leasing, particularly in EVs, meaning their increased demand. We will do this through developing a market-leading proposition for EVs. And as mentioned earlier, we will build on the foundations already laid to accelerate our digital sales engine. Third, we will, innovate our proposition to meet the changing needs of our customers and clients. We will do this by expanding our offering to unlock more value for our clients and customers. We'll also scale our benefits program to provide more ways for customers to improve their financial well-being. Finally, we will continue to invest in fleet capabilities and our balance sheet funding pilot for fleet vehicles. Through this pilot, we are meeting a key need of our clients. We will continue to closely monitor residual values, in particular, given the current elevated vehicle values and the changes to fleet sizes happening across Australia. These areas of focus will position Smartgroup strongly for the opportunities ahead. One of Smartgroup's strengths is how deeply we care about our customers. I want to build on that and create a culture that is relentlessly focused on enhancing client and customer experience. With that strong culture and by harnessing technology, we will deliver smarter experiences and smarter products for our customers and clients and continually find ways to work smarter, to be more agile and responsive to their needs. We are already working hard to deliver on those priorities and I'll report on progress at the half year. I'll now hand it over to Anthony to talk through our financial performance.

Thank you, Scott, and good morning to everyone on the call. Turning to the P&L on Slide 17. You can see that full year NPATA increased 3% to $63.2 million off the back of strong revenue growth. We were able to generate this revenue growth as a result of both volume growth and yield improvements. Around half of our revenue is transactional revenue from novated leasing. And so the double-digit settlement growth and the 9% yield improvement we achieved have resulted in revenue growth of 12% to $256.1 million. In the staff cost line, you'll see the impact of wage inflation, but also our deliberate investments in capacity to support the high level of leasing demand. We increased resourcing throughout the year. And we'll continue to adjust resourcing to demand levels. Elongated vehicle supply timeframe is still causing inefficiencies and rework in the form of credit re-approvals which is extra cost we are still carrying. In the second half of the year, we increased investments in digital and technology to set us up to deliver on the strategic priorities that Scott has just talked to. EBITDA grew 7% to $100.3 million, while we delivered a strong EBITDA margin of 40%. As mentioned at the half year results, the amortization of the acquired intangible assets is now negligible. Slide 18 highlights our strong cash conversion at 103% of NPATA, which is in line with the expectations. Capitalized IT development costs were low at $0.9 million for the year as we focused our efforts on the rollout the car leasing portal. Looking forward and given the investments we're making, we would expect 2024 CapEx to be in the range of $11 million to $13 million. As part of our balance sheet funding pilot for fleet vehicles, we increased the number of clients we're funding from 12 to 31 during the year and have increased the number of funded vehicles to 530. As Scott mentioned, we continue to carefully monitor this pilot in the context of changing motor vehicle residual values. Our fleet offerings are popular with our clients. And we continue to invest in our capabilities. Our balance sheet on Slide 19 shows that we ended the year with a small net debt position of $32.2 million at 0.3x leverage. This follows the payment of $18.5 million in special dividends in March 2023 and additional funding directed to our on-balance sheet fleet pilot. We ended 2023 well positioned. Our low net debt and strong cash generation provides us the flexibility to invest for growth while delivering dividends to shareholders. Slide 20 articulates our approach to capital allocation to ensure that we deliver long-term sustainable growth and maximize shareholder value. Our approach is a relatively straightforward one. The current novated leasing market and our strategic priorities provide significant opportunities for medium and long-term growth. To ensure we make the most of these opportunities, we will continue to invest in core and digital technology as well as customer experience improvement initiatives. These necessitate allocating sufficient capital to ensure we can execute well. And our fleet funding pilot is an important learning opportunity for us. So we'll ensure it receives enough capital to continue. We'll continue to pay fully franked dividends in line with our current dividend policy of paying 60% to 70% of NPATA. But we will return excess capital to shareholders as appropriate. And all the while, we will ensure that we maintain our balance sheet flexibility. So that we can act on strategic acquisition and partnership opportunities as they arise. With that, I'll hand back to Scott.

