Malcolm Johns
Tēnā koutou, ngā mihi ki te whenua. Welcome everybody, and thank you for your time.
It is a pleasure to be here today to talk you through our FY26 results. My name is Malcolm Johns, Chief Executive of Genesis, and I'm pleased to be joined today by Emma Earley, our CFO, and Michael Hunter, our GM Investor Relations.
I'd also like to introduce you to the wider executive team doing an awesome job. Claire Walker, our Chief People Officer, has worked hard to strengthen our leadership bench through a combination of building and buying talent, setting up strong internal succession lines.
Stephen England-Hall, our Chief Revenue Officer, leads our trading, portfolio, and customer teams, driving commercial performance and customer value to a strong result in this past year. He also led the final stages of our move to a single repositioned Genesis brand, which went live in August.
Matthew Osborne is our Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, a busy year with a number of regulatory and policy matters in play. Ed Hyde, our Chief Technology and Transformation Officer, delivering our three major platform upgrades on time and within budget.
Tracey Hickman, our Chief Operating Officer, excellent execution of existing asset upgrades, and delivery of our pipeline of new renewable generation. Every part of our business is delivering our strategy well, and you will see the proof points as we talk through our FY26 results and then look out to FY28 and FY32.
On the screen now is today's agenda. We will spend about 20 minutes talking through FY26 before touching on our outlook to '28 and '32, and then moving to your questions.
Our strategy remains Gen35, and we are delivering horizon two, the period out to FY32 or what we call the FY32 growth plan. At Genesis, we believe electricity is the solution to New Zealand's energy challenge.
It's efficient, it's increasingly renewable, and because it's made in New Zealand, it provides greater energy security and independence. However, today it only makes up around 30% of New Zealand's total annual energy.
70% comes from fossil fuels, and as we have seen since the Iran conflict began, this can have a material impact on the total energy costs for Kiwi homes and businesses. If electricity made up 60% of New Zealand's total annual energy today, the average household would save up to $3,000 per annum on their total energy costs.
Or New Zealand's total annual energy bill would be around $10 billion a year less than it is today. This is why our vision is a country that lives life at full power: homes, businesses, and a country leveraging our natural renewable electricity advantage to thrive at full power for this generation and the generations that come after us.
Achieving this is about the electrification of transport and heat. This will not only lower the total cost of energy for our customers, it will also grow demand for our products and services.
As a sector, we must deliver the 60-95-100 formula: 60% electrification of New Zealand's total energy, at least 95% renewable generation, and electricity that is available 100% of the time, regardless of the weather or customer demand outcomes. For Genesis, Gen35 is about growing customer demand for electricity through electrification, reducing average generation costs from increased renewable generation investment, and energy security and flexibility from Huntly Power Station.
For our investors, we are focused on embedding three commercial foundations in our culture: margin quality, cost discipline, and strong capital management. Gen35, life at full power, delivers for our customers, our investors, and for our country.
Can I now hand to Emma to talk you through FY26? Emma.
Emma Oettli
Thanks, Malcolm, and kia ora everyone. FY26 provides a number of important proof points that Gen35 is translating into financial outcomes.
At the heart of our strategy, we are focused on three commercial disciplines: margin quality, cost discipline, and strong capital management. On margin quality, group gross margin increased to $949 million, our strongest result to date, reflecting improved customer netback and lower generation costs.
On cost discipline, cost to serve reduced as planned and investment within our big rock program remains within the overall $145 million program envelope. On capital management, the March equity raise materially strengthened our balance sheet and provides funding capacity to fund the next stage of our growth program while retaining investment grade credit metrics.
Together, these highlights demonstrate tangible progress in executing Gen35. I'll now take you through our FY26 business performance and the progress we've made across customer, renewables, Huntly, and our big rocks technology program.
In customer, our strategy over the past 18 months has deliberately prioritized value over volume to support margin quality and cost discipline. We have repositioned the portfolio while simplifying our brands, products, and operating model.
This did result in lower customer numbers during FY26, but the economic outcome was strong. Electricity netback increased to around $176 per megawatt hour, cost to acquire reduced materially, and cost to serve also declined.
At the same time, we continue to build higher-value relationships around electrification. EV plan EV plan connections increased, rooftop solar connections grew, and flexible customer demand reached 58 megawatts.
The final stage of our move to a single brand strategy was completed in the fourth quarter, and since June, ICPs have returned to growth. The important point is we are targeting profitable customer growth that supports both margin quality and cost discipline.
Alongside customer, we are investing to structurally lower the cost of our generation portfolio. Our FY32 growth plan targets more than 2 terawatt hours of additional renewable generation, allowing us to progressively displace higher-cost baseload thermal generation.
During FY26, Tauhei solar farm moved into construction, and today we are pleased to announce the final investment decision for the Leeston solar farm in Canterbury. Lauriston completed its first full year of operations, and we've also secured additional geothermal supply from Ngāwhā from 2029, further strengthening and diversifying our renewable supply.
We continue to progress a broader pipeline across wind and solar. Investment decisions remain subject to our capital management framework.
