Tourism Holdings Limited (THL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Tourism Holdings Limited FY '25 Half Year Results Briefing. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is recorded. I would now like to hand the call over to Mr. Grant Webster, CEO. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Brilliant. Thank you very much, Desmond. Appreciate that. We'll come back to you for management of the Q&A at the end. Welcome, everybody. I appreciate your time and look forward to catching up with many of you over this afternoon and the next few days. So here in the room today, we've obviously got myself. We do have Olli Farnsworth, who has been 8 years with THL, but a little bit strange to say welcome. But welcome to this side of things, Olli is our CFO. You will meet and hear from Olli over the next few days. He's only been a few weeks, obviously, into this role, so I'm going to charge through the presentation today, but he's here for questions. And as I say, we'll have pivot so we can catch up with people around the place. You know Amir Ansari, who has also been with THL for over 7 years, and we've got Stephen Hall, our Deputy CFO, who's 10 years this week. So, congratulations, Steve, to you, and thank you for everything you've done in assisting getting these results out. All right. Let's move to the executive summary. The key statistics are there, you've seen them and understand them. I think our position is clear. As with many others, we are operating in a challenging environment. We talk about 3 big waves that have impacted how we operate as a business, all have residual impacts and future opportunities. There was the COVID wave, there was the merger and the current economic conditions around the world. Each of these has had a residual impact, and of course, the merger has had significant benefits. The key from our perspective is that we've remained focused on the business model, staying ahead of the market, managing capital, a reminder that we have not raised capital through any of those processes, and we're working hard on costs where required as well. We do have a business model that's reasonably unique, and we are in a good position. The RV market on a global basis has taken some serious knocks, and we'll cover that off shortly. But we've seen the core of the business, our rentals business increase in revenue in the half by 8% and our core country, New Zealand, increased EBIT by 16% in the low half period. We've continued to drive the global platform from a technology perspective, which underpins efficiency moving forward, revenue opportunities and cost out. We've continued to reduce build costs, which will flow through significantly in coming periods. We've continued to provide a positive dividend. We have a strong balance sheet position, particularly when compared to most in the industry. And yet all this with a very poor vehicle sales result, which has driven margin down and obviously has further impacts on depreciation and interest costs as well. The market conditions are absolutely still wavy. We can't confirm that we've hit the bottom of the market for vehicle sales yet, perhaps not definitively anyway. But as such, we don't quite know what the volume of vehicles are going to be that we sell in the second half, and that means that we can't provide any meaningful guidance. To do so would potentially be misleading in either direction. We could still have a wide variety of outcomes and we'll cover that off in the outlook session. What we do have is confidence in the business, in the core business and the changes we've made and the future and medium-term opportunities for increasing profitability. I'll skip through the results summary because again, that's well understood. When we talk about return on funds employed, we remind everyone that this is a key metric of business performance. It tells us where to invest, it tells us where we will grow, and it tells us where we have underperformance in areas that need significant attention. This is probably an important point to just note the fact as we well signaled that the U.S.A. and Canada are reported as one segment now. Those businesses are increasingly becoming more and more intertwined. We make more decisions on cross-border fleet movements than we ever had before. We're moving leadership on a combined basis, and we have a number of roles that cover both jurisdictions, and there are more opportunities of that nature moving forward. So, looking at just the U.S.A. or Canada is just more confusing now and no longer helpful. So that simplification, we think, will assist everybody. Looking at the THL Global snapshot. We do believe that the rental market and international tourism growth is going to continue, perhaps at varying rates, but around the world, we see that growth opportunity. Our current view is that it will continue despite any of the current economic or global political uncertainty that exists. The rental fleet increase of 11% was in line with our expectations. We did have yield reduction in all markets during the period. However, they were well within our expectations. We've signaled for some time that we would come off the highs of the post-COVID period, and that reduction has been in a very stable manner. We think we've managed that yield situation well, and you can see it coming through an improved utilization and the RevPAR results by jurisdiction. Ex-fleet sales volumes are very much a North American story, one where we've struggled and one which we will cover in more detail later on. Retail Australia volumes appear okay, however, that's influenced by the CamperMate acquisition, which has now rolled over 12 months. Margins in Australia were a concern. And on a same-store basis, volume was down around 18%. Margins, we do believe in our ex fleet are normalizing, and that will help reduce volatility over time. So, let's look at the industry market overview. There are a number of people around the world who have been in the industry for some time. And indeed, there are many parts of the industry that are owner operators who are in businesses that are in multigenerational ownership. And whilst many have seen these impacts before and are well prepared for them, there are players who have entered the market in recent years. Some of them appear to be underfunded, it doesn't look like they manage the balance sheet in the same manner we do. And this has resulted in some notable changes, insolvencies in some areas, not the core markets of THL. We've also seen some large publicly listed companies reporting challenging results and indeed net operating losses in some cases. It's not a defense of our current position, and we must stay focused on continuing to improve our results, but we do believe our business model and diversification has generally seen us weather these conditions better than most in the industry. And yet we still have cost out and merger benefits to realize over the coming period. Importantly, the industry consensus is that while we may not be quite at the bottom yet, we are at a point in a cycle rather than any structural change, a point we have reiterated for some time now. Move on to the dividend. We note that our dividend is out there. It's less than last year, but we still have confidence in paying a dividend within our range. We have