Great, thank you, Anthony. And moving to Slide 22 and a summary. 2023 was a good year operationally and financially. We delivered great service to our clients and customers. We grew revenue by 12% to $251.6 million and NPATA increased to $63.2 million. We grew salary packaging customer numbers by 4% in the year and delivered strong double-digit growth in novated lease settlements. Our investments in resourcing and capability in the year are designed to capture future growth. Our solid financial performance and strong cash flows have enabled the Board to declare a final fully franked dividend of $0.16 per share. In addition, the Board has decided to issue a fully franked special dividend of $0.16 per share as a further return to shareholders. Together with a $0.155 per share interim ordinary dividend declared in August 2023. This brings fully franked dividends to $0.475 per share, representing 100% of 2023 NPATA. We have defined a clear set of strategic priorities to drive growth and delivered market-leading customer experience, innovative products and simpler scalable operations. These priorities will guide our decisions and investments in the months and years to come. Turning to Slide 23 and moving forward. We will be focused on our strategic priorities. And we'll continue to invest in core technology and capability to drive growth. Although these investments will impact costs, that will lead to even better customer experience and engagement in the medium to long term. Over time, that will also enable us to scale and lower our cost to serve and cost to acquire. Importantly, we will remain focused on margin, including through productivity initiatives. In the first week of 2024, leasing demand remains strong with January orders and settlements up on pcp. Smartgroup looks to focus on simplifying our core operations. We have recently signed an agreement to divest our payroll business to a third-party buyer. Whilst not material from a revenue and earnings perspective, this divestment will allow us to further focus on core salary packaging, novated leasing and fleet businesses that represent a large growth opportunity. And finally, the South Australian government contract commences on 1 July. And while we do not expect earnings uplift on this contract this year, it cements our position as a leading provider of salary packaging and novated leasing to both state and federal government. A big thanks to the Smartgroup team, our clients and our partners. Thank you also to our investors for your ongoing support. I've enjoyed meeting many of you and look forward to engaging more with you in 2024. With that, I thank you all for your interest in Smartgroup. And I will now hand back to Gavin for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Scott Murdoch from Morgans.

Scott and Anthony, just first question, I guess, on the cost growth in the second half that we saw. Can we just have a little bit more detail there on what you've put in on the operational capacity front? I guess what step-up that cost growth implies in terms of servicing the demand? And what else is required? I think you alluded to putting more costs in line with demand.

Yes, certainly. So for context, our leasing area, we basically increased the size of that by about 50% over the course of the year. We were hiring right throughout the year. And that's obviously reflected in the vehicle order levels that you can see within the presentation itself. In addition to that, we certainly have been making the necessary investments toward the latter part of the year to deliver on the priorities that Scott set out in the presentation itself. And that will obviously set us up for future growth.

And just add to that, technically, as we said at the half year, Anthony and I have been monitoring very closely demand. And as we signaled, we would take steps to -- on more additional people where we thought it made sense, in particular, in operations areas, including sales that can support our -- taking advantage of that increased demand. And that's something we'll continue to monitor going forward.

Okay. And just clarifying that then the capacity you put in, in the second half is what's required to service the current demand levels. So that that cost base is reflective of what you need if demand doesn't change here? Or is there still more to go?

Certainly because of the 3, 6-month timeframes to competency, we can't just look at the current demand levels. We do think about forward demand planning as well. But certainly, yes, what we've got on board now is the right amount, certainly for the moment. But we are, I guess, looking forward.

And basically that we'll watch the forecast very closely. And if need be, then, obviously, we'll take steps to onboard additional capacity if we believe it will make sense to do so to going for advantage of the market.

Okay. No problems. And just a second question, if I can. Just on the EV, I guess the order intake acceleration that we saw. Obviously, you've shown us some metrics here and the second half has shown strong acceleration. January was up on the pcp. Just interested, I think previously, you've shown that sort of orderly step between orders and settlements. Just interested in how the order intake has progressed through this half. Are we seeing order intake acceleration and lead generation acceleration through the half? Or have we sort of stepped up and have more plateaued out at this strong level?

I mean certainly, I think it starts to get busy if we show every quarter for a couple of years. But no, we still saw growth at the end of last year. But there is obviously some seasonality that comes into play towards the end of the year. Around December, it's always a bit quieter. And then, especially from a lead perspective, January is reasonably quiet until the second half of the month. But we definitely saw growth in that quarter.

