Spark New Zealand Ltd Ord

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the SPARC New Zealand HY25 results 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 Jolie Hodson, CEO of SPARC. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Kia ora koutou koutou. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for SPARC's half-year results for the period ended 31 December 2024. This morning I'll provide an overview of our results and I'll then hand over to our CFO, Stuart Taylor, who's recently joined the business, to speak to our financial performance in more detail before we move to Q&A. So before we turn to the first half results, as you would have seen from our market disclosures this morning, we've updated FY25 EBITDA guidance. So I'll start by providing some context regarding this change. So when we updated the market in October, we outlined that we were experiencing one of the longest and deepest recessionary periods in recent history. Since that time, we've seen no improvement in these conditions, and while there has been movement on monetary policy, this has yet to flow through to any meaningful change in consumer or business spending. As a result, we've seen further deterioration in the performance of our enterprise and government division, which has been impacted by spending cuts mobile fleet reductions across government and businesses, changes in product mix, and aggressive price competition in mobile. This has resulted in us reducing FY25 adjusted EBITDA guidance to $1.04 billion to $1.1 billion. This excludes the anticipated benefit from the gain on the sale of Conexa of $66 million and the FY25 non-recurring transformation costs of approximately $45 to $50 million. We know our shareholders will be rightly concerned about the ongoing headwinds we are facing. We're taking decisions, our decisive action to improve that performance, and I'll spend time this morning outlining these plans and our progress to date in some more detail. Before I do that, I will first focus on slides three and four to summarize our H1 performance. Reported revenue declined 1.9% to $1.93 billion, driven by mobile. IT services, and the continued decline of legacy voice, and partially offset by growth in mobile devices, cloud, data centers, and IoT. Reported EBITDAI declined 20.9% to $419 million, driven by lower IT services project activity, the mixed shift from private to public cloud, and the supply cost inflation. Reported impact declined 77.7% to $35 million due to lower EBITDA and the high depreciation and amortization costs. In FY25, we will recognize a non-recurring cost of transformation of $45 to $50 million, with $29 million reported in the half-done result related to the net labor and OPEX benefits we will deliver in FY25 to FY26. Normalizing for this non-recurring cost, Adjusted EBITDA declined 15.5% to $448 million, and adjusted MPAT declined 64.3% to $56 million. Free cash flow increased 67.4% to $77 million. When including working capital and growth capex, free cash flow improved further against the prior year. by $163 million as we disciplined on that capital expenditure, which was down 12% year-on-year, and we saw a working capital benefit. The board declared an H125 dividend of 12.5 cents per share, consistent with FY25 total dividend guidance of 25 cents per share, and in recognition of the receipt of the Conexa proceeds that are due in Q3 FY25. Turning now to the action we are taking to improve performance. which is summarised on slide five. As we shared in October, we have four strategic priorities that will not only improve Spark's underlying performance in the short term, but deliver sustainable competitive advantage in future years. We're firmly focused on driving momentum in our telco core, simplifying our portfolio, transforming our cost base and creating long-term shareholder value through our data centre strategy. I'm going to talk to each of these priorities in more detail now. We start with our telco core and our priority market of mobile, as outlined in slide 6. It's important to first set the market context for the H1 period. Mobile service revenue across the total market was broadly flat over the last six months. Sparks mobile service revenue declined 3.7% to $491 million, and there are a few different drivers of this. The predominant driver was a 17.7% decline in mobile service revenue within enterprise and governments. Our teams have done well to hold customers within a challenging and highly competitive market, but with high market share in the segment, we're more exposed to rapidly shrinking mobile fleets as customers have reduced headcounts or sought cost efficiencies, for example, within government. When looking at our connection loss in H125 versus H124, approximately 80% was driven by shrinking fleets versus losing business to competitors. We then also saw the ongoing impact of aggressive competitive pricing, which is driving down the value of contract re-signings and new business wins, and that impacted our service revenue share. The step now to consumer in May, we saw a 2.3% decrease in mobile service revenue, and that was predominantly driven by a decision to discontinue a Spark-owned mobile insurance product, which reduced ARPU. Outside of this, pay monthly connection growth continued, with acquisitions up 1.1% year-on-year, The prepaid market was tougher with mobile service revenues across the total prepaid market declining versus the second half of last financial year. While we saw connections decline, around 70% of this loss was attributable to casual users with low or no spend, meaning our prepaid ARPU increased. Of these casual users, over 80% of connection loss was due to investors' movement to competitors. Overall, we saw a 0.7 percentage point decline in our total mobile service revenue market share, with about 0.2 points of that attributable to the change in mobile insurance. Despite this, we remain the market leader by some distance in that category. While the mobile market was challenging during the half, we have built strong momentum that will flow into H2 as outlined on slide 7. In consumer and SME, we refreshed our pay monthly plans at the end of October. introducing big data caps for our customers. The response has been very positive with acquisitions over November and December, up 7% versus the same period in H124, and acquisition ARPU also up $1.40. We then completed a refresh in prepaid in December, which has improved our competitive positioning, and early data shows a good uptick in acquisition going into the second half. We implemented price increases across our pay monthly and prepaid base in December, offering customers customers more data for dollars, which will deliver further benefits in H2, equating to around a 3% of expected service revenues. In enterprise and government, we're pleased to see the rate of mobile fleet shrinkage slowing in the first half to around half the rate of what it was in the second half of 24. We are focused on retaining connection share through proactive re-signing and competitive bids to enable future organic growth. We are balancing this with mitigating ARPU impacts from aggressive competitive pricing through targeted product bundling and enhanced service offerings to deliver more for our customers. With mobile core to our growth aspirations, we continue to allocate capital accordingly. 45% of CapEx was invested in our mobile network, which is supporting product innovation such as our new big data caps. Our network quality with Spark awarded the number one mobile network for coverage and reliability by OpenSignal in September 2024. We will further expand coverage in early in 2026 off the back of a new partnership we have entered into with another US-based satellite provider to offer customers satellite to mobile services. We now move to slide eight. Broadband revenue declined 2.3% to $302 million as connections reduced and price competition intensified and cost of living pressures saw customers trade down to lower price plans. Overall, we saw a 0.7 percentage point reduction in connection share. As many of you are aware, that's a mature and more commoditized market with consistently lower levels of overall market growth. Within that context, our strategy remains focused on continuing to offer our customers a range of broadband products, improving margins by passing through the fiber company cost increases and expanding the addressable market for wireless broadband as our 5G rollout continues and capacity and speeds increase. Wireless broadband continued to grow and makes up approximately 32% of our broadband base. Total IT revenues declined 1.5% to $336 million, while IT products grew 1.1% to $264 million. Off the back of strong growth in public cloud, this change in mix contributed to a 10% margin reduction. Reduced IT services project activity across government and businesses saw revenues decline 10% to $72 million, while high-tech revenues grew 17% to $41 million, as IoT connections increased 25% to over $2.2 million. We turn now to slide nine in our second strategic focus area of simplifying our portfolio. This includes our review of non-core assets to further strengthen our balance sheet and product simplification to support our focus on our telco core. As we shared in December, we have reached agreement to sell the remaining 17% of our stake in Mobile Towers Business Conexa to CDBQ. We now expect around $310 million of proceeds and a gain on sale of around $66 million in reported EBITDA. All regulatory approvals required have now been received and we expect completion in Q3. We're continuing to progress our broader review to identify further opportunities to realise value in the medium term. In enterprise and government, our operating model transformation has been completed, with our subsidiaries now fully integrated into Spark. This paves the way for further product rationalisation and legacy product migrations to simplify our business and improve customer experience. We're also reviewing where we focus in the IT services market based on the evolving demand and margin profiles we're experiencing. Finally, we've agreed to the sale of Digital Island, excluding its mobile business, which we will retain. Beyond mobile, Digital Island provides collaboration and cloud contact centre services to small to medium business, and this divestment will further support focus on our telco core and enterprise and government. I'm now going to speak to our third focus, which is transforming our cost base, outlined across slides 10 to 12. In October, we shared that we were on track to deliver our 50 million net labour cost reduction, and we were continuing to make progress towards our net OPEX target of 30 million. We also shared our intention to expand the Spark26 Operate program to deliver more transformative change across the business, which would deliver higher benefits over a multi-year period. Today, we share the details of that expanded program. And that program has not been approached with just a simplistic cost out focus alone. We have instead taken the time to redesign how we operate while delivering greater efficiency and more for our customers. Our operating model focus in FY24 and the first half of FY25 saw changes across several areas of our business and included the transformation of our enterprise and government division. As a result of these changes, approximately 900 people have left our business over this 12-month period. It is never easy to make changes that impact our people, and we don't do so lightly. But to deliver a leaner, more competitive business, we have made tough but necessary choices that will set Spark up for future. Transforming our cost base does not start and end with our operating model, but also how we run our technology and our networks. Alongside labour, IT and network costs, they make up the largest proportion of our cost base. When we look at peers in global markets, many have moved to new models for technology delivery that leverage strategic partnerships. So our intention is to establish several partnerships across IT, cloud and networks to access the global scale, capability and innovation these partners bring and accelerate our existing strategic focus on AI and automation to deliver better customer outcomes at lower costs. This is expected to deliver an overall cost efficiency of around 20%. We will protect and enhance Spark's competitive advantage by retaining overall strategic decision-making, critical operations, intellectual property, and systems. We're in the final stages of agreeing an IT infrastructure and services partnership, which will deliver accelerated automation and efficiencies and a material reduction in annualized IT costs. We're also pleased to announce a new strategic partnership with Microsoft that will improve our overall cloud economics. Finally, we have a heads of agreement in place to explore network operations partnerships that will enable us to accelerate AI and automation, deliver greater efficiency, and enable access to global capability and innovation. We expect to be able to share further detail on this partnership in coming months. When we combine our focus on our operating model and our technology delivery model, we will deliver a transformation of our cost base that will not only support profitability during the short-term economic pressures, but create a stronger, more competitive business that can continue to compete and win in the future. This includes a net labour and office cost reduction of $80 to $100 million in FY25, which increases to $90 to $110 million on an annualised basis by the end of the financial year. This will be funded by a non-recurring transformation charge of $45 to $50 million in FY25, with $29 million recognised in the first half. Additional annualized benefits of $20 to $30 million commence from FY26 to FY27, meaning the overall expanded program is forecast to deliver $110 to $140 million of annualized benefits by FY27. Our fourth focus area is long-term value creation for our shareholders through our data center strategy. Data centre revenue increased 13.6% to $25 million as billing of our 22 megawatts of capacity increased. Our developments, as outlined on slide 14, are progressing to plan with land settlements for our new North Shore site targeted for early 26. We remain committed to building out our 118 megawatt development pipeline and we are continuing to target an IRR of around 10% to 15%. As we've previously shared, we are exploring capital partnerships that will enable co-investment and help us accelerate this growth opportunity. We've made strong progress establishing a dedicated data center business in preparation for external investment. We've commenced a process to explore interest from prospective partners in a preferred investment vehicle. We will continue to keep the market informed as material developments occur. So to conclude my summary, I note our continued focus on maturing our ESG practices, evidence through our ongoing investment and 5G connectivity across the country, the continued growth of our not-for-profit broadband product in Skinny Jump, and the commencement of our renewable energy partnership with Genesis Energy on the 1st of January. Now I'm going to hand over to Stuart to talk you through our financial performance in more detail. Thank you, Stuart.