had some commentary that people are speculating taking the 30%, taking the bottom of our normal dividend payout ratio and trying to extrapolate to a year-end NPAT expectation. We would caution people in doing that just because a $0.05 difference is a material change in your NPAT expectations. $0.025 is right for now. It's not an indication of an expected year-end result. Moving on to the balance sheet. We've got good equity, good partners, we're in a good position. I want to reiterate again, as again, we have for some time that there is no current intention to raise capital to shore up the balance sheet. If there was a growth opportunity at some point, that's a different situation. We are not at that point. We can grow our fleet based on the current outlook with our current balance sheet position. With the change in our syndicated facility and the expansion of that, we have been able to reset the balance between asset finance and our syndicated facility. So, from a peak of 60% asset finance, we're down to around 25% of our drawn funding from asset finance. That provides us with a greater level of flexibility and cheaper rate overall. When we think about our balance sheet, we realize that our results are sometimes, there is a lag between the decisions that we make to increase fleet and the return that we get from that capital. We know that the management of capital expenditure is critical to the medium- and long-term performance of the business, tight inventory control in a market with declining sales market mixed with ongoing rental days demand and manufacturing lead times mean that it is a very complex situation with a number of levers moving at different rates. But it's a situation that we understand well and that we can operate within efficiently. As an indication of that, our gross fleet capital expenditure was down nearly $100 million on the prior corresponding period and net CapEx down over $60 million. We see those as positive indicators of us managing the current environment and managing our balance sheet in the proper way and ensure that we maintain profitability and profitability growth into the future. Just want to quickly pause and note the high non-fleet capital expenditure this year. The largest proportion of that is the Auckland site move from just in Manu Tapu Road by Auckland Airport to the old Villa Maria site, which is formerly called by Waitomokia. That move is on track. It's a move that we'd have to make, just reminding people that our main Auckland facilities burned down in September 2020. And the site we've been operating on is actually smaller than the old THL site or the old Apollo site, and we are growing at a very strong rate in New Zealand, and we have an opportunity for increased rentals, RV sales, service and repairs. So that opportunity we see is providing us with more efficiency and is a great cost opportunity for us moving forward. We've also had non-fleet capital expenditure with a move in Sydney that's coming up shortly, Perth, and capital expenditure in the Brisbane manufacturing business which is going to provide significant return on funds employed improvements as well as speed, efficiency and quality improvements on that site, as well as the digital projects, which have all had positive business case returns to date. We do see that this year is an anomaly in terms of non-fleet CapEx, and we see ourselves returning to normal non-fleet CapEx levels moving into FY '26. Quickly moving on to cost out and the optimization initiatives. The actions that we have underway have -- and the ones that we've completed are meaningful, and they will make a difference as we move into the next financial year. This is actually because we've indicated here, probably an appropriate place to just talk about tariffs in North America, particularly between the U.S.A. and Canada. As everyone knows, we've got no clear certainty on the position that will finally be established between those different parties. However, the way we're approaching it at the moment is that we are enabling the plans as if they are going to be in place with a variety of different scenarios that could develop around that. We work very closely with the industry associations in both countries, and we're keeping in touch with our legal advisers on the topic. It's important to note that based on what has happened historically and the fact that over 90% of the RVs that exist in Canada are made in the U.S. and the relatively small size of our industry compared to others, we believe an exemption for our category may well apply, and that is the approach that has been taken historically. However, we obviously can't confirm that, and we are planning for several different scenarios. From an impact perspective, it's just too varied to comment on in any detail at present. So that will be challenging if there's questions in that area. If there's no exemption and the tariffs supply in both directions, then we could see RV input costs such as steel and aluminum, et cetera, increasing the cost of RVs and then those RVs being tariffed on the way back up into Canada. That would obviously see RVs become significantly more expensive. And whilst that might see our current fleet increase in value as it did during COVID, it would likely impact the volume of RV sales sold in Canada over time. We obviously will stay really close to the situation, and we'll advise the market as any certainty improves or any material change in the way that we see things. The next slide, I don't need to go through in detail but really shows you the way that we are building THL for a stronger future. It gives you a deeper understanding of those key actions that we've got underway and the status of them. Looking at real and accounting depreciation rates or RDR, as we like to call it, and many of you know well. Just a reminder, this is what really matters, right? It's important not to get caught up too heavily on depreciation or margin on sales and the difference between those. We are in a good place when it comes to RDR. We're producing good vehicles. We're buying good vehicles, and we're selling them at appropriate rate. We will see RDR increase over time in the coming years. However, that's a reflection on the higher build costs that we've had in the past few years, and we are seeing build cost and buy costs reduced now, and that will flow through to further benefit moving forward. Let's quickly go through the divisions. New Zealand. Rentals and sales business is performing really well. It's working very hard to keep sales up. We were down on our expectations, but not as significantly as we thought that we could be. We're ready for ongoing growth. That 26% increase in fleet over the prior year has set us up very well for the summer season. We won't get into the details, but January and February results have really benefited from that fleet growth, and we see that we're going to have a very strong year in New Zealand. The new site I talked about, that will reinforce our opportunity to increase revenue, both in rental, where we're going to be able to take more capacity and sales, and again, our retail business and service center business. We're positioned well in New Zealand in all aspects of the market. Moving on to Australia. And remember, this is a segment that includes rentals, retail and our