Your next question comes from the line of Tim Lawson from Macquarie.

Just firstly on just the yield improvement, you've called out those 3 bullet points on Slide 9. Can you just sort of maybe just elaborate on the impacts of each of them?

Yes. So I'd say the reduction in the refinance rate, i.e., the increase in the proportion of new vehicles as well as the supply chain negotiations were probably the primary 2 drivers of the yield increase, but not far behind them was actually the increase in proportion of EVs. And we are seeing quite -- while Tesla still is the dominant brand. We are seeing quite a lot of good traction now in the other brands. Certainly, everyone knows, obviously, the BYDs are popular as well. But we are seeing good traction in terms of the MG flowers, the plug-in hybrids from Mitsubishi, both the Outlander and the Eclipse. So we are seeing, I guess, as a proportion, the other brand starting to come up now and that's helping the yield.

Okay. And then, just maybe a slightly different similar question to one of the early ones. Just in terms of conversions, can you sort of talk through now leads quite orders, the settlement, both sort of what you're seeing versus history? And what you're seeing on the portal versus non-portal customers?

Yes. So I guess what we've tried to do and what we've communicated previously is we're trying to move further and further up the funnel. So looking to generate the higher level of orders at the end of the day, but looking at more opportunities to increase funnel size, so certainly from the non-vehicle portal channels. If I look at the quote to order conversion rates, they're relatively stable. Certainly, with the portal, the idea is that we make it easier for people to generate quotes and therefore, they generate more quotes. Now what we're looking for from that is an increase in overall order levels from those clients on the portal and that's what we're seeing.

Your next question comes from the line of Paul Buys from Canaccord Genuity.

Scott, Anthony. First question, I guess, just on margins. And you've clearly articulated, I guess, the case for further investment in certain areas to capture medium and longer term growth and indeed capture the kind of EV demand. But my question really is if we take a medium to longer term view on the margin profile for the business, how do you see the business in context of historic margins, obviously, sitting around about 40% now, peaked at about kind of 47%, give or take, in FY '18-'19, obviously, some reasons why that can't recur. But I just wanted to get an idea of sort of medium term, if margin expansion would be part of the broader plan here?

Yes, great question, Paul, and thank you for asking it. Yes, suffice to say, the investments we talked about today are focused on a number of objectives, customer experience uplift, as I highlighted. But also as we step into the medium term, amelioration of costs will be in focus, too. We don't give a target on margin. But certainly, a focus on margin will be very much in frame for us. So for the course of this year and into the medium term as we look to take full advantage of those investments that we will be making.

And then second question, just around your strategic priorities. Just on your fleet managed vehicle strategy. I guess you guys continue to call out as a pilot. And I can see why given numbers are still in their relative infancy. But at the same time, you're talking about becoming more meaningful to your customers and making more investment there. I guess my question is its sounding and looking a bit more than a pilot. But just wanted to get your -- I guess, your view on where that business could go.

Yes. And we're watching it very closely. I mean, been a pilot, we're in particular, interested our values play out over the next 12 months given we started the pilot a few years ago. The client need is very clear from our perspective. And indeed, that's one of the key reasons why we're focused on fleet. Our clients in solo packaging novated leasing often asked us to help with their fleet management. So we're focused on continuing to pilot. We're learning a lot as we go. And at some point, we'll take a step back and consider what our options are beyond the next 12 to 18 months.

Yes. So certainly, the initial batches of vehicles that we funded. They're only just going to be coming to lease expiry towards the end of this year. And that's when we'll obviously learn more about disposals end of lease, et cetera, as well. So very much a pilot because of also where we are in the cycle in terms of that process. But yes, as Scott said, over the next 12 to 18 months. We'll be in a good position to step back and evaluate what we think we should be doing.

Your next question comes from the line of Phil Chippindale of Ord Minnett.

First question, just on the $9 million to $11 million of capitalized investment this year. Can we just unpack that a little bit? Scott, you mentioned the focus on enhancing the customer experience, but there's also a focus on margin and cost savings. Can you just talk to maybe how we should think about that amount of capital that's being spent as to -- is it more on the customer-facing side of things? Or is it more efficiency sort of focused?