Yeah, thanks very much, Jolie, and good morning to all of those on the call. It's great to be here with Jolie and present my first set of results since joining Spark in December. So I'm going to start with Slide 17 talks of the results in the table we've presented here whilst referencing the comments we've also made on slide 18. So first of all, you'll notice that the financial results for the prior comparable period in H124 were not adjusted for any items, so both reported and adjusted figures are the same. There are, however, differences for H125, predominantly due to the $29 million of Year-to-date non-recurring transformation costs that we incurred as part of the SPK26 operating program that Jodie spoke about earlier. Now, in terms of the P&L and starting at the top, total revenue of $1.939 billion was 1.9% lower than we reported in 1H24. There are a number of contributors to that. Mobile service revenue declined 3.7% or $19 million year-on-year, predominantly due to discontinuing a mobile insurance product and consumer that had generated income in the past and was approximately $7 million of the downside on its own. Reducing mobile fleet and price competition in enterprise and government were also significant factors. Now, mobile non-service revenue increased 3.8% to $248 million, driven in part by higher spend on devices and products, in our Spark retail stores, with the latest iPhone release in September 2024 being a significant contributor in that respect. Broadband and voice revenues decreased 2% and 17% respectively. The downside in broadband reflected a decline in connections as competition intensified in this market. The voice revenue decline is consistent with the long-term trend. On the plus side, both high tech and data center revenues continue to increase year on year as we see IoT connection growth in the high tech space and the benefit of the increased capacity in our data center businesses. Now, in terms of operating expenses, there was an overall 3.1% increase in H125 versus H124. An increase in cost is not the outcome we were looking for, but there are some important drivers that are worth drilling into on this. Of the total costs we incurred, net labour costs were $8 million lower, $271 million for the half year. This reflects the partial benefit of a number of changes made to the operating model that Jodie's already spoken to, with an expectation that there will be a much bigger improvement in net labour costs in the second half and into future years as the full annualised benefits of the reduced headcount and the new technology delivery model flow through. Higher product costs reflected a change in the mix of products sold and the shift from private to public cloud services, plus higher overall IT costs. Other operating costs were up 14% year-on-year, predominantly due to increases in software license costs and the timing of rebates from some suppliers that were present in the H1-24 result. Network support costs were 30% higher than the comparable period due to supply cost inflation and the investment in our expanding infrastructure. mobile network. The transformational technology delivery model and the establishment of strategic partnerships in this area will enable us to significantly improve these cost positions in the future. Now moving to the EBIT die line, the combination of low revenues and high costs led to the 3.7 percentage point decline in our EBIT die margin. and the $82 million reduction in EBITDA versus H124. Below this line, financing costs increased and a reflection of the higher net debt. The effective interest rate on this dropped from 5.9% to 5.7%. Appreciation amortization was up 20%. This reflects the intensive capital program that had been undertaken in the last couple of years with investment in growth assets like data centers and 5Gs. Finally, you'll see that although tax expense reduced by 38 million, the effective tax rate has increased by 5.6 percentage points. This reflected a few one-off non-deductible items, which while not significantly large in their own right, were significant relative to the amount of our pre-tax earnings. Now, I'm going to move on to slide 19 in capital expenditure. And you can see from the profile of our CapEx spend that in the most recent six-month period, both maintenance and growth CapEx were lower than the comparable period in H124. Now, this reflects an intentional intervention to align spend in the current operating environment and with our strategic priorities. Across SPARC, the main focus of our capital spend program remains investment in digital infrastructure and the mobile network. to support the performance of our key business units, in particular mobile. Growth CapEx is also centred around the development of our data centres business, and this has been lessened in recent periods as we go through the process of securing a capital partner to co-invest alongside us. Guidance for total CapEx spend in FY25 remains at around $415 million to $435 million, which means that the second half of the year will need to be around $160 million to $180 million, a significant reduction on the second half of last year, even taking into account the usual seasonality in capital spend. Now on to slide 20, which shows our free cash flow. The discipline around capital and expenditure and management of working capital has led to an improvement in the last six months versus the same period a year ago. Free cash flow of $77 million was $31 million or 67% higher than the comparable period, even though the EBITDA available for cash flow was $85 million. You can see the key drivers of the improvement were lower maintenance capex spend and the $23 million less of cash tax and payments for leases. In terms of free cash flow, including growth capex and working capital, the year-on-year change is even bigger. Bottom line, free cash flow was $163 million better than H124, although it should be noted here that within the release of cash from working capital, there was an increase in payables due to the timing of a small number of large supply contracts, which will unwind in H2 of 25. We've updated our aspiration of cash flow to be between $300 to $340 million for FY25. The key factors that will contribute to these cash inflows in H2 will be the benefits of the labour and OPEX cost-out program, the ongoing relative drop in CapEx, and a general improvement in our earnings profile. Turning to slide 21 on debt and capital management, here you can see that at the end of December 2024, net debt stood at $2.7 billion. sorry, the net debt stood at $2.7 billion, a result of lower EBITDA and cash outgoings associated with the CapEx program and dividend. The net debt to EBITDA multiple was 2.3 times, which is higher than previous periods. We'd expect the settlement of the remaining shielding in Conexa to occur in H225, which on its own will lead to a 0.3 times reduction in the net debt to EBITDA ratio. We're focused on further improvement in debt metrics with continued discipline around capital expenditure and the progress on our cost reduction program. A $0.125 per share dividend will be paid in April. This will be 75% imputed and subject to the dividend reinvestment plan with a 2% discount for any shares taken up under the plan. The interim dividend is in line with FY25 dividends Guidance of $0.25 per share, and this has been maintained in recognition of the receipt of approximately $310 million in the Conexa proceeds, which we talked about earlier and expect to come through in Q3. With that, I'd like to hand back to Jolie to talk about the outlook for the group.