manufacturing business. From a rentals perspective, the RevPAR position was positive relative to where we could have been. We've seen yields down, but a good movement in days and utilization improvement. That's where we want to be. RV sales and rental sales -- sorry, retail sales have been down on expectation, and that's well covered in the details. We are rightsizing the business where appropriate, and we do have further cost-out programs underway for the Australian business. The manufacturing business as part of that adjustment had a number of redundancies at the end of last year. And with the efficiency that we've built into that business, the new equipment that we've flowed through into that business, we do see that there's a positive outlook for manufacturing and that, that will flow through to positive outcomes and lower build costs and a wider variety of vehicles that we can produce. Moving on to North America, we talked about the fact that this is now a combined segment and the reasons for that. Rental days were again up, and we're positive about that. Yield was down again in a managed way, and we had utilization improvement as well. It's of note the point here about Canada and the depreciation rates. Historically, Canada has had particularly low depreciation rates, and we have adjusted those in line with the current depreciation policy and in line with where we see the vehicle pricing in that market and the margins that we expect from a retail perspective over time. We continue to see utilization improvements, and we can see over the next summer that we're going to have significant improvement in utilization in both countries. We've discussed the tariff impact, and we'll deal with that as it comes through. We have had a reduction in cost in the market, and I'm very, very pleased with the way that Kate Meldrum has entered that role as COO for North America and the changes that are occurring in both countries. Quick update on U.K. and Ireland. A disappointing performance without a doubt from a tough market. Vehicle sales, again, is the key. And as noted, we made the call to not move vehicles down to New Zealand because of the volume that we had down here already from Europe, the sales market in New Zealand and the increased cost of those vehicles and indeed the shipping costs at the time that we had to make the call. Shipping costs, we know have come down subsequently, and there's a different opportunity as we move into the latter half of this calendar year or start of FY '26, but that did have an impact on the U.K. We also had an impact in the high season, as we've discussed previously, where vehicles were very late arriving, which stopped us being able to sell vehicles because we had to meet the rental demand that we had. So, the U.K. has a more positive sales outlook, particularly as we will resume moving vehicles to New Zealand and has a more positive outlook from a forward book for high season as well up in days coming into this year. However, we do need to continue to explore costs in this business, and we do need to remain fiercely focused on the fact that our ROFE requirements need to be achieved in that business. Action Manufacturing is well detailed in the commentary. It remains a very positive business and a very tough transport market at the moment for those sales that are outside of THL. We're well positioned with more government work and more sustainable work. And history certainly suggests that this situation is a temporary one. It's certainly not a structural one. Many of you will know better than we do what's actually happening in the transport market, but we do see the last part of last year and the first half of this year, a real drop-off in inquiry and demand for new transport vehicles. But we do see that, again, there are some green shoots in that market at the moment. Tourism, positive. Second half is looking positive. We've had a good summer season. We're not quite sure how Q4 will go. We'll wait and see. There are some comments more broadly in the tourism industry I think Q3 is good, Q4, not so sure, although the later Easter flowing through to Anzac Day and school holidays will drag the season out. And again, we still stand by the fact that we think we're on track for a record EBIT result from our tourism businesses. Group support, we remain focused on cost-savings, and that's absolutely key. And the group eliminations and the changes there just reflect the movement in vehicle sales across the business. Let's move to the outlook. The slide around the industry more broadly is self-explanatory. I won't cover it in detail but remind you that this industry is one that has weathered these kind of conditions very well historically. And the long-term decades-long compounding annual growth rate through these periods remains over 3% and there's every expectation in all the manufacturers and retailers that we talk to around the world that, that is where we will return. It might be a little while before we see the COVID highs, but there is an expectation of strong compounding annual growth. From an outlook perspective, the simple position is that we are still targeting growth in FY '25. However, the conditions are such that we can't provide more direction than that at this point in time. We're well aware of the fact that, that means that we're expecting a high growth rate in the second half. And I've reinforce to you the fleet growth that we've had in New Zealand and Australia and the benefit that, that provides in the January, February, March high season period. We will see growth from that perspective. From there, there is volatility, as we've talked about, around vehicle sales, particularly in the North American market, although we do see that there is some more interest now, but it has to convert and those points around non-tourism as well as the shows that are coming up in Australia and New Zealand, giving us a much stronger indicator of exactly where we'll be in this part of the world. Dealer inventory around the world appears to be in a very good position. And from our perspective, it's our time to capitalize on that. The financing for vehicles remains positive. Dealers are in a good place. And indeed, it was interesting to see Camping World announced last week a new USD 1.2 billion flooring plan line. We do have a weighting of sales in H2 to the last quarter, and that's why we're taking more of a wait-and-see approach in terms of guidance. But importantly, we want to reiterate that we are very pleased with the progress in rentals. The yield management has been very effective, great to see the utilization improvements. We're pleased with the initial cost-out plans. We remain fiercely focused on return on funds employed. And as we've discussed, we think we're actually really well positioned relative to the RV market globally, strong balance sheet, strongly profitable and a series of benefits still to come from the merger, which others simply can't replicate. I'd like to thank again the team right across THL. It has been a tough time, but we've been had increased activity. People have responded to that very, very effectively, and we are a resilient organization that is well positioned for growth and very positive about the future. That's it from me today. We'll open up for questions. So, Desmond, back to you.