Sorry, Phil, are you talking about the amount that we spent in '23. Are you talking about forward-looking the $11 million to $13 million that we've called out?

Sorry, $11 million to $13 million, apologies.

So obviously, our business is one where it's very much important to ensure that we are continually improving customer experience. And we do have a lot of good opportunities there with regard to investing in our core technologies and digital. There will be a mixture within that $11 million to $13 million of things that are focused on customer experience and others that are focused on what I call scalability. And certainly, those are areas of focus for us in the coming months here.

And just to add to that, this sort of takes us back to a capital level, not just similar to where we were in 2022 as far as CapEx and as far as the priorities that we've articulated today. Over the medium term, it will make good sense for us as we sit back and look at the treasury of the business to maintain a reasonable level of CapEx over the coming years.

Okay. And my second question, just around headcount. You're obviously going to have to add some heads for the servicing of the South Australian government contract. I think, Scott, you mentioned earlier that you're now expecting this contract to benefit your profit this year in aggregate terms. But there's sort of a first half, second half i.e. given the immediate launch date. Can you just talk to how much you're expecting it to cost your business in the first half to put those systems in place?

Yes. So we're still working through the details of those. Certainly, we have got, I'll call it some BAU resource that we need to bring on board midway through this half. But then there's also a deal of transitional resource. We're still working through the exact details of what that looks like. We can provide further details before the half later in the year once we work through a bit more of that detail.

But as we touched on, our disclosure in December, this is very much a year of ramping up the South Australian government contract, which we're delighted to be supporting the Australian public service with. We don't anticipate there will be a material impact on our overall position for the year. And 2025 will be when we starting to see the benefits come through as far as our overall company performance.

Your next question comes from the line of Jack Dunn from Citi.

First, I just want to clarify something you said on another question. Did you say that you increased novated leasing starting by 50% this year? Is that the figure that I heard?

Yes, yes. So the size of that sale in terms of the sales and fulfillment area we've increased by around about 50% of the cost of the year.

Okay. Perfect. And then is the right way to think about sort of the operating leverage to compare that figure to your growth in orders, so new vehicle orders grew 21%. And if you increased your staff by 50%, that's sort of a signal of what they're offering those to do in sort of second half '24, excluding any SA government contract expenses.

And certainly, you'll see in the half -- second half, Jack, that increase was definitely more pronounced than the 20-odd percent. So the order levels increased by 33%, the segment volume is 37%. And the resourcing that we put in place is obviously with a view to not just right now but into the future. But we were hiring throughout the year. So it's not like that 50% was in place all halfway through the year. We were hiring continually throughout the year. So that's definitely a help drive that volume.

And then, just on the yield front, really strong second half year performance. What are sort of your expectations going into FY '24? Do you still get the same benefits from the supply chain renegotiations? Do you think that 81% new novated leases probably improve further from current levels? What is sort of your expectation for '24?

So certainly, the supply chain renegotiation should be enduring and recurring in terms of the proportion of new leased vehicles. So historically, we've operated at a 20% to 22% mark for refinances. So, on a full-year basis, we were pretty much in line with that. But for the half, obviously, we were somewhat under that. So to the extent that we can continue to grow new leases, I would hope to hold that sort of percentage there. Certainly, I don't see a large catalyst for a large amount of movement based on those 2 factors, the negotiations or the refinance rate.

Perfect. And just so and I kind of mine through limit here. But on that 81%, is the shift between new and used within that increasing more, to new as well? How does that compared to historical levels?

It certainly is increasing more to new as vehicle supply as stabilization has continued.

[Operator Instructions] And your next question comes from the line of Chenny Wang from Morgan Stanley.

Maybe just first one in terms of that CapEx spend. Maybe you can help us in thinking about the level of our CapEx into maybe '25 and '26. And also how you're thinking about the phasing of those returns and when you expect some of those benefits to start flowing through?

So certainly, we're going to anticipate an ongoing need for CapEx into the future. The need to invest in digital and improve core technologies, I think, is one that's going to be here for a long time to come. So I think we can expect a level of CapEx going forward. Certainly, we haven't developed the exact plans for '25 and '26 to give you a really solid number. But I think you should expect an ongoing level of CapEx going forward for those reasons.

