Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Experience Co Limited first half fiscal year 2021 results conference call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. John O'Sullivan, the CEO. Please go ahead. Thank you, Anastasia. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your time this morning. With me is Owen Kemp, Experience Co's Chief Financial Officer. Today we'd like to walk you through our half year results for the financial year 2021. As per previous calls and updates, our presentation this morning is three parts. I'll provide a business update to commence with. I'll hand over to Owen to run through the financial results. To finalize things, we'll give a brief trading update and outlook on the business. From there, we're happy to take your questions and answers. Turning to slide four and the highlights of the first half of FY 2021. As the business continues to tread its way through our COVID-impacted sector, sitting here this morning, we are extremely pleased as a management team with our overall progress through financial year 2021. As we progress through the half, despite some interruptions caused by interstate lockdowns and border restrictions, our business performance has continued to improve, particularly during that peak trading month of December. I'm also pleased that our business divestment and simplification program that we announced to the market late in 2019 is now completed, and this has allowed us to reduce our net debt level to the lowest point it's been for some time, at AUD 2.6 million. Finally, with a combination of our working partnership with the Queensland Government, a stronger balance sheet, and our desire for growth in our North Queensland business, we've been able to allocate capital to some value-accretive projects, in particular our reef pontoon, which Owen will give you an update on briefly during his financial update. Turning to slide five. The thematics I'd like to pull out for the first half's financial snapshot of the business really revolve around improved trading during the financial year to date, and also our balance sheet health. Our underlying EBITDA was AUD 4.4 million. Our continuing operations were just below breakeven. Very importantly, with our balance sheet, we have cash and cash equivalents at AUD 15.7 million. As I said before, our net debt levels are at AUD 2.6 million. Going over to slide six and going through an update on our COVID-19 recovery before I hand over to Owen to take you through our financials. As we outlined to you during 2020, the mindset of our business as we've approached this financial year was really to break it down into four distinct quarters and approach each quarter in the thematics that we've outlined there on the slide in front of you. As we stand here today, as we go through quarter three, there is no doubt there has been some disruptive events caused by some further interstate lockdowns, which has led to some consumer uncertainty. Also we're now experiencing the domestic shoulder season in February and March, which will see some quieter trading, particularly in North Queensland and over in New Zealand. Pleasantly, we're seeing in our Skydive Australia business some strong trading, in particular on weekends. That said, as we look forward through to the fourth quarter of FY 2021, we remain confident that the sector and our business in particular will benefit from the vaccine rollout in Australia and New Zealand, which we believe, in Australia particularly, will lead to better stability for interstate travel and also increase consumer confidence. We also know that from talking to our partners in regional tourism organizations that the holiday periods ahead for the financial year in Easter and also June and July are looking particularly strong. We also expect that during the quarter, we will get better visibility on international market opportunities as the year progresses. That's a bit of an update on the business. I'll now hand over to Owen to walk you through our financial results for the first half. Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. We're now on slide eight for those of you with the presentation before you, where we've just listed you some highlights on the financial performance, which I think the key takeout that we want to share with you today is that we're trading in line with expectations. You may recall the group started the half cautiously looking forward, having only recently recommenced operations following suspension of activities in March 2020. Today, I present to you, as John shared, a result that we as a team are extremely pleased with. Perhaps not in normal times, but certainly within the context of a pandemic, and more so a tourism business during a global pandemic. Domestic uncertainty with pandemic clusters, interstate border restrictions, and metropolitan lockdowns added to the challenges and uncertainty faced during the half and will continue to feature in our new term. Overall, revenue of AUD 20.1 million was a solid result, and underlying EBITDA of AUD 4.4 million, a stark improvement on the AUD 1 million loss for the second half of 2020. I would note, as a bit of accounting housekeeping, the results now include the impact of AASB 16 leases, and for each of the current and comparative period, the underlying EBITDA is AUD 0.9 million higher than would otherwise be the case. We're extremely pleased with the reduction in the statutory net loss of after-tax to AUD 0.2 million, down from AUD 7.1 million in the comparative