[Operator Instructions] First question comes from the line of Andrew Bowley from Forsyth Barr.

A couple of questions from me. The first of which revolves around the guidance, Grant. So, I'm just kind of mindful of seasonality in the business. Second half is typically a smaller contributor to full year profitability versus the first half. To kind of get to the prior year figure in FY '25, we've got to assume at least on par in terms of levels of profitability, if not higher in the second half than the first half. And I guess the question revolves around, one, what would you expect in more normalized conditions from a seasonality point of view given the mix of the business currently? And then to be able to get to the FY '24 figure in FY '25, does that imply that we need to see some improvements in various markets to achieve that?

Yes. So, look, the seasonality has shifted around over the last few years. And with Canada in the mix now, which is obviously a large contributor as well and Australia having a larger portion of our total fleet around the world, that seasonality hasn't normalized yet. We don't have a new norm that I'd be confident in explaining. However, when we look at the second half, as I sort of indicated before, the New Zealand and Australia rentals business is obviously January, February, March. That's where the largest fleet growth has occurred, and that's where we expect and are seeing the largest growth in profitability. So that's a core driver to the growth in H2 over the prior corresponding period. The second point is obviously that point around vehicle sales. That is, again, heavily weighted to the last quarter and heavily weighted to a North American recovery. So, we do have significant expectations for growth both the prior half and the prior corresponding period. We believe there's enough interest and we've got the right fleet type to achieve it, and we've got the vehicles prepped and ready to achieve it. It's just whether the market converts.

But when you talk about that growth and the confidence in that growth, that still requires the market to see some level of improvement relative to kind of current conditions. And I recognize the seasonality in the sales market, which makes that difficult. But do we need to see some improvement seasonality adjusted to see that growth?

Absolutely, we do. Absolutely. And I'd reiterate that the commentary, the inquiry, the discussions from a sales perspective around the world indicate that, that could well be there, but we've got to see it convert. That's the difference. So that's what we're just waiting to see. So, we do believe we can get there. That's why we're saying it, but there are certainly those risks.

Great. So, second question around vehicle inventory. So, inventory on the balance sheet has been ticking up. I'm mindful of the fact that we've seen for the last few periods, off-fleet vehicles well in excess of ex fleet vehicle sales. Can you talk about where your inventory position is both in dollar numbers and in vehicle numbers? And to the extent that you may have excess inventory relative to what you'd like through the cycle in the current environment?

So, I haven't got the exact numbers right in front of me, Andy, in terms of the inventory numbers. You are absolutely right, our inventory levels for our sales fleet have been banking up as sales haven't eventuated, but that is coming back down. So, it's already started coming down in this half and all our planning and projections because obviously, we know what's coming on fleet, that will come down significantly. And by year-end, we will be readjusted to normal levels if we achieve those sales targets that we're getting to. If not, it will still be lower inventory than where we've been at the half but not where we want to be ultimately. So, you've picked it right. I don't have those exact numbers in front of me. We can have a look at where those sit. But you are right, that is the situation.

But we should -- with that kind of scenario eventuating, we then see ex fleet vehicles sold being in excess of off-fleet vehicles as shown in the last slide of the present.

Correct. Yes, that's right.

Next question comes from the line of John O'Shea from Ord Minnett.

Can you hear me okay?

Yes, absolutely fine. Thank you, John.

A good job in the circumstances, I think. Look, 2 from me. One relates to very fascinated by your comments around the return on funds employed in the North American business being below your expectations and what your plans are to do over there in a broad sense and whether -- and I get a sense, and I'm not sure whether I'm reading too much into it as to your sort of reaching a point there where you need to decide strategically what you do? And the second question really relates a little bit to a follow-on to Andy's question is the way you see the world at the moment, where would you see fleet levels that you mentioned the overall fleet were 8,172 at the end of the period. Where would you see in an ideal world that going in the next couple of financial years? As you see the world at the present time.