Thanks, Stuart. I'm looking now at slide 23, which is a busy slide, but an important one to show how we're tracking against the FY25 KPIs that were previously published, including our update in October and what we now expect to cross the remainder of FY25. Mobile service revenue remains a core driver of earnings performance, so it's disappointing to see the market growth that was previously predicted not materialising. Our update at the end of October recognised that the market was slowing and included a forecast for flat revenues for the rest of the year. The IDC market revenue figures to the end of December 2024 have confirmed that. Based on the aggressive pricing we've continued to see in ENG over the first half, we now anticipate mobile service revenue decline of around 1% due to further declines in enterprise and government. Both the data center and high-tech revenue growth targets remain unchanged and on track for the second half of FY25, evidenced by H1 results. As I talked to earlier today, the significantly expanded SPARC26 upgrade program is expected to deliver 80 to 100 million of benefits in the current year and 110 to 140 million of benefits by FY27. With regards to the last three non-financial targets, customer IMPS remains on track. We expect impacts to our employee engagement as we change our operating model and we're tracking above our science-based emissions target, noting that this change will change in future years when we benefit from our renewable energy partnership for a full 12 months. Turning to slide 24 and our updated FY25 guidance, as I outlined at the top of the call, adjusted EBITDA guidance has reduced to $1.04 billion to $1.1 billion. This excludes the benefits of the connects for sale and the cost of transformation I outlined earlier. Capital expenditure has been maintained at around $415 to $435,000, recognising this was already reduced in October. The SPART board has resolved to keep the FY25 dividend guidance of 25 cents per share, 75% imputed in place. The dividend reinvestment plan will also now be available for shareholders at a 2% discount. To summarise the overall presentation today, we are transitioning out of a sustained and deep recessionary period in New Zealand. Our performance is not where we want it to be, but we are taking decisive action to adapt our business so that we are leaner and more competitive. We're seeing the fruits of these labours materialise with momentum building in our telco core and a significant transformation of our operating model and technology and networks operations underway, which will deliver material benefits in-year and out FY27. Finally, we're continuing to invest for the future through our data centre strategy with long-term shareholder value creation front of mind. With that, now I'd like to hand back to the moderator to facilitate the Q&A session.

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star 2. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your questions. Your first question comes from Ensher Rykovski from Evans and Partners.

Please go ahead. Ensher Rykovski Hi, Jolly. Hi, Stuart. My first question is around the dividends. I'm just conscious that it remains significantly harder than free cash flow, particularly based on the latest guidance. Now, I know you cut the dividend back in October, but current levels just, I mean, they don't look to be sustainable. So I'm just interested in your view on whether you've retained a 25 cents per share today because you or the board have a firm view that free cash flow will recover over time, or what are the considerations you're taking into account?

Okay. So when you stand back on the dividend, We did retain the $0.25, and that took into consideration to the recognition that the Conexa proceeds would be received during this year, but also looks at the ongoing ambition for free cash flow to offset that dividend over time. What I will say is, though, we will be looking at our holistic capital management strategy later in the year as we go into FY26, which we'll look at the dividend policy as well alongside that. but the decision to retain at 25 cents was linked to the receipt of the Connexer proceeds.

Okay. All right. Sounds like there may be a review underway down the track. Sorry?

I said it sounds like there may well be a review underway.

Yes, that's correct. Okay. And then secondly, around the debt metrics, I don't think you mentioned this, but are you still committed to reducing the leverage ratio down to 1.7 times? I know you've previously spoken about that being the target to retain an investment-grade credit rating.

Yeah, Encho Stewart here. I'll pick that up. I guess the benefit of being a new CFO is sometimes you sort of get the ability to sort of step back and maybe look objectively at things. That's one of our observations is our debts outside ex-leases, net debt sets, debts at about 1.8 billion, which is pretty much at the low, if not lowest end of comparable telcos. So I think we need to sort of think about that, think about future debt, what flexibility we need in the balance sheet as well. So I think there are a number of factors to consider going forward. I mean, clearly, the ongoing credit rating will be one of those, but it's going to have to be a number of other factors as well.

Okay, and I'm just curious with the ratio now sitting at over two times, is that having a material impact on interest costs? I mean, your effective interest rate is obviously down in the period with rates coming lower. Are your margins being impacted adversely or are you finding that's a fairly minimal impact?

I think the increase in interest costs half on relative to the prior comparative period, I'm just going, flicking back through to find it, is around, it's around 10 million, it's around just over $10 million in the half.

I guess my question is, are you finding that because you're sitting at over two times, that actually means you, You're paying more? No, we're not.

You're not?

No, we're not.

We're definitely not finding that at the moment.

Okay, great. So I suppose the benefit from a reduction down to 1.7 times may be fairly limited. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but that's what it sounds like.

I think if we look at that, we have the credit rating in place. And you think about what's happening with the Kinect, the proceeds that are expected in Q3. So we'll see a further reduction in that debt level and we'll continue to be focusing certainly on a cash flow basis and making sure that discipline capital management, particularly around CapEx, that we continue to look to bring those debt levels down. And that's our approach right now.

Okay, thank you. And just the final one from me. Would you consider selling the entire data centre portfolio or are you committed to retaining a stake?

That is not our intention. We are looking, the DC partnership is all around co-investment for accelerating the opportunity that exists in a market that's growing substantially in terms of if you look at the forecast ahead and for which we already have a strong position.

Okay, and I suppose, yeah, okay. And how, I mean, how progressed are you in terms of finding a partner? I'm sure you get asked this question all the time, but if you can appreciate it, it's rightly a focus of the market. I mean, best guess, would you like to have an outcome in the next six months?

Yeah, we have a process underway and we've had a lot of, of interest in that process so we'll update you further when we can but I would expect it to progress through the second half of our financial year.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks. Thank you. Your next question comes from Ari Decker from Jarden. Please go ahead.

Oh, good morning. Yeah, just starting on the data centers. I think at the full year result, you were talking about investing $70 to $90 million in FY25. It looks like North Shore... land has been pushed out into FY26. Maybe that was in the initial guidance. I mean, first half was only 14. Can you just give a bit of colour around what you're investing in FY25 and what the total will be given how low the first half was?

I think in the data centre area, Ari, if you think around what we're doing, so we are continuing to expand our IAT centre in Takanani where around The master planning of the extended, you'll recall we bought the land right just after the end of FY, the expansion of the land. So further work going on there. And also within North Shore in terms of around Para and the master planning by the surf park in and around that area. So there's activity underway. We'll also be cognizant in terms of from a partnership perspective of, whether or not we may accelerate or look at different components of that timing as we work through that process. So for us, it's probably a little early to talk any further about that. But in terms of what we're investing, we haven't had a change in our capital envelope and what we're talking about other than that.

Yeah, because it seems, I mean, I think you've sort of invested $50 to $60 million in the last 18 months in the data centre's growth line. You know, it sounds like that includes the settlement of some land at Takanini. I mean, you know, that space is obviously, you know, seeing rapid expansion. The spend seems quite light against the opportunity. I mean, are your capital constraints, you know, and I guess the constraints of holding the dividend at this level impacting your ability to sort of access the market?

I don't think that... So I'd separate the dividend policy from any implication in terms of the data centre strategy. What we did say clearly that we were looking to go to market for that dividend partner to co-invest with us to be able to accelerate that. And so really when we look at that, that process is underway. What we want to do is get that completed. That then helps us reset what the appropriate investment profile is for the next period of time to take advantage of the market opportunities that are there. Remembering we have been investing for a period in terms of a number of sites and had new sites come online and sit at about that 87% committed, 87, 88% committed. So it's really linked to those two components in terms of the partnership activity that is underway.

So customer discussions are ongoing.

Yes, and there is expansion happening as well.