period, which follows the timely implementation of the business simplification strategy and has positioned the business well to navigate the pandemic. As John alluded to, month-to-month trading continued to improve through the half, with solid volumes and profitability in the key month of December, which most will recall, saw the emergence of the Avalon cluster in New South Wales from mid-December, which once again, was another short-term blip on the horizon. Looking at the results and the near-term prospects, it's a simple story. International travel has and will not feature in the near term, as John alluded to, and the domestic story is one of continued metropolitan self-drive markets trading well. Destination markets that require aviation access, such as Cairns and Queenstown, relevant to our business, continue to be highly impacted. Overlying that, we've got the vaccine developments, which are positive overall to our outlook, and we are cautiously looking forward with optimism in this regard. I promise not to dwell on net debt as I usually do too much today, but we're delighted to be where we are at the end of the period, that AUD 2.6 million net debt, which included a AUD 1 million contribution in net terms to the pontoon project. Lastly, we continue to be grateful for the government support we've seen to date, enabling us to continue to prudently navigate the pandemic with our workforce. Turning to slide nine. In the Skydive business, we saw a strong finish to the half with our Victorian drop zones coming online in late November. Skydive continued to build over the half, even with the emergence of the Avalon cluster. The peak season bookings and jump volumes, particularly in Australia and the metropolitan markets, were quite strong. In Australia, we had eight DZs operating for the full period, with the three Victorian drop zones coming online in late November. Approximately 42% of volume was achieved for the half compared to the prior period. If we look back to FY 2018 and FY 2019 volumes for the key months of November and December, we're starting to see prior comps coming in around the 50% mark. Metropolitan self-drive markets within two hours of major cities have performed beyond our expectations heading into the period, but more sobering has been the performance of the destination markets in tropical North Queensland and Queenstown. With the absence of international, we expect this to continue through the calendar year. That all said, we're extremely pleased with our market position in each key market and our pricing and cost structures across the Skydive business. The second half will be a story of continuing to stay on top of the emerging pandemic factors and managing profitability heading into the low season, which is typically from the May to August period. Moving it on to GBR Experiences on slide 10. The trading was once again improving through the half, Queensland border uncertainty is impacting interstate demand. It simply is a Queensland domestic border story in the near term. Our business was highly impacted by the border closures, in simple terms, we just only have to remember that Greater Sydney and Victoria were open for approximately two months and one month respectively during the half. Interestingly, as at the end of January, we've seen over 21 border variations to Queensland since the pandemic commenced. There's no judgment cast from the management team here today, but it is clear that this uncertainty will continue to be a perception challenge to consumer sentiment. At a trading level, December and January volumes were pleasing. However, with the continued lockdown, we have seen that slow-off that John has mentioned with the metro snap lockdowns we've seen in Victoria, Perth, and Brisbane. In particular, the GBR Experiences business, we have welcomed strong support from the Queensland Government through the Tourism Icons Program and the growing tourism infrastructure, along with some rental relief from the Ports North Statutory Authority. For this segment, uncertainty will continue to be a factor in the near term, given Queensland Government's demonstrated approach to state borders and emerging COVID hotspots. Moving on to the balance sheet on slide 11. Net debt is once again down. Importantly, we'll remind everyone that no capital raise has been required to navigate the pandemic to date, something we're extremely proud of in the tourism industry. Capital discipline has been a key part of the business strategy. We continue to live within our means. With net debt down to AUD 2.6 million at 31 December and including a AUD 1 million in net investment in the pontoon project, we are quite pleased with where this has all landed. We still have approximately AUD 3 million in net surplus assets, which management will continue to sell down in an orderly manner. There is no need for a fire sale. We are prepared to wait for value. On the debt facility, we've extended the corporate debt facility maturity out to February 2022, and the multi-option facility has been reset to AUD 20 million, down from AUD 40 million, in light of the pandemic. We've exchanged fixed leverage and senior leverage covenants with a minimum cash requirement at any one time, something that's more suitable for our business as we go through the pandemic. Importantly, where we deploy capital in the near term will all be about this continued disciplined capital allocation in what is a new normal with the pandemic, certainly for the next one to two years. We're certainly