No, really, really, really good point. So just on the first one, so there's no implication that we're looking at strategically exiting the North American market. We believe that we've got a cycle position there from a sales perspective that would be foolish, particularly given the rental growth that we're getting in both markets.

Was more a question as to whether you're looking at ways of improving that and...

100%. Yes. So, we have conducted a review of the North American market. It's been a deep review of all aspects from a revenue generation market channel, sales, fleet composition and cost perspective as well. That has resulted in a number of plans from different revenue channels. I won't go into the detail of those but expanding into the non-tourism and event market to a greater extent. From a fleet perspective, very much a one fleet North America approach, which we've talked about before, provides significant synergies, and that makes a really big difference, and we'll get funds out ultimately and then further cost initiatives that sit with that. When you model those through and look at the performance of them, we absolutely see this business getting over our benchmark return on funds employed. Part of that is funds out, from an efficiency perspective. Part of it is that revenue generation flowing through. And as it stands at the moment, the plans that we've got there, all the revenue generation elements are ticking the boxes in terms of the direction that we wanted to hit. The costs are ticking the boxes in terms of the direction we wanted to hit. The vehicle sales side is not just back a number of steps. So, on that basis, again, cyclical element, we think we're going to get in the right kind of place moving forward. From a vehicle fleet level -- sorry, you go, John, sorry.

That's very helpful. Thank you.

On a fleet levels perspective, look, there is this adjustment that we're going through right at the moment. Beyond that, as I said, we still see fleet -- we still see rentals revenue growth, and we see fleet growth aligning to that. So, around the world, single-digit growth in tourism is still well anticipated. We are seeing double-digit growth in most of our markets at the moment from a high day's perspective. And so right now, in most markets, that we've got utilization to increase. We've got the efficiency. But ultimately, yes, fleet will continue to grow. We're not putting numbers on that now because it's also volatile, but we [indiscernible]

But what you're really saying is other things being equal, as the sales cycle normalizes, one might expect that it will return to growing that fleet and growing the rental income with it is kind of the way you're thinking about it. Is that a reasonable summary?

Yes. And look, we do, as part of that, that all works the way that we should even in the current market and debt will come down, right? So, as Andy said, we're inefficient at the moment in terms of our total inventory fleet, and we actually have utilization opportunities in a number of the markets. So, debt will come down as we improve that.

Our next question comes from the line of Kieran Carling form Craigs Investment Partners.

Can I just confirm your comments around the ex rental unit sales in Australia with Canberra agent stripped out? Was that down 18%?

Overall, yes.

So just with that in mind...

That's retail. That's the whole thing, right? That's total vehicle sales, retail because Canberra is obviously predominantly retail. So total sales ex fleet and pure retail, inclusive of new down 18% on a same-store basis.

Just with that in mind, I guess I'm curious as to why your North American sales were so much softer, down 40-odd percent. But your gross margin in North America was fairly flat. So just keen to get your comments on why you think that is? And do you think it's a function of just not meeting the market on price in North America?

Look, fair question. It's actually really quite a simple answer. In the U.S., it's not -- it hasn't been about price. It's been about dealers adjusting their inventory levels and the motorized market lagging the towable recovery. So, towable has started to recover in that market. So there just hasn't -- people haven't been -- they've been adjusting their inventory levels down, and it's not about price. So, they just turned off the tap. So, there's no point in chasing a rubber down a hole that's got no future, right? In Australia, as we said, it is a different market and towable was where we've had the greater issue there from a volume perspective. And remember, the rest of the world sort of lags the U.S. by 6 to 10 months.

Next question. Obviously, you've outlined some of the swing factors which could impact your NPAT in the second half of FY '25. But one of the comments you made at the AGM in October was that one of the main drivers of that NPAT growth through the second half would be cost out. So, can you just talk a little bit more about that? And I guess, what your expectations are for OpEx in the second half?

So, I won't get into the detail of actually providing an OpEx number or OpEx percent. But we do -- the cost-out programs are on track. So that's absolutely still a benefit in H2, and we indicated that around our group support costs where we actually said that there's a couple of million that will come out there and make a benefit in the next half. So that's all on track. So that's fine. The rest of the growth I sort of detailed before and the risks of detailed in vehicle sales.

Just a final question. We've heard from some of the other operators in the industry that throughout Australasia, a lot of the high season demand has pivoted away from European tourists to more U.S.-based demand. Are you seeing a similar trend there? And if so, what impact is it having on the business, either positive or negative?

Look, that's interesting. So we've seen -- we haven't seen a noticeable difference in trend from that perspective. We've had really good growth out of the core markets, dramatic market, UK market, even domestic as well. U.S. is up, absolutely, but we're getting it more out of the core markets as well. So, there's not -- U.S. hasn't gone up the rankings significantly in our top 10 markets. I would have to check by location, but it's still in our top 6, but it hasn't moved significantly.

Our next question comes from Ben Wilson from Wilsons Advisory.

Just on the North American sales season, obviously, it doesn't start until sort of May, but can you say anything, Grant, in terms of demand you're seeing from the dealerships as they prepare for the start of the season?

Yes. So, look, there are a number of shows that occur in the first couple of months of the year, and those have been positive indicators. The dealers are right around, are very deep conversations with us. They're very interested. They're talking about taking decent amounts of vehicles. But as I said before, in these kinds of conditions, we just need to see that convert. We need to see them flow through with the expectations and see what happens from that.

And then in terms of the rental fleet growth, you sort of commented about your sort of overall views. But just thinking about the second half, you've obviously put out your gross CapEx guidance of around about NZD 300 million, so reasonably second half weighted. So, can we take from that, that you are looking to sort of continue growing the fleet in the second half?

Yes. Well, yes. So, New Zealand basically has its fleet increases in the first half, but that's 26% increase is what it needs for the rest of the financial year. So, it becomes first half weighted. Australia is a little bit like that. It has some more fleet come on for the 4-wheel drive season in May, June. So, there's fleet growth there. And North America obviously gets its fleet basically from now from the start of March through June. Now North America in general in this half obviously increases fleet as it moves to the high season. So yes, there will be overall fleet growth in this half.

Great. And then just lastly, in terms of unit sales in Australia, just further to that point. Obviously, your ex fleet sales increased to 80% on PCP. Can you just remind me, was that -- was there a sort of specific one-off issue in the first half '24? Or because it's still a pretty weak environment for RV sales, but like do you expect that the current level you've achieved is sort of maintainable going forward, assuming no sort of increase in or improvement in conditions?

Sorry, Ben, I missed which market you're talking about at the start. Sorry, I just didn't hear.

Yes, ex fleet sales in Australia.

Ex-fleet sales in Australia were -- yes, so they're positive enough. And your question beyond that? So, they're 80% up and why?

Yes, just it was an 80% increase on the PCP sort of -- the market was sort of weak in both periods. So just wondering which is the sort of [indiscernible]

Yes. So, you'll recall when we had our issues that I don't want to talk about, but we should just be remind ourselves of in May that we said that we had a decline in expectations around ex fleet vehicles. And we said that there is an opportunity they're not something that disappears and we said they'll start to sell through the next half, and we got questions a lot about whether we thought they would sell in the next half and whether we were taking any price activity to make sure they move. We did do all that. We did meet the market further on price. You see that in the margin reduction, but that did drive that volume. So those were those older vehicles with high margins and then that we moved somewhat in price. And so also reflective of the fact that the market is shopping more at the cheaper end. So, your brand-new vehicles at the sort of NZD 150,000 to NZD 200,000 mark aren't moving anywhere nearly as strongly. So that's the ex fleet growth. In terms of where we see that moving forward, that's still going reasonably well. And we're finding that generally around the world that the lower price point product is the product that's easier to move. We're certainly seeing that in New Zealand as well, and that's where a lot of the interest is in the U.S. Hope that answers your question.

Our next question comes from Vignesh Nair from UBS.