Yeah, that's correct. This one should be a reasonably quick one, but just on matter, what's the level of cash burn in that business in FY24 and sort of output for FY25?

Well, as you know, Ari, we haven't disclosed that around matter and it's not a significant enough amount for us to do that. But we have indicated that that is forming part of our ongoing strategic review of certain assets and certainly looking at that more from a co-investment perspective than it is a divestment. But that is underway as part of that review and we'll update the market as appropriate. when we have more to say on that.

Yeah, I guess, you know, without any visibility and sort of thinking about its materiality, perhaps more in terms of, you know, where your free cash flow position is as opposed to any sort of revenue or EBITDA materiality threshold. I mean, I just, I guess some comfort that, you know, because, you know, I've sort of done a little bit of work on this, I've done a little bit of work on this business and it clearly is, you know, very early stage. So, yeah, I guess I'm just keen to understand, you know, if it is up for exit, how you'll just sort of satisfy investors that, you know, you won't hold it too long against what maybe the realistic expectations are from realisation?

No, that's not it at all. We are seeing good growth with that in terms of the opportunities in the markets forming, particularly offshore. So for us, looking at partnership opportunities in terms of for co-investment, both from a funding point of view, but a capability point of view in those markets is also part of that. So, yeah, there isn't anything about holding on to something that we don't know.

Okay, and then just finally on the IT business. I mean, yeah, one of the things, and you do talk to it a bit in the presentation, I mean, there's obviously been a bit of revenue softness in various areas and that sort of remains permanent. bumpy but you know it's obviously been hit by pretty significant cost increases as well just sort of you know wondering you know data centers are core infrastructure you know very clear on on on wanting to continue to participate there but when you look at your it business and sort of thinking the products and services and maybe excluding managed data but Do you genuinely see that as sitting in your core telco focus? How does that sort of compare to some of your peers globally in terms of telco? Because it does look like it is a business that's facing structural issues. Why does it sort of sit in core telco?

I think IT continues to provide, if you think about a number of the services that we already provide, are deeply connected to those core network services that we provide. However, as we've noted, we continue to review the portfolio in enterprise and government, and we've updated both the structure that we have there, the integration of subsidiaries. We're looking to rationalise products further. The recent partnerships we have done and the ones that I talked to look at... improving that cost base, and we'll continue to review whether there are elements of those service lines that we may choose to come out of or partly out of. So I think from that point of view, it is under a constant review to that performance. There is definitely economic factors that are impacting this, particularly in relation to the overweight share that you see in government in these services. However, we have acted, particularly on the structural side, to make sure our cost base, both from a labour perspective but also from an operating cost perspective, will be improved, particularly in the second half and as we go out into the future years, from some of these changes we're making with partnerships and changing the nature of the expenditure that we have in those businesses.

Yeah, because... I mean, I guess on the cost out, you know, there's a lot of focus on the labour and clearly then there's the broader overheads, which, you know, will capture these businesses as well. But there's the product. I guess what you're sort of seeing and like, you know, in the market's reaction today too, in terms of just sort of line of sight, you know, when do you think you'd be able to get some line of sight into how the IT business is going to emerge from all these changes?

I think in the, certainly in the August we'll be able to talk more holistically about what that looks like with both the partnerships in place, because we've been acting on that will be in place by the end of the year, the changes we've made structurally, and view of any further service lines we might consider as well.

Great.

Thank you very much. Okay. Thanks, Ari.

Thanks.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Kane Hanan from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. I just had two. Can you help me understand the supposed to pay monthly SIO trends through the half? I think back at the last update, we're talking about growth in consumer and SME and a slight enterprise government performance. We've only really grown 2K to the half. So, I mean, did things deteriorate in the second quarter? And then, of course, how do I mesh that with the confidence of the improving service revenue outlook into the second half, given those challenging trends?

Okay, let me just pull it apart. So in pay monthly and consumer, we saw connection growth around 1.1% for 13,000 connections. So we still have got a more challenging market environment that we're operating in, but it was growing. If you think about the insurances product that I talked about, that had an impact in consumer of basically all of the ARPU reduction was linked to that, so $1.40 of ARPU reduction. If you then look at enterprise and government, they contributed all of the decline in connections, so that offset that growth in consumer, and then the ARPU decline in that was much more significant, more in the $3 plus per unit. Remembering that enterprise and government is about 10% of our overall service revenues, but it still has an impact when you have a very high market share of that part of the business. So they're the sort of different trends in terms of what we saw in consumer. Then we launched in October new higher data plans, which obviously came into play really in the marketplace November, December. We've seen good acquisition from them. We also had price increases in December in that consumer and prepaid part of the market. So again, those things will flow into the second half of the year. That will help support that mobile margin.

Yep, and was that the enterprise government declines you were talking to, was that all in the fourth quarter, if it was sort of stable in the first quarter, sorry, in the second quarter, if it was stable in the first quarter?

No, it has been really since the third quarter of FY24, we've seen pressure in that space. We saw more fleet reduction. So about, of that connection decline, 80% of that is really to do with reducing businesses that we serve, reducing the number of people that have line shedding. And then also, secondary, we've seen a lot of price competition in that area, particularly around two degrees, et cetera. So what we've been doing is holding a significant amount of that share, but at a lower value as we've renewed.

And just secondly, I was just trying to understand the phasing of some of this cost out. So you had the net labour reduction of $50 million that you're expanding to $80 to $100. So what's that, a $30 to $50 million increase? I'm assuming that's reflecting the headcount reduction sort of December 31st. I mean, if I'm annualising that headcount reduction, I mean, you're basically at the 110 to 150 mil sort of labour savings. Just trying to understand why you're only talking to 110 to 140 by FY27. Sorry for putting all the numbers out there, but I'm just trying to get that sort of gap between those two years.

So just on some of the labour things occurred at the last quarter of last FY, some of that had already been captured. A lot has happened... throughout this period of time and through this first half, and there is still some to occur in the second half. In terms of OPEX, the combination of the partnership work we're doing too has a mix of labour and OPEX to it, so those two components are still being finalised, and then we've got ongoing benefits into the latter years, so 26 and 27. So I think in terms of the 900 to date that you referenced, that is all baked into the 25 year. And then as we finalise the partnership components as well as we look ahead, that OPEX number, that will become clearer. We also have seen some areas of increase in OPEX, so what we're trying to give is a bit more of a view around where do we think the overall cost base will be at.