encouraged with the opportunity set that is emerging and that we're working on. On slide 12, I've given a short update on the pontoon project. Importantly, it's on schedule, and secondly, on budget. John and I both had the opportunity to be hosted by English Engineering, our building contractor, last week in Cairns. We were pleased with how this 170-tonne floating structure is coming to life. The project will be the first pontoon on the Northern Great Barrier Reef in over a decade. It is great to see how proud and passionate our staff, our contract partners, government, and local stakeholder groups are towards the project in what are very difficult times in the region. Located on the presentation on the right, we can see the project coming together with tubes that are 35 m long and 1.9 m in diameter, which will weigh in each at 25 tonnes and will be the supporting structure that enables the platform to float. As we've indicated previously, we're on track to have this open early in calendar year 2022, which we hope to be a well-timed new product launch as markets return. While we're on the calendar year and recent trading, I'll now hand back to John to take us through the trading update and outlook. Thanks, Owen. Turning now to slide 14 in the presentation, just to conclude today's presentation before we open the floor up to question and answers. Our January performance was by and large, as Owen said, in line with our expectations and also previous trends across all three business units. Pleasingly, even though we saw a decrease in the financial impact of support from the JobKeeper program within Australia, the business continued to be profitable in the January month, and net debt remains low at AUD 2.4 million as at 16th of February 2021. As we've referenced before, we've now seen the onset of the traditional shoulder season within the domestic Australian and New Zealand tourism markets. As a result of that, we are seeing quieter trading, particularly on our GBR Experiences business and also our Skydive operations in New Zealand. Pleasingly, demand for our Skydive Australia product remains consistent and in particular, strong over the weekends. We do remain confident about the outlook for Australia and New Zealand, as I said before, based on the vaccine rollout, which we do believe will continue to improve consumer confidence, and we also believe will also ensure that border certainty within Australia and potentially Trans-Tasman travel will start to emerge as real possibilities as the year progresses. That said, due to the continuing uncertainty over FY 2021, we don't intend to provide an earnings guidance for this financial year. In closing this morning, and before we hand over to question and answers, again, I'd like to thank you for your time this morning. In particular, Owen and I would also like to thank the team members at Experience Co across our business in both Australia and New Zealand, who have just been outstanding in responding to the many challenges thrown at them during this first half of the financial year and months before that, and also to you as investors for your continued support of our business. Thank you. That concludes our presentation for this morning, and we're happy to take questions. Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. The first question comes from John O'Shea with Ord Minnett. Please go ahead. Good morning, guys. Can you hear me? Yes, can, John. Yeah. Morning, John. Morning, Owen. Thank you guys for the presentation. I guess a couple of questions from me. Firstly, just on the JobKeeper. During the half, what was the amount that you guys received? Secondly, obviously, with the borders opening and closing, John, and that uncertainty, can you give us some sort of sense of the leverage in the business? In other words, when you spoke about in the presentation that when things were opened up, you saw some good growth in the business. Can you give us some sort of extent of the scale of the leverage here? Let's say, for example, if borders do open up domestically, obviously the international travel part perhaps after that, obviously. Can you give us some sort of feel on the leverage inherent in the business with domestic borders opening fully, if you like? Yeah, sure. It's Owen here, John. I'll try and answer that question, and I'm sure John will chime in along the way. If I start with the sort of the facts or the hard facts here. In terms of JobKeeper, we also will throw in the wage subsidy over in New Zealand in our business. Sure. That contribution was AUD 5.4 million in gross terms, which we estimate that gives us a net benefit to underlying EBITDA of AUD three and a half million. The reason for that, we're a bit unique in a way that we have a lot of people still on stand-down. As you can imagine, they'd actually be in no work at the moment, unfortunately. A different impact to some industries. How that plays out, I guess the best way of answering it is, look, the other fact is the results are driven by who is on JobKeeper and who isn't month to month at the moment. That's the first point. Secondly, maybe the other factual point that we've got is looking at the December and January months and when we see the volume Come back, which in those periods that, yes, they are seasonal highs, but they're profitable on their own back those months. We probably expect to see the volumes that we've now experienced in December and January that usually, yes, that'd be a season high. We're hoping as the domestic stability comes in, the