And then the second part of that question in terms of the phasing of some of those returns. When are you kind of expecting to see the fruits of spend?

So the certain amount of those initiatives and that spend is based -- is aiming to achieve benefits in the shorter term. Others are more medium to long-term focused. So we will continue to work on productivity initiatives to drive scale. But we will also continue to invest where we believe that it will generate future economic returns for us.

Yes. And to start of that, I think if you go back to our priorities. I mean, the focus that we'll have over the coming period, we'll be getting away from sort of one-off project expenses and really maintaining a focus on ongoing improvement and uplift in customer experience. And as I touched on also before, that will also help us maintain a keen focus on opportunities to ameliorate costs in our operations.

And sorry, just the second one. On fleet, it does, I guess, sound more like more of a strategic focus now. But I understand you guys are still kind of in that pilot and going to reassess. But if it does all go well for you, like how big of an opportunity do you see that space to be for SMART?

Yes, another great question. So I do want to tell we'll need to see the outcomes of the pilot, also watching the market quite closely and fleet. We note the risk and residual values, for instance. So something we're watching quite closely as we assess what the opportunity could be for us. But what I'd point us back to is certainly, we see the client need. And in my first 6, 7 months in the role, that there's been a real [ thread ] of interest in our current clients for us to be in this space.

Your next question comes from the line of Scott Murdoch, Morgans.

Just a couple of follow-ups. Anthony, just in the outlook statement or Scott and Anthony pointed to ongoing competitive pressures. I presume that, points to ongoing tender renewals and the competitive nature of those processes, of which you won the last one. Just interested in, if that's the correct read on that statement, what the competitive pressures are and intertwined with that what the contract renewal pipeline looks like?

So certainly, the competitive pressures, I mean, it's not just referring to anything in the world of tenders. Tenders have always been reasonably competitive for the large ones. What we're seeing, I guess, is with the new EV policy. We are seeing a number of smaller players, in particular, who are offering. Obviously, they can offer the EV incentives to potential corporates. The good thing is we have the sort of scale needed to be able to invest in data governance and privacy that few other organizations can. So that's obviously very helpful for us. But certainly, the dynamic that's changed a little bit is probably a bit more in terms of the EV attractiveness and new entrants looking at making the most of that.

Okay. And the second part of that question, just on the contract renewal pipeline. What that looks like if there's anything we should be aware of?

The renewal pipeline is every year certain a number of contracts come up for review. And it's a typical year as far as the sorts of renewals we see coming through.

Okay. And just one final one for me. In the strategy piece, you talked to expanding your offering. Just interested if there's anything new in that statement, expanding into something that we can't see yet, if there's anything in the pipeline that you might want to expand on? Or is it just really further into the likes of fleet?

Well, certainly, our intention is to bring more information to the market share that throughout the course of the next 12 to 18 months. But no, it's broader than just fleet. But there are a lot of opportunities for us to help our clients, those clients and customers we currently service. And we'll be looking to make the most of that. Now obviously, Scott mentioned something to do earlier about home chargers, for instance, for EVs. So there's a lot that we can do in terms of helping our clients and our employees with their e-mobility needs and those are just a couple of examples.

Yes. And going back to my first 6, 7 months in a role, I've spoken to a lot of clients and a lot of customers also. And we touched on in the context with the cost of living pressures. And amongst all that ongoing bear for talent and our clients wanted to differentiate as an employer of choice. There's a need for us to be thoughtful about what else we can do in and around the -- as Anthony touched on the EV, e-mobility needs of our customers. But to that, it also in and around salary packaging, what else we can be doing to be providing great employee benefits that can help our customers, in particular, at the moment, save money. So that will be in focus for us. And as Anthony alluded to through the course of this year, that will be a big focus for us. And I'm sure a feature of some of our discussions at the half year.

There are no further questions at this time. So I'd like to hand back to Scott.

Great, thank you very much, Gavin. And thank you very much for everyone joining today. Really good set of questions and look forward to speaking to you all more in due course. Have a great day.

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect.