Well, thanks Andrew, hello and welcome to Clean Seas Seafood's Half One 2023 Results presentation. My name is Rob Gratton, Clean Seas Seafood's Chief Executive Officer, with me on the line is David Brown, our Chief Financial Officer. We're very excited to be presenting this set of results and believe that they further demonstrate the potential of Clean Seas. There's no doubt that we live in challenging times with high commodity prices, interest rate rises, and pressures on household disposable income. However, Clean Seas' results have delivered positive cash flow and a transition to profitability. We continue to see the emergence of kingfish globally on the menus in top restaurants and in more mainstream channels. We see the fish appearing more and more as a cooked center plate offering. Our sales team have done a great job and continue to highlight the benefits of our outstanding fish. Our commercial messaging centers on our exceptional product quality, its culinary flexibility, and our unique Spencer Gulf provenance. This commercial message continues to be well-received and has been translated into another strong trading performance, with substantial revenue and farmgate revenue growth. Equally important to our strong trading performance has been our ability to maintain optimal inventory, both live fish in the water and processed product in the freezer. We've eliminated frozen clearance sales, and this has driven pricing higher and reduced cost of production despite high feed prices. Nearly three years ago, we set ourselves the goal of becoming profitable and cash flow positive. Last year, we achieved positive cash flow, and this half year we've been able to demonstrate a significant turnaround to positive profitability. Looking to the future, we've continued to progress our sustainability agenda and have conducted research at our Arno Bay facility into new feed ingredients, including the replacement of fish oil with by-product and derived algal oil with encouraging performance results. Our Asparagopsis collaboration with CH4 has the potential to reduce our cost of production and increase sustainability by capturing carbon and nitrogen through complementary farming of seaweed. We see great opportunity for growth with Yellowtail Kingfish globally, and with our progress over the last few years translating into improved financial performance, we can look ahead confidently to the future. I'll now hand over to David to speak to our half-year financials. Thanks, Rob. We are incredibly happy to deliver the company's first half results for FY 2023, as it reflects the substantial progress made by the company to restructure and deliver on a number of our key strategic objectives, including delivering positive operating earnings. Despite the economic headwinds impacting supply, demand, and pricing, the company has delivered an outstanding result of positive gross profit and operating EBITDA per kilo. Some of the key highlights of the first half have been significant revenue and farmgate growth, up 40% and 41% respectively, improved production costs despite the impact of inflationary cost pressures, positive operating cash flows of AUD 3.5 million, and a significant improvement in earnings, which has delivered positive operating EBITDA of AUD 1.6 million. Total sales volumes declined by 22%. Harvest volumes increased by 18%, reflecting our transition from surplus to optimum levels of inventory. The decline in sales volume did, however, diminish our operational leverage, and as a result, indirect costs per kilo increased to AUD 3.39. The statutory loss of AUD 3.5 million was predominantly due to the winter non-growing season. Once the summer growing season is completed, we expect to again deliver a statutory profit for the full year FY 2023. Total sales volumes were down 22% on half one FY 2022. The decline in sales volumes reflects the transition away from surplus frozen inventory, which was a key driver in the prior period. Strong demand for Clean Seas Kingfish during the first half of FY 2023 improved pricing to record highs, up 40% to AUD 23.43. The improved pricing environment more than offset the decline in sales volumes and drove a 10% improvement in revenue. In Australia, sales volumes were up 2% on the same period last year. By excluding the 150 tons of frozen clearance sales into domestic retail channels, premium fresh volumes increased by 20%. Europe and North America sales volumes declined by 54% and 29%, respectively. The decline reflects a reduction in available frozen inventory and the emergence of more challenging economic conditions and greater competition. As highlighted previously during other results presentations, Clean Seas had surplus frozen inventory following the COVID-19 disruptions. The clearance of this inventory helped the company grow frozen sales substantially in FY 2021 and FY 2022. During the current period, the company prioritized the efficient management of working capital and demand for fresh products, which limited the production and availability of frozen inventory. Due to limited supply, frozen revenue per kilo increased by 79%. Furthermore, the demand for Clean Seas fresh products has continued to grow, increasing fresh sales by 18%. With the increasing demand and limited supply, revenue per kilo for fresh products increased by 20% to record highs of AUD 22.49. On a like for like basis, production costs reduced by 11%. This is an important achievement given the various global and local economic conditions, which have driven increases in feed, labor, and fuel. The impact of an increase in feed price had the most material impact, given feed represents approximately 60% of our production cost base. The 20% increase in feed was largely driven by higher commodity prices and freight costs. The impact of higher feed price had a AUD 0.60 per kilo impact on our current cost of production. Labor costs have also increased in our farming operations, reflecting inflationary pressures and the investment in scaling up in-house capabilities and creating a new organizational structure. While the new structure creates a higher fixed cost base, as we scale, we expect to leverage our new structure to drive future farming and profit performance. Our current production costs also reflect the impact of lower-than-expected growth in the early part of the growing season. The lost growth has reduced our ability to leverage our fixed cost base and increased production costs by AUD 0.54 per kilo. We expect inflationary pressures to continue to impact key cost drivers, the cost of production is expected to reduce further once the summer growing season is completed. Having spent considerable time rightsizing our live fish and frozen inventory position over the past three years, following the impacts of COVID-19, the company now has an optimal level of inventory, having maintained inventory cover of 11 at the end of December 2022. A further sign that the company has rebalanced inventory will be evidenced by the final harvest of the year class 2021 cohort in March. The change over to a new year class in March was a key strategic objective and will remove unnecessary holding costs, which is critically important in the current environment. While total net growth was up 7% on the prior period, growth rates in the first two months of the current growing season have been below expectations, driven by missed feed days caused by poor weather conditions at the Arno Bay farm, and unexpected fish losses on the closeout of some of the year class 2021 cages. While we have experienced some difficulties in the early part of the current growing season, we expect net growth to increase in the second half of FY 2023 and production costs to reduce from its current levels. A key milestone was reached in the hatchery during first half of FY 2023, with a record fingerling intake for year class 2023, so of 1.2 million. This was up 17% on year class 2022. Furthermore, our team produced these at an average size of 38.7 g. Our previous record was for the year class 18s at 1.1 million fingerlings at 28.1 g. This represents a significant increase in the number of fish and average fish size, which will drive future growth and importantly drive down production costs. As already mentioned, during the prior period, Clean Seas sold down frozen inventory, which allowed the company to rebalance its inventory position. In the first half, harvest volumes increased by 18% and largely reflected the demand for fresh products. Cash receipts reached a record AUD 34.1 million, representing a 6% increase on the prior period. The growth in receipts was driven by the increase in revenue, an optimal level of inventory, and without the benefits of selling down frozen inventory. Feed payments increased by 76%, driven by a 20% increase in the average feed price and the timing of feed purchases to take advantage of lower prices. Payments to employees increased by 22%, reflecting inflationary wages, inflationary impacts on wages and changes in our organizational structure, which will provide greater operational leverage as we continue to grow. Despite the challenging economic conditions, growth in cash receipts and prudent cost management drove positive operating cash flows of AUD 3.5 million. While this was a reduction from the AUD 6.5 million in the prior period, the FY 2022 result was largely driven by the benefits of selling down overstocked frozen inventory. The net cash position increased. Sorry, just let me get to the next page. The net cash position increased to AUD 6.8 million at the end of December, driven by positive operating cash flows, which allowed the company to reduce short and medium-term debt. In December, the group renewed its financing facility with the CBA, with a facility limit of AUD 32.2 million. The company currently has cash and undrawn working capital funding of AUD 22.7 million, plus an additional AUD 7.8 million of undrawn bank facilities to fund major capital works. During the first half, the company used cash reserves to fund capital investments of AUD 1.8 million. These investments largely focused on maintenance projects, including annual cages, nets, and rope upgrades, and was below the AUD 3.1 million investment in the prior period, which included the part payment for the purchase of two large heavy vessels. With respect to the deployment of growth assets, Clean Seas continues to review the current economic environment. We intend to maintain prudent investment decisions to ensure we have the right mix between scaling for growth, maximizing shareholder return, and minimizing operational risk. The company continues to assess key growth assets such as feed automation and the hatchery upgrade, and expects a final investment decision on these items in the second half of FY 2023. Great. Thank you, David. I'd now like to give you a little bit of an insight into how we think about building our capability and readying ourselves for the growth that we believe that we'll see in this species and for Clean Seas. Future growth relies on having the markets to sell our fish at price points that make commercial sense. It relies on having a competitive cost of production, it relies on having capability to expand in all elements of our supply chain without diminishing performance. In market development, we've driven greater penetration and a broader distribution base by highlighting the multiple attributes of our quality, culinary flexibility, and unique provenance. These efforts have grown not only sales volume, but also price. Looking at cost of production, our successful optimization of working capital, reducing live fish and frozen inventory has delivered substantial savings, reducing our cost of production over the last two years. This optimization brings benefits in feed conversion rates and allows for greater and more efficient performance. Our recent investment in two new heavy vessels brings greater efficiencies to the farm, and our planned expansion of feed automation will not only reduce cost of production, but it also adds to capacity for future growth. Further elements of increased growth capacity can be seen in our improved financial position, and with funding in place and a strong balance sheet, we have the ability to deliver on this potential. We retain the licenses to farm up to 10,000 tons, more than double our current production. These three elements, market development, cost of production, and capacity, are the foundations required for future growth. One of the unique things about our supply chain is that although we sell through wholesale partners around the world, we retain a dedicated sales team on the ground in Australia, Europe, and North America. Our sales teams bring deep seafood experience and are often former chefs. They're able to perform a crucial role being the link back from the customer to Clean Seas as the producer. Our team have driven strong demand for kingfish in all of our sales channels. Together with a growing awareness and acceptance of Yellowtail Kingfish globally, have been able to drive broader market and channel penetration. Having this link back to the producer allows our team to highlight the quality, culinary flexibility, and Spencer Gulf provenance, driving higher prices and record farmgate returns despite the pressure of high freight prices. As well as our high-end Spencer Gulf Kingfish brand, we've successfully leveraged our newer South Australian Yellowtail sub-brand to push into independent and specialty retails in Australia. As we look to the future, we've continued to look at new opportunities such as our collaboration with the large Japanese importers in North America to access their frozen formats and brands. On the farm, the team have completed the stocking of the year class 2023 fingerlings into our Port Lincoln farm. In total, we put to sea a record 1.22 million fish, a 17% increase on last year's year class 2022. Importantly, these fish went to sea at a larger average weight, some 39% above last year, which we expect to drive improved performance and a reduced feed conversion ratios through the remainder of the life cycle of these fish. Critically, our harvest of the year class 2021 fish will be complete in the next couple of weeks. This is the culmination of our efforts to reduce excess inventory and bring the live fish biomass back into balance. Our previous year classes, from year class 2017 to year class 2020, cut over in July, August, September, and August respectively. These extra four to six months in the water came at considerable cost. With feeding, maintenance, and health activities ongoing in these unproductive winter months. Remedying this overstock situation is the principal reason we've been able to reduce cost of production over the last couple of years. For those that know a little bit about how we farm the Spencer Gulf, you'll be aware that our fish predominantly grow in the warmer summer months, while the winter adds a firmness of flesh and fat content, giving rise to our unique product quality and diverse culinary applications. We've seen a slow start to this current growing season, whereby weather at our Arno Bay farm has somewhat restricted the feeding days of this manually fed location. We now expect the harvest for FY 2023 to be in the 15%-20% range above last year. Conversely, the growth at our automated Port Lincoln site is in line with expectations. Add a further validation to our expected acquisition of a new barge to automate feeding at the Arno Bay site, which will deliver increased capacity and drive lower production costs. We've continued to build capability on the farm this year, having operationalized two new heavy vessels, the Morella work boat and the Swissco tow vessel, to bring critical functions in-house and increase capacity. We've invested in our farming team, which while increasing fixed costs, will drive future performance and be leveraged at increased scale. Looking ahead, we soon expect to confirm the acquisition of that new automated feed barge, which we believe will reduce cost of production and build capacity. Investment in technology and automation, and the ensuing increase in scale represents the pathway to expanded production while managing operational and financial risk. Our sales team will continue to extol the benefits of our fish and the sustainability benefits of our farming practices, this ongoing growth in awareness and channel diversification is expected to continue to support strong pricing and demand. Maintaining harvest volumes in the current range of 15%-20% above last year and further reductions in our cost of production is expected to support positive operating EBITDA and cash flows. Supported by a banking facility, we intend to reinvest profits into automation and capacity expansion, with future dividends considered when at a greater scale to be paid from surplus retained profits and cash flows. In parallel, we will continue to invest in R&D, developing our sustainability-enhancing projects with a particular focus on feed formulation and nitrogen capture technology. In summary, Clean Seas has a strong leadership position in Yellowtail Kingfish, an outstanding premium seafood species underpinned by Spencer Gulf's unique provenance story. Clean Seas has successfully leveraged this position to transition to profitability and positive operating cash flows, and has achieved strong pricing in a market with relatively high barriers to entry. The company's competitive advantage around intellectual property, people, infrastructure, our integrated supply chain, our broad market access and scale are not easily replicated. There remains huge scope for growth with Yellowtail Kingfish globally. With the licenses in place to farm up to 10,000 tons and the positive social license within our local community, we believe Clean Seas represents an exciting and unique growth opportunity. Thank you for your attendance today and this evening. David and I would be very happy to take some questions. Rob, David, it's William Foster from London. Thank you very much indeed for the presentation. Could you just help a little bit on guidance please, for the second half in terms of production costs? Yeah. Look, Will, thanks for the question. As we sort of mentioned, we think the cost side of the business, you know, the inflationary pressures will remain. Feed costs will probably stabilize, but we'll get a significant increase in our growth, and so that will give us greatest leverage for the second half. We haven't put out any specific dollar guidance, but, you know, it will be considerably less from the position we are right now. Okay. I think the way to look at it, William, is our sort of what we've been saying previously is we're trying to maintain that gross profit margin of between AUD 4 and AUD 5 per kilo. That's probably the way to look at it in this high inflationary impact. I thought the majority of the feed was in Q2. Majority of the feed cost was in Q2. Structurally this half production cost. Yeah, it is, but the second half of the year is where all our growth is, that gives us the operating leverage. Yeah. That's my point, isn't it? Sorry, Dave, to be distributed. The H1, particularly Q2, should have the highest production costs and H2 should have the lower production costs. Yeah. Yes. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Second half of last year, your production cost must have been about AUD 10 a kilo. Yeah? Yeah. You've got to average out... Sorry, Dave. Go. Sorry. Yeah. It does average out to the full year amount, but yes, it was lower than the first half. You're correct. Okay. Sorry, second. I don't understand why indirect and R&D costs went up. That's just salaries going up 22%. No. If you look at it on a cost basis, the cost actually went down. It's because we tons sold reduced by 22% because it's a fixed cost base. As soon as you lose that leverage, your per kilo price increases. In dollar terms, William, indirect costs are fixed, but they were down AUD 200,000 on the same time last year. On a per kilogram basis, with the lower volume, without the clearance activity, they go higher on a per kilogram basis. We're actually able to reduce indirect costs year-on-year. Understand. Thank you. Perfect. Thanks, William, for the question. Any others? If there's no other question, I'm gonna ask another one, please. No, sure. I've lost myself a little bit because of the base effect of clearance stock. What are we guiding to the market now for second half in terms of sales volumes? In second half of last year, I think you did 1,800 tons. Are you saying you're gonna do 15%-20% growth on that number, or are you saying? I don't quite know what you're saying. Sure. We had expected to increase our harvest by about 30% on last year, which would have replaced effectively all of the 900 tons of clearance activity that was in the prior year number. In guiding to that 15%-20% range, the mathematics works out that we'll be about 200-300 tons short of last year's full year number in terms of harvest volume and sales volume. Remembering that 900 tons of last year came out of the freezer and was clearance activity. you know, while the sales volume are down without that clearance activity included, your revenue up and cost of production down is what's driven the AUD 6 turnaround in EBITDA per kilogram. That's roughly 3,400 tons or something like that. Yeah. Ri-in that ballpark, yep. Thank you. Very good. Well, if there are no other questions, we'll absolutely thank you all for attending, for your time. Our contact details in the paper, you alr eady know how to contact us. Very happy to answer any questions that might come up. We might leave it there, hope to speak to you all soon. Thanks very much. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. Good night.
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