vaccine plays out. Question of timing, of course, John. We are profitable without that support, if that makes sense. I think that's certainly the way we look at it. That's trying to give you the high level read-through on that. Maybe the other way of just finishing off that point, something John and I took out is, look, if, say, we go to the ultimate scenario that JobKeeper ends and there's no replacement, obviously we would be a little discouraged by that. However, we have contingency plans in place to navigate that through and ensure that it's not a catastrophic event for our business. Cool. I guess where I'm getting with that, with that leverage question is, in an ideal world of domestic border openings, the sort of upside, and the sensitivity in the numbers is quite significant, yeah? Absolutely. Once we push through, it's about a third, I guess, in very colloquial terms, John. Once we push through a third of the volumes of prior comps, that's where we start to see it being very accretive to profitability. Okay. Terrific, mate. Thanks very much. The next question comes from James Tracey with Veritas Securities. Please go ahead. Yeah, good morning, John and Owen. Morning, James. How are you? Hey, James. How are you going? Yeah, good thanks. Just a follow-up to John's question, really. Would you be able to give us an indication of what sort of revenues and margins you'd be looking at with all of the Australian borders open, but the international borders closed? I think, looking forward for the next six months to a year, that looks like the most likely scenario. Would you be running sort of at 50% of prior year on the revenues? What sort of percentage, EBITDA margin would you be looking at on that basis? Probably, I'd go, that's the numbers, man. I'm probably naturally conservative on giving too much guidance there, James. The reason why we haven't given a lot in this regard is the uncertainty attached to each of those. I get where you're going, but I think from where we stand today, we probably expect it not to be as fluid and stable as whether you keep on hitting 50% each month, just given we've seen with the patchy closures. We are starting to cycle through the prior comps, where naturally they're very high, and as we go through, given we were impacted by the bushfires last year. I think at a high level, I guess, John, chime in as well. If we started looking at comps and we went back to averages of FY 2018 and FY 2019, James, which is probably our best reference. I think if I look around the markets, I'd probably say it'd be in that range of 50% of volume for the Australia Skydive business. Probably something more in the order of 20% in New Zealand. On the Reef, that's probably the variable. We haven't got a great read-through yet certainly around Queensland borders. If we have a look at December and January, it's conceivable we might be able to get up into that high 40%-50%. That's not assuming any kick up, if you will, of people suddenly having pent-up demand for travel. That's us reading the tea leaves on the numbers we've seen when borders have been open. I would express, they're very directional estimates, but they're sort of trend lines that are starting to emerge. Yeah. I suppose you haven't really seen any period of properly open borders, so you don't have any e xperience of what that would look like. No, we don't. We haven't, because if you think about the geographic footprint of our business and then the states that have been impacted, as well as the countries in New Zealand's case. During that first half, we've seen Western Australia virtually closed off to the rest of the country. We've seen Queensland open one day, close the next. The state that's been the standout from our opinion has been New South Wales and the way that Premier Berejiklian has managed this as well. Obviously Victoria's been open and shut, and obviously New Zealand, remembering they've had a number of lockdowns. We haven't actually seen that. As Owen said, we're pretty confident in those types of numbers. Remembering as well, we've done a lot of work during the first half of this financial year renegotiating a lot of our distribution agreements, bringing back commission rates by an average between 5% and 10%, and spending a lot of time building up that direct business. I think as we go longer through this, I think what we're starting to see emerge in the travel sector is the parts of the travel sector that are being impacted the most by COVID. I mean, we're all being impacted, but a lot of the pain point seems to be in that distribution side of things. It will be interesting to see what that landscape looks like in a post-COVID world compared to what it was pre-COVID, which will ultimately also get back to what sort of margins businesses like ours can generate. Yeah. It sounds like when there is a recovery, you guys will be potentially a higher margin business than what you were, just because of the work you've done around costs and efficiency. Yeah, I think we've already started to see that in these sets of numbers, right? If you look at some of the results, particularly in North Queensland, where we spent a lot of time, as you know, cutting a lot of cost out of that business. Certainly, our business is really well positioned when we start to get further out of this and as vaccines get rolled out, to really take advantage of those international markets opening up. I think the important thing to remember as well is that the two markets that will come back first from a customer point of view will be the youth market. They are bulletproof. They will travel no matter what. They don't really care about COVID, and they are our core market, particularly for the skydiving business and that FIT end of the market, which has also been a big part of our skydive business, particularly in both Australia and New Zealand historically. Just a follow-up question. What's the market like for acquisitions? Have you seen any interesting companies come out of the woodwork because of COVID? Look, it is interesting. As we've said previously, we're still very active in monitoring what's out there. There's been some opportunities that have presented themselves that we've assessed and decided to not necessarily pursue. There are some opportunities out there that we're looking at. We haven't seen any fire sales emerge as of yet. Look, I don't really think we'll see that until really when there's a clearer view on things like JobKeeper or ongoing support for the sector. I think there's a lot of operators out there that are probably existing on that welfare that may have a different view once we come out of that. We'll just wait and see and look at the right opportunity. As we've said before in numerous presentations, ultimately, we will be guided by what any investment, what the return on invested capital is. Does it strategically fit within the business? Can we integrate it correctly once we acquire it? Does it generate value? Do you have any guidance on that JobKeeper piece? You said that the gross contribution was, I think, AUD 5.4 million in the first half. Did you have any expectation for the second half and beyond? Yes. I think maybe breaking it up in the trends. We know what it will be for the first quarter out to March. I think we can safely sort of get the numbers. It'll be about half the monthly run rate, James, of what it was for the first half in gross terms. Beyond that, I guess we're in the hands of government policy, and we read the same news that many of you on the call today would read. I think that's probably the thing. Hopefully, we find out that in the next few weeks. Give us a bit of certainty. We're planning for both cases, to be frank, and I think that's just prudent for us to be doing at the moment. Okay. Regardless of that, if you've got state borders opening, you're comfortable with being profitable even without JobKeeper? Yes. With state borders open. That's the result we'd much rather take. Agnostically sitting here today, we'd rather borders be open, and us earning our keep and demonstrating that the strategy's worked, rather than a continuation of JobKeeper. That's not meant to be any value judgment on whether JobKeeper should continue or not, James. That's a policy concern for people. All right. far greater and objective than me. Thanks a lot, Owen. Thanks, John. Thanks, James. Thanks, James. The next question comes from John Hynd with Wilsons. Please go ahead. Hi. Good morning, John and Owen. Thanks for taking my questions. Could you give us an indication of the split of the 30,000-odd or 31,000-odd jumps from New Zealand to Australia this period, please? Yeah. In terms of that, John, you're looking at about 5,000 if I just took some round terms in New Zealand, and the balance being in Australia. Right. Perhaps more, I guess looking forward a little bit more, the pontoon is a great addition and operational in early 2022. How does that change your business up in Far North Queensland, and what sort of revenue opportunities should we be thinking about? Is it incremental to what you're doing at the moment? John, in terms of the project, I think if I understand where you're going, is it incremental or not? It certainly will be a better product in terms of that. The first port of call is that we were looking to refresh our product, or we're at the end of its economic life in many respects of the existing pontoon out on the reef. This enables us to really just lock in that economic life of 15-plus years. In doing so, we have looked to obviously have a product there. We haven't banked in that upside. Certainly, the first port of call is that we want to extend the economic life and make that capital work longer for us to protect our business. In doing so, with the design of the pontoon, there's scope for increased revenue streams, either through additional activities which we'll have the capability to do, and also in terms of things like scientific research and having the facilities on board the pontoon to offer those. Okay. Maybe another way to ask that question is, what sort of revenue contribution would you expect to make on a percentage basis to the overall operations up there? Then, I guess on a through cycle or a mid-cycle basis, keeping in mind, because helping us understand it, I think the total cost was about AUD 7 million. What sort of return on capital do you aim for? What are the internal targets for projects like this? Right. Yeah. Okay. That's probably a simple one to answer. For a project like this, John, we're talking sort of in the double digits and north. I would say with a project like this, as you'd well know, when you try and work out what's incremental, et cetera, it's quite a challenging one. The return on this project is certainly something we're quite satisfied and exceeds the threshold of 10%. Okay. Thanks very much. Thanks, John. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. The next question comes from Allan Franklin with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead. Yeah, morning guys. Thanks as always for your time. Appreciate it. Three from me, if I may. One financial, two more operational. Just hoping for a bit of detail on the COGS line. Just looking sequentially relative to the second half, COGS was quite materially lower and gross margin higher. Just trying to, yeah, understand what aided that, if I may. Two operational ones. Just on pricing, how are you sort of seeing the propensity to spend in each of the different markets? Do the markets have different pricing for the weekend versus weekday, or is there a way for you to drive volumes through that way? Just the last one, just on people management. I know a lot of the sort of experienced jumpers come in and out of your business sort of anyway, but just interested in how you're keeping a lot of those experienced jumpers busy and/or on your books. Thank you. Yeah. I'll kick off then, John, with the financial numbers, and then you can come in. No worries, yeah. with the operational. On the margin, Allan, there's a few things happening in that. Obviously, this is where we see the JobKeeper contribution coming in. You'll have a workforce mix issue playing out. Overall net terms, it will be benefited in the period, in the margin sense in that we're obviously operational. When we're operational, the costs that come through from JobKeeper, we'll put it through, and it helps us improve the margin through that. The second bit of that is we have been doing a lot of work around, as you know, the cost structure, and that can be the commissions through to all forms of distribution, in terms of that, and variable charges as well that we've been working on. There's no simple read-through, I guess, in terms of that. There's a lot of moving parts in that. Certainly an area we've been focusing just to maximize it in the short term. Then in terms of pricing and demand, certainly as most of you are aware, we took quite an aggressive stance on pricing for Skydive Australia. As we came out of COVID-19, we felt as a management team, and this was agreed with the board that, in history, in some years, our product in Australia, considering the quality of the product, the quality of the drop zones, quality of the aircraft and the instructors, is that it was relatively underpriced. To give you an example, we had run in some years upwards of 20 odd different sales during the course of a year, which we've now brought down to eight. For skydiving, we have basically gone for a consistent pricing model, in peak season across the drop zones, in that there's no differentiation between midweek and weekends. As we're going into the shoulder season, however, we have just introduced a midweek offer, and that's in response to, as I said before, I guess this quieter period, which will keep going until April. Up on the reef, again, we've either maintained or increased our pricing. As has been the tradition on the reef, there's been a lot of local discounts that have been provided by the operators, generally in the vicinity of about 50%. Again, we've brought back our discounts on that round to the 30% market. Unlike some of our competitors up there who have applied locals rates to all of Queensland, we've maintained that to being in the local catchment area. With respect of the question around the tandem masters, it's important to remember our tandem master workforce is a contractor workforce. Like any contractor, they can provide their services to other businesses, other operators, just like an electrician can fix my house and come and fix your house, Allan. They've got a much more flexible work arrangement in and around that. A lot of them have been able to qualify for the JobKeeper program directly. I guess for us, what we're able to provide them is higher volumes of work than our competitors do. Again, importantly, the equipment that we have, the aircraft and the drop zones that we provide for them. Plus, a lot of these contractors have contracted to us for a very long time. There's a history and connectivity with the company. Yeah, sure. Thank you. Sorry, just one other quick one. I think you alluded to November and December being sort of circa 50% of normal volumes. Just to clarify, that's normal volumes including international, but relative to- Correct. Yeah, correct. relative to normal domestic, that would be sort of at or even higher than normal sort of domestic volumes pushing through those months. Yes. I think that's one of the things we have benefited from. If you think about on a normal basis for Skydive Australia, it's generally around 35% of our customers are from Australia, and we're now seeing, through some of the numbers, I think in December it was around about 54%. We're seeing a higher number relatively to what we do in normal trading. Now, obviously, there's an impact of COVID and Australians being, as you were in Victoria, Allan, locked in your house for an extended period of time. You wanna get out and jump out of an aircraft. That's good. We realize that that happened, we're also doing a lot of work at the moment on CRM and direct sales so that we can continue that post-pandemic. Perfect. Thank you. Much appreciated. Thanks, Allan. Thanks, Allan. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. O'Sullivan for closing remarks. Thank you, Anastasia. Once again, thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your time this morning, and for listening in and your questions from the floor. I hope you all have a good day. Thank you very much. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.