Okay, perfect. Thanks, guys. Thanks.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Aaron Ibbotson from Forsyth Bar. Please go ahead.

Yes. Hi there. Good morning. A couple of questions from me. But first, and sorry to come back to it, just on the cost out, just so we're sure what you're communicating here. So you've had the $24 million, if my math is right, of sort of increase if I combine labor and other objects for this first half. So you're effectively saying you're going to be down 100 million plus or so in the second half. But the run rate is only around 100 million at exit. So I'm just trying to understand why the run rate is not higher at FY25 exit. And then if I may tag along to that question, I was just trying to understand some of these, which sounds like some major... partnership deals, if I could call them potentially outsourcing, but maybe you wouldn't like that. And if you're giving up some sort of gross margin in return for those, what sounds like pretty major OPEX savings for the second half. Thank you.

So perhaps just breaking it down and maybe I'll start at the partnerships bit to start with. So this is a combination of bringing expertise accelerating automation in our network and infrastructure layer costs. So there will be components, or can be components, that will include outsourcing within that. So of course, within that, you'll have some labor reduction, some OPEX increase netting off against that. There is no impact, per se, on margin reduction, though, to do with this. In fact, most of the partnerships with potentially some of them see a margin increase because we are reducing some of the product costs associated with it, too, depending on which layer we're talking about. In terms of... What's the other question? Sorry. Oh, cost out.

Cost out relative to run rate. You know, if you have such a large cost saving in the second half, I would have expected a larger run rate exiting FY25 than the one you're guiding to.

Yeah. But... A number of activities occurred in the first half, and we've seen parts of that come through. So not all of that is additional, I guess, on an annualised ERR rate. We're starting to see that. Remembering, too, from a gross labour perspective, we also have labour that's allocated to capital. So in the first half, we actually had a $21 million gross labour reduction in the P&L. As we look forward into the second half, We see an expanded run rate on that in the six months to go. And we have activity, too, that will continue beyond the second half as well in terms of that.

OK.

Because we've got another $20 to $30 million from 26 and 27 is unrelated to the $90 to $110 after that.

Erin, I think there's a part of the cost savings in the second half that savings 2h some of them are down to timing and some of them some of that will be rectified in the second half and then those to which we're attributing an annualized benefit will come from the overall labor reduction so that's something that endures into 26 and then also the benefits the broader benefits we get out of the partnership arrangements so that that cost saving will also sort of endure in 26 as well whereas some of the cost savings in h2 some of that sort of slightly high cost base we had in H1.

Okay. Then on cloud, where we saw sort of accelerating gross margin pressure, I guess, my question is, is there any chance you can share with us, you know, what of this is sort of mixed? You know, we know public cloud has lower margins, obviously. And what proportion is what I would call sort of like-for-like price pressure within a private cloud?

Yeah, so if you break it into the two components, the growth in cloud has been, if you think at a revenue line, has been in public cloud. What we've seen is in private cloud, reduction in some workloads as we've seen the same pressures across government and business and spend in general. So it's less about a price pressure. These are generally longer-term contracts, and in the second half, we've actually taken price in cloud for the period ahead. So it's more to do with the mix related to growth in public cloud through that first period.

Okay, and apologies for asking a quite detailed question on private cloud, but my understanding is that a key supplier... quite publicly has increased their prices massively on private cloud software. So just wondering if that's impacted you and if so, if that showed up in gross margins or elsewhere in your cost base. Broadcom. I'm not sure who you are. VMware.

Yeah, yeah. So some of the, if you look at the support cost, you'll see some components of, you know, licensing cost increases and certain things like that. part of what we're doing with the partnerships. So, you know, we talked about infrastructure looks at the ability for us to modernise our environment and to make sure that we can shift to a more variable cost within that. So that will address some of the challenges we've seen in there. We'll be addressed by that as well. So, yes, Aaron.

OK, thank you. And finally, just on depreciation, which ticked up quite meaningfully in the half, is this sort of a... run rate we should think about going forward, or were there some sort of particularly high charges in this half?

I think if you look at the capital investment we've had in terms of the 5G and the other network investments over second half of 24, first half of 25, as you see them come onto the depreciation register, what we've seen as we've built out the 5G network, we have had some increase. We do have some accelerated depreciation in there as a component of it as well. And also some of the DNA is driven by software, growth in software, and therefore higher amortization. So in the second half of last year, depreciation was sitting at around $276 million, I believe. It's gone up to $300 as you see more of that capital come on. Clearly, if you look ahead in this, last year we brought our capital envelope down and we don't have the excess capital that we were investing in terms of that 5G acceleration, so that's not part of the forward, so that will start to balance out a little bit more as we go forward for the lower envelope.

Okay, thank you. I'll leave it there for now. Cheers.

Thanks, Erin. Thank you. Your next question comes from Wade Gardner from Craig's Investment Partners. Please go ahead.

Hi, a couple of granular questions from me. Look, Within other operating expenses, the increases are mainly in network support costs and computer costs. What's going on there? What's the trend we're going to see there? And how does that affect the savings that you're talking about into the second half and going forward? Where are we going to see those savings?

Yeah, so... I think two things driving those. One is there's an increase in some of the software license costs. And then the other one is some of the costs of running the 5G network as well. And I mean, this comes back to the sort of point I was making earlier. So if we think about some of those partnership arrangements we're looking at, they are directed at those cost pools. I mean, part of the idea of that is we do address some of that run rate.

In the second half, and then if you think forward against that sort of a target, particularly around the network support and other costs, there's around about a 20% random reduction over the next few years. So we would expect that trend to certainly in the network support reversing under those partnerships arrangements.

OK. In terms of, just to clarify, the labour and OPEX cost savings that you're talking about, we'll see it in that other OPEX line and we'll see it in the labour line. It's not stuff that is going to be necessarily spread across either CAPEX or across some of the gross margin within the products.

To clarify on that, While there will be gross labour reductions, the number we've included here relates to the net labour and the P&L. And the OPEX spend effectively will go against the network and support costs. Some of the broader partnerships, particularly the cloud, there will be some element in our margin, improving our margin ongoing, but the off here that was pulled out here and much more directed at those lines.

