Okay. Hello, and welcome to the AVJennings full year results webinar for fiscal year 2022. I'm Andrew Keys, and I'm facilitating today's event. Following the presentation from AVJennings CEO, Phil Kearns, there will be a Q&A session. Please use the Q&A function in Zoom to ask your questions. Good morning, Phil. Handing over to you. Thanks, Andrew. On behalf of AVJennings, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the various lands on which we work today and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and Māori people participating. We pay our respects to Elders past, present, and emerging, and recognize and celebrate the diversity of these peoples and their ongoing cultures and connections to the lands and waters across Australia and New Zealand. At the briefing in February, I talked about heading towards normalcy and how much we look forward to that. Well, that didn't turn out to be right. Extraordinary rain events, the continuation of different forms of COVID, war, supply chain issues, inflation, and interest rate rises have all led to difficult trading conditions for all industries across Australia and the world. The residential development market is no different and has forced some challenges for us all. In difficult times, it's often best to stick to your knitting, and that's what we plan to do at AVJennings as we continue to develop and sell affordable master plan communities in sought after locations and buying land or obtaining controlling interest in it. We continue to not engage into high rise, nor do we do contract building for others. At all stages in our developments, we consider what is right for our communities and what is right for our environment as we engage with issues such as energy, water, biodiversity, climate, and waste. All these factors play a role in the master planning and house designs that we put into our communities. We are in fact raising the bar in this area, and we've commissioned a new role, head of the future and sustainability, as we look out to what our customers, communities, and partners wanna see from AVJennings over the next 20-30 years. First home buyers and subsequent home buyers still make up over 50% of what we do. However, investors are playing an increasing role in the market, as are all levels of government with demand for social infrastructure rising. We've worked with various governments on a number of developments over the years. Over the next few years, we plan to extract greater productivity and efficiency with our current resources. We're looking to make more capital efficient transactions as the market evolves through this interest rate cycle, and this includes acquisitions in regional areas as we explore the move from the Y generation to regional amenities as our work lives evolve and the work from home model becomes entrenched in our culture. With this in mind, we're looking to increase the volume and proportion of built form product we put on our land and into our communities. Our focus is fairly and squarely on return on equity and earnings per share. We contend that our portfolio is diverse as it helps to mitigate market risk, and we now have over 12,700 lots under our control across all major states and in New Zealand, which is another area we see for growth. As I mentioned earlier, it's been a strange year, which has ensured a disrupted financial result due to the delayed timing on settlements. The abnormal wet weather along the east coast of Australia and New Zealand had a major impact in delaying settlements, with some sites suffering over 100 working days in wet weather stoppages. Global issues such as supply chain challenges leading to material shortage added to the labor shortages and COVID-19 have affected the whole industry, and we've not been exempted from these. Our 2023 financial year is underwritten by 683 contracts on hand, with the vast majority to settle through the year. Our growth strategy is in place, which includes more built product, and our financial position is strong as our levels of unsold stock are at record lows. Most importantly, we feel our industry fundamentals support a strong story for the residential development sector, with migration set to increase and a housing shortage nationally. While the result was lower, due to the reasons stated previously, there are some shining lights. While our profit before tax was down over 30% to AUD 17.9 million, it was at the upper end of our range, and our gross margins were up 28.8%, up from 22% the previous year. This is something we've worked hard on and will continue to do in FY 2023. The final dividend of AUD 0.67 per share was declared for FY 2022, bringing the total dividends for the year to AUD 1.77 per share, representing a fully franked yield of 5.5%. Our customer inquiry numbers have been strong, and that is reflected in our contract signings for FY 2022 at 853. The value of our pre-sales going into FY 2023 is AUD 230 million, up 105% on the previous year, which is a confidence-boosting indicator for earnings. In addition to the 683 contracts on hand I previously mentioned, we have signed contracts for another 34 in the month of July. Revenue recognition this year has been impacted by apartments playing a smaller part in our mix of products, which reflects the Empress Apartments settlements made at Waterline Place in Victoria in FY 2021. 2024 will be when we hope to see further apartment settlements as the final stage of Waterline Place is scheduled to be completed. Australia wasn't the only jurisdiction troubled by weather, supply chain challenges and COVID-19. New Zealand revenue was also affected, and Ara Hills suffered big delays of 85 working days, which will see its 2022 revenue leak into 2023. Despite this, our financial position is strong, with our club facility increased by our banks to AUD 300 million. While our borrowings reduced to AUD 109 million, our total assets increased to AUD 729 million. Despite the dip in settlements and revenue, cash flow from operations remained healthy, with AUD 33.1 million generated. Given where interest rates have moved, and there is potential for a market slowdown, our capital management settings have been prudent and leave us with the ability to achieve our growth ambitions. Net debt is down to AUD 106 million, and our gearing reduced to 14.5%, which is slightly under our target range floor of 15%. This leaves us with the ability to fund our strategy of growth and increase built form. Our number of lots at the close of the year stood at 12,733, with our business development team securing acquisitions in Clyde in Victoria and Ripley in Queensland, adding to our Cadence. Clyde, in the southeast of Melbourne, is a strong growth area and further diversifies our book into an area we haven't ventured into for a while, but has a dynamic story. The 333 lots acquired in Ripley, Brisbane, are close to an area we know from our Cadence project, and we feel the fundamentals in that area remain strong as it is a much sought-after location. Our lots under development reached 1,888, which was also up on the previous two years as the market strengthened over financial year 2022. It required a quick response as most in the industry thought demand would decline with COVID-19, but it went the other way. We were nimble and increased production, of which 1,036 are scheduled to complete in financial year 2023. The feeling of community is deeply entrenched in the AVJennings psyche. We support sporting and lifestyle groups across our sites, and shareholders will know our longevity in supporting the Steve Waugh Foundation. Since our involvement with Steve, we've raised over AUD 1.2 million for his foundation. We supported the Humpty Dumpty Foundation, including buying two pieces of equipment for children's hospitals, including for the Northern Hospital in Victoria and the Ipswich Hospital in Queensland. We know that this equipment could one day save the life of a child in our community. The grassroots clubs and organizations are at the heart and soul of our efforts, and our corporate ambassadors, Steve Waugh and Laura Geitz, have been terrific in assisting that effort. Our people are at the heart of what we do, and during the year, a refresh of the company's core values was undertaken, recognizing that a good corporate governance framework is vital to support the culture that values integrity, respect, and ethical behavior. The value statement is currently being refined and will be communicated throughout the organization through leadership, training, recognition, communication, and reinforcement. Most heartwarming has been the correspondence from customers of over 50 years, including a copy of a sales contract from one of our employees, Joe Casera, whose parents purchased their AVJennings home in 1972. Happy customers 50 years on is something they and we can be proud of. We're motivated to build great communities in the physical sense, but we are also building great communities through spirit via fundraising, volunteering, and giving. Moving forward across the next three to five years, we continue to see the underlying themes supportive to our business. Migration came to a standstill during the COVID pandemic, and government forecasts talk about over net 200,000 migrants coming to Australia each year. The massive infrastructure projects like the Inland Rail and the second Sydney Airport need sustained, strong population growth to succeed. The Inland Rail project is a regional project. It's not just for the city. Across the country, there is a shortage of labor, with unemployment being the lowest it has been in history. There still exists an undersupply of housing across the country. Despite the short-term difficulties in the supply chain, we believe in the long run, our model will shine through. There might be bumps along the way with rising interest rates and other potential headwinds, but Australian households, in the main, are reasonably well-placed to weather these conditions, provided they are not too prolonged nor too severe. Savings rates have increased substantially over the last few years, allowing households to absorb a rise in interest rates without too much pain by providing a buffer for any potential future rises. The company remains committed to deliver outcomes for our customers, stakeholders, and what the community expect. The Board believes we're on the right trajectory to grow revenue and earnings for financial year 2023. Thank you. Thanks, Phil. Reminder for participants, if you would like to ask a question, pop it into the Q&A function, and I'll happily facilitate that with Phil. One question which came through beforehand from a shareholder in relation to the land bank with acquisitions at Clyde, southeast of Melbourne and some more acquisitions southwest of Brisbane. I mean, are there any other particular regions around the capital cities that you're, you know, especially keen on or focused on right at the moment? Yes. I think the southern areas of Sydney down to Wollongong will be key areas for us. The second airport, which I mentioned earlier, is a key growth component of southwestern Sydney, and I think it will be for the Wollongong area as well. Right through those regions I think will be important for us, and we're consistently looking out there. The sites down there are under a huge amount of demand from competitors, so we need to be careful the way we do acquisitions there. I think the Central Coast of New South Wales is also a strong area for us. I mentioned Queensland, you know, it's the fastest growing state in Australia. There are various pockets around Brisbane, which we think, you know, southwest and northwest of Brisbane, which we think will be good. I think finally I did touch on the regional areas, and particularly areas where the infrastructure is strong, where there's hospitals, universities, you know, private and public schools, access, will be areas that we think will be strong. Where infrastructure, I did mention the Inland Rail, you know, potentially that is an area for us to explore. Thank you, Phil. Just wait a moment. There are no questions in the queue. All right. I think we'll call it a day there, Phil. Thank you very much for the presentation and insights, and thank you to all the participants for registering and connecting to the webinar today. Enjoy the rest of your Thursday and we'll speak to you again soon. Thank you. Thanks, Phil. Thank you.
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