A couple of questions from me. Firstly, I think earlier in the presentation, Grant, you mentioned that ex fleet margins are beginning to normalize. Just sort of can you remind me what's the kind of steady state, I suppose, group level gross profit margin ex fleet for the business, say, into FY '26 or '27? Is 20% a reasonable number for the group?

Yes, 15% to 20% in between there, Nair.

So if you take a midpoint of that, like 17.5%, there's still -- is it fair to say there's sort of still about 7% inflation or abnormalities in the kind of reported number this year?

That's right. That's right.

Okay. And so realistically, is that just a decline in New Zealand and Australia coming back down to, say, mid-20s, North America staying broadly flat and the U.K., you're compressing a little bit as well? Is that the right math?

That's right. Yes, that's right. Now remember that we did have some depreciation rate changes that pull it down to that level. So, we noted the fact that we were -- we had much higher margins, and we should be adjusting those and pulling them down. So that's why I reiterated that point that real depreciation rates is the key thing to look at. And whilst, yes, that will actually increase somewhat, it's not going to increase to the same extent that you're talking about. So, if you're making an adjustment in any modelling for margins coming down, just be aware that there also needs to be adjustment for depreciation coming down as well.

Okay. Understood. And just taking a step back high level, I suppose, you've been in the business for a while now and seen a few interest rate cutting cycles. I suppose just taking a step back, typically, in the business, how long does it take in terms of a lag between rate cuts and for genuine sort of demand for RVs from a sales perspective to come through?

So what we're going through right at the moment or what we're seeing in North America, in particular, is the most protracted downturn that I've seen, and that's the same conversations with any of the -- again, the owner operators or people like the team at Thor that have again been in the industry much longer than me. So, it is more protracted now. So, we're hoping to see it start to recover. So, I'd say we're past the point now that we would be historically. This one has been longer. There is -- when you -- I haven't done it in recent times. But when we've looked at correlation coefficient historically, it's interest rate GDP and consumer confidence combined has quite a high correlation. And that actually flows through to the boat market as well. It's very similar.

Okay. And just final question, I suppose, just I wanted a bit of commentary around the age or the average age of the fleet at the moment. Obviously, sort of growing a slightly slower rate than recent history. What sort of happened to the average age of the fleet? And are you seeing sort of natural discounting as a result of that?

So the age of fleet is younger now than what it's been, obviously, because we went down so low in fleet in total. So, the fleet will continue to age over time. And then you're saying what does that suggest in terms of pricing and margin moving forward?

Yes.

So it doesn't change margin because, again, we adjust depreciation to make sure that we are getting that 15% to 20% margin at a retail level for the age of vehicles that we expect to sell. So that it doesn't really change it from that perspective. But certainly, at the moment, as the fleet ages, as I said before, the cheaper price vehicles are where the market is right at the moment. So, we'll end up with cheaper price vehicles as things age. Amir, you might have a comment on that as well.

Hey, Vignesh, so yes, there is a proportion of the -- if you think about the sort of mix of, I guess, model years, there was a small period there, sort of 2020, 2021, where there was no CapEx. So, the composition of the fleet looks like you got 2018, '19, some 2020 models and then nothing for a couple of years. And then we're on strong CapEx since then. So North America, Northern Hemisphere fleet probably looks like what it be. NZ-AU, there's still some of those model year 2018, 2019, 2020 units. It is a smaller and smaller proportion of the entire fleet. Those are the ones that we often talk about as being the higher margin units. As they come out as they are, then obviously, the fleet age will become a little bit lower even further, average fleet age in those markets.

Right. That makes sense. And so naturally, you'd think the higher, I suppose, sticker price for newer RVs is kind of a headwind when it comes to volume sales at the moment?

Yes.

At this time, there are no further questions from the line. I'd like to hand the call back to management for closing.

Brilliant. Thank you all. We really do appreciate everybody's time. Look forward to catching up with people over the next couple of days. And Desmond, thanks for hosting us. We'll get Olli out and about talking to people and meeting them over the next week. Good stuff. Thanks all.

That does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.