Okay. And just finally from me, within mobile, I guess I expected in tough times more of a shift towards prepay and away from postpay. That doesn't seem to be the case in this period. What's going on there? Are there other factors?

I think about I think if you think about pay monthly or post-pay, the offer of greater data for customers, good plans in place, has meant that we are seeing, particularly in the last quarter or about half, improvement there and people are staying there, they're using data so they want to stay there. In prepaid, what we saw there more is about 70% of that reduction was to do with low sort of notes very limited spend, so that's fallen off the base. You can see that in the actual prepaid service revenue share lifted, so it's not that that had a lot of lost revenue or went to competitors, we've just seen less of people using those real casual type rates. So there is pressure in prepaid, it is a more competitive part of the market, you do have a whole range of different providers in that space, but we also refreshed our prepaid base in December, both the plan offers and pricing within that, so Again, early days, but we are seeing positive signs off the back of that. So we haven't seen as much of a flight to prepaid if that's what you're – no trade down in that regard.

Yeah, yeah. I'm just sort of wondering why normally you'd see a migration from postpay into prepay as people try to save money. That's not the case.

Okay. I mean, you see a lot of that, but nothing material in terms of the scope of our portfolios.

Okay, cool. Thanks. It's all from me. Thanks.

Thanks, Wade. Thank you. Your next question comes from Phil Campbell from UBS. Please go ahead.

Yeah, morning, everyone. Just three questions from me. Maybe just sticking on that topic, Jolie on mobile, obviously plans to shut down the 3G network for the industry later this year. Just be interested in your views on How are you going to manage that, both with Spark and the industry, and what you potentially think could be an impact on Spark?

Yeah, so if you look at the 3G shutdown, as you say, later in the year, we'll announce a more specific date in the coming months. From an industry perspective, we have been advertising more around that that's happening. We're very focused on making sure that people that have Older devices have the opportunity to swap those out before. We look at our broad-based, still more data going on, but roughly we're talking about 120,000 devices and around about 80,000 IoT connections in relation to the 3G shutdown. So we're very focused on making sure we help our customers make that move across, and we'll be engaging with them more in relation to that shift

So have you got any experience with Australian experience? Sorry? You go, Phil. So just with respect to the Australian experience, would you expect to see, obviously, some of those customers might drop off, but you might be able to migrate some to 4G, but you don't really expect a major financial impact?

No, we're definitely looking to migrate them, and it's also an opportunity to talk to all of those customers to make sure that with the range of offers that you could have in terms of encouraging them to, move off the 3G bit or so on to 4G that isn't restricted to our base.

Great. I suppose the second question, just on partnerships, obviously you announced the Microsoft one yesterday. Is it possible at a high level just to give us a bit more detail around that and kind of how it would impact your business going forward? And obviously you've talked a little bit about it here, but just with an example with Microsoft might be quite useful.

Okay, so there's sort of three main components to the partnership. partnership for us. First one is around our own workloads. You'd imagine we're one of the biggest workloads in New Zealand and we already operate in a hybrid cloud environment so really this is around moving some more of those workloads into the public cloud like many of our customers are doing and that helps us take advantage of some of the innovation that is in and around that but also creates a better economic outcome for us so that's a big part of it We also will continue to partner alongside Microsoft in terms of the customers we serve. Some of those, like us, have a hybrid cloud approach and they'll be transitioning to the cloud, so we'll work with them in relation to that. And then the third part is around the use of tools like Copilot and within our own organisation, an expansion of those agreements within that, so upskilling around AI and the ability to use that within the organisation to create both better customer experience efficiency for our people, and help us use the tools that are already there. So overall, for us, it's about an improvement in our cost base and that margin that sits within it, but working with a partner, particularly when we think about the transition that's happening. And of course, we have an ongoing relationship with Microsoft prior to this as well, in terms of being a partner market. They also work with us in terms of data centers and things that we own as well. So that's the main part of the partnership.

Great. And is that like a five-year deal or is it, what's the term?

It's a long-term deal, but I'm not going to give you any more details on exact length, but it is long-term.

Okay. Awesome. And then the third question I had was just on data centers, the extent you can comment on it. I suppose the first one was just on... like what would be the preferred kind of outcome of a partnering arrangement? Because obviously you've got one option where you might retain more than 50%, keep it on balance sheet. You know, the other option is to do something like with vector, with metering, you do like a 50-50, which is more off balance sheet. So I'm interested in kind of views on that. I suppose the other challenge you may have is that given there's not a lot of new data centers being built, the kind of extent of contract that EBITDA might not be as great. So again, just kind of how you deal with that in terms of trying to optimize the valuation.

I think if you think about the business, we have a large development pipeline. It's got the purchased land and the power, the resource consents to those sites, so we've got a good pipeline for co-investment with. When you go back to vehicles, I think we're not in a position to be talking about the vehicles that we might use, but we have looked and considered a number of different arrangements. We would look to retain a material ownership contract Within this partnership, it is very different to how you might think about Towers, for example. This is about a co-investment and acceleration opportunity, and we will be looking at the structures that best support that for the nature of the business that data centres is in terms of the ability to invest, get structures that go with that. And so that'll be part of the conversations that we have with partnerships as well. So I can't really give you any more than that right now, Phil. Okay.

And in terms of timeframe for that, do you, what would be a realistic timeframe? We might, we would get an update at the August result, or?

Yes, I would anticipate it would be then or earlier.

Yeah, great. And then just the last one, Stuart.

We do have, we are in marketplace with this right now, so, yeah.

Yeah, great. And then just the last one for Stuart, obviously the The gearing is kind of above that S&P A-minus credit rating threshold and obviously with Connexa brings it down. I suppose last time when you updated us, you did talk about, you know, S&P were pretty comfortable because there was line of sight to get it back into the A-minus band. I'm just wondering what S&P's kind of views are at the moment looking forward.

I mean, it would be hard for me to comment on to provide the S&P's view, Phil, but I mean, we had a conversation with them this week and we'll obviously talk to them next week as well. I mean, I think the piece here is just we will keep looking at our overall capital structure. We do want to keep working on our levels of debt as well and ensure that they're sustainable. So, I mean, we will... I mean, look, we're just going to keep, we'll keep having that, we'll keep having that discussion with them.

Okay, awesome. Thank you.

Thank you. Next question that comes from Brian Hahn from Morningstar. Please go ahead.

Jolly, the shrinkage of the enterprise, shrinkage of the enterprise and government fleet, are you adjusting the cost base on the basis that this business is never coming back, or maybe never come back at the current pricing point?

I think if you think about the changes we made in enterprise and government, our division, that looks at our whole enterprise and government business. So my role is one component of that. It's less related to that, the changes. It's probably more to the IT services component. and IT components of that business, plus the integration of subsidiaries. So that naturally removes some duplication we have within the organisation, and we have entered in to sell one of those subsidiaries as well. So I think we have adjusted to the environment we're in, but that doesn't mean we wouldn't be able to serve our customers in mobile as the economy improves.

Okay. And the free cash flow guidance, does that include the cash costs of the transformation program you're doing?

So the free cash flow guidance, the aspiration we've provided would exclude the additional costs. And we put those below I think we put those below the line.

Oh, okay. So you're still labeling that as expiration?

Yes, sorry. So let me clarify two points. So I mean, the free cash flow number we provide is $300 to $340. That's come down essentially by the change in EBITDA guidance, and it excludes both. So that and the transformation costs.

Right, okay, okay. My final question, Jolly, if you decide to rationalise your IT services portfolio, would any sale be just a value of client lists and contracts or do these businesses still get sold on some revenue multiples?

Sorry, when we're talking about rationalising, we're talking about rationalising product lines or the subsidiaries that we have integrated or sold now. So that's all done. So really what we're more talking about is what levels of service we choose to continue to be in and have teams focused on. So it's a more, if we can stand back from it, simplification of the portfolio and a more focused approach to certain customers and not an exit of the whole IT business, if that was what you were thinking.

Oh, right, right. So you're not entertaining any thoughts of actually selling some of these businesses that may not be core to your telco business?

Well, we have sold some of these, but the IT business is part of the core. Spark doesn't sit separately to that. It is a key part of that. And what we've done is rationalised along service lines that we no longer think we should be and all these changes of that. But what we don't have is a separate part that we're looking to sell.

at this point. And actually, lastly, Stuart, just while I'm at it, can I just clarify, did you say there was a $7 million revenue loss from just ending those mobile insurance things?

That's correct. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so that's the movement versus the prior comparative period from the cessation of that product offering from Spark itself. We're not going to

So for the full year, we annualise that, or will the loss be more than that?

No, that pretty much runs through, it's pretty much worked its way through, I think, by March.

Yes, so from April, 1st of April, we'll have cycled 12 months. You've got another quarter to go. So that's why we say when you look at the consumer, particularly the pay monthly result, that is it. at a revenue ARPU line, it basically accounts for all of the ARPU decline in that consumer component of $1.40. So by April, you will have cycled the whole impact of that.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks. Thank you. Your next question comes from Cameron Parker from Craig's. Please go ahead.

Sorry, it's actually Lance Reynolds from Aspiring. Thanks for the call. I've just got a question in regards to the guidance. The guidance implies in the second half numbers that are actually at midpoint in line with market and at the top above market. And the stocks today lost $900 million in market cap. So obviously the market's not believing it. What can you tell the people on the call and an investor... on your second half guidance, of your cost-out assumptions, how certain or visible are those cost-out assumptions?

I think if you break it into the big components, the labour, we have already completed the majority of the work that's required to deliver those savings. It's not something we take lightly, but we have done that, and it's been across the period of 24 through the first half, 25, which will materially show up in the second half of So that's a big driver of that. In terms of the partnerships, we are well progressed in terms of the discussions that we are having. We've already announced one this week. There'll be future over the next few months. All of those will contribute to those cost savings and will be the drivers, the key drivers of that difference in that half. The other thing is the continuing improvement of the consumer mobile business. effectively in that H2 component. They are the big drivers of the changes that we see in the labour and OPEX numbers that we've provided to help provide insight into how that we get to that half two or full year EBITDA guidance within that. So it is very much taking the action that we've laid out, both from a transforming the P&L, but also the action that we've taken in terms of The activity around non-core assets and executing those reviews, the DC partnership, all of those elements are well underway and the benefits will be and are becoming visible in the second half of the year.

Thank you for that. With the partnerships being a part of that, could we expect a guidance reiteration or a guidance, I guess, refresh on selling those deals? say in the next three months. So we're not just waiting for the full year. I mean, that would be helpful if you're in the position to do that.

So in terms of sharing more when they're operating, so the operating partnerships are already captured in this, the savings that we've laid out. If you're talking around the data centre partnership, we will be updating as appropriate when we have more specific to say. So as, and when we signed deals that are material that we would want to, we will be sharing them before August. Yes, that's right.

Yeah, I was more just on the cost out. I mean, as we progress through the second half, it would be useful to get a reiteration of guidance, given the fact, you know, we're already a couple months in, but I know there's only four to go, but it would be good to get a further update. My second question is on data centres. If we look If we look at where most of this, and you mentioned, I don't think there's an answer to Phil, you looked at, I think that you said, you know, structures that support co-investment in the sector. I mean, if we look, we don't have to look too far to see a number of these infrastructure-type partnerships are off balance sheet. And I think Phil referenced the vector deal whereby there is obviously a different gearing construct, which is obviously pretty obvious. Should we be thinking, therefore, that is the obvious preferred path, given the constraints on group credit metrics?

I really think it's a pathway that we are looking at in terms of the partnerships. I think it's a fair... But as I say, until those partnerships are completed and we've gone through that process, we want to, you know, we'll obviously update as it becomes. We've got the flyer, you know, the marketplaces have been updated about the process we're underway with, got a lot of interest. And I think as we further complete those partnership discussions, we'll then be in a better place to share more around what that structure looks like.

Thank you. And then one final one. In terms of the process being underway, is there a set timeline for the process? So I'm not asking for a date, but just to give us some confidence that something could come at the latest in August in terms of an update.

We have a clear timing of what we're working to within that process, and we will have an update to provide in August. And if it was anything earlier than that, clearly we would share that with the market at the appropriate time.

Excellent. Thanks very much.

Thanks, Lance.

Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone. We'll now pause a moment to allow for any final questions to register. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Ms. Hudson for closing remarks.

Thank you everyone for joining the call today and we will continue to keep you updated as we progress our programs and plans and particularly around the partnerships. Thank you.