They need to improve portfolio economics and meet our target returns. As our renewable portfolio grows, Huntly continues to evolve alongside it.
We're positioning Huntly for the future needs of Genesis, transitioning away from baseload gas generation by around FY29 or earlier, adding Huntly firming options, increasing our asset-backed trading activity, and firming Genesis' customer needs. Based on current market conditions and assuming no major outages or significant regulatory change, we're confident that Huntly, together with our hydro assets, can provide all the flexibility, firming, and peaking capacity Genesis will need to grow securely for the foreseeable future.
We see Huntly centered around our new batteries, three upgraded Rankine units, and our fast-start peaker. We retain the option for a second fast-start peaker, although there is no commercial case for that investment today.
Those assets will be supported by diversified fuels of coal, gas, and diesel, with biomass remaining an option as economics improve into the 2030s. Should imported gas become an option, fuel pricing will determine which fuels are dispatched at what times.
We continue to engage on gas storage. However, while this may be helpful, it is not fundamental to delivering our FY32 growth plan.
We plan to continue contracting minimum levels of take-or-pay gas except where price and volume is commercially attractive. As we have done over recent years, we will continue to leverage our fuel diversity alongside alongside the wholesale electricity market and tactical short-term gas contracts to drive margin quality.
Unit 5 is a large, well-maintained generation asset. However, its size and minimum operating range of 180 megawatts makes it increasingly challenging to see a commercial case to support it once baseload gas generation is displaced.
We have been clear since we launched Gen35 in FY24 that we will only maintain assets with clear and reliable commercial business cases. Over the next 12 months, we will be undertaking a review of Unit 5's commercial future.
All options will be considered, including offshore sale. Finally, a quick update on our technology program.
As we set out at our 2024 investor day, we're delivering three major technology programs: a new billing and CRM system, a new financial management system, and a new electricity trading and risk management platform. These are complex programs, but we remain on track to complete them by the end of FY27 within a total cash envelope of $145 million.
Turning now to our group financial performance, FY26 delivered strong earnings, strong cash generation, and a stronger balance sheet, reflecting the disciplined execution I've discussed. In FY26, we delivered our strongest gross margin to date, up 10% on the prior year, reflecting improvement in margin quality in our customer book and lower generation cost.
This translated into reported EBITDAF of $518 million and normalized EBITDAF of $522 million, while also funding around $56 million of operating expenditure associated with our big big rock technology investment and single brand strategy. Looking at the $85 million increase in gross margin, the two largest drivers were improved margin quality in our customer book and lower generation costs as a result of increased hydro and a full year of Te Hāpua and Lauriston.
Market conditions provided less opportunity to add value through links. That lower contribution was partly offset by Huntly firming option premiums in the second half.
On operating expenditure, normalized OPEX increased $16 million to $377 million. The increase reflects wage inflation, technology support, a full year of Ecotricity OPEX, and $5 million associated with the single brand strategy.
Note, there has been a $15 million reclassification of metering costs to gross margin during the year. As the major technology and single brand programs conclude in FY27, the focus increasingly shifts towards converting these investments into ongoing margin quality and productivity benefits.
The operating result translated strongly into cash. Operating free cash flow was $322 million, which is the equivalent of a 62% cash conversion ratio.
Working capital was a positive contributor, including payments from counterparties supporting the strategic coal stockpile under our Huntly firming options. Our capital program remains balanced between maintaining the resilience of existing assets and investing in growth.
Stay-in-business CAPEX was $119 million. This included investment in the Rankines as part of the Huntly life extension program.
This multi-year program supports the continued availability of Rankines through to FY35, consistent with the Huntly firming options. Growth CAPEX was $182 million, concentrated on solar development and BESS, which will progressively displace higher-cost thermal generation and structurally lower our long-term cost of generation.
Our strong cash generation, together with the $400 million equity raise, has materially strengthened the balance sheet. Net debt has reduced to approximately $940 million, and our debt to EBITDAF ratio has reduced to 1.6 times.
This gives us the financial capacity to execute the FY32 growth plan while maintaining resilience through energy market cycles. The board has declared a final dividend of 7.58 cents per share, taking the full-year dividend to 14.88 cents per share.
The board has set a fixed dividend policy through to FY28. We expect to provide an update on our dividend policy beyond FY28 at the FY27 half-year results.
Turning now to FY27, for FY27, we are guiding to normalized EBITDAF of $480 to $520 million, assuming P50 hydro, wind, and solar conditions. As always, guidance remains subject to hydrology, fuel availability, and plant reliability.
Our digital big rock program will conclude in FY27 with around $45 million of final program spend. Stay-in-business CAPEX is expected to increase to $140 to $150 million, reflecting the second year of the Huntly life extension program.
Growth investment is expected to be up to $325 million, predominantly supporting battery and solar developments. I'll now pass back to Malcolm to discuss the group outlook and closing remarks.
Malcolm Johns
Thank you, Emma. A solid year with good proof points our strategy delivery as we balance the needs for our customers and investors.
We have balanced investment well between supporting better services and products for our customers and to set the business up for competitive returns and growth for our shareholders. FY28 remains our target year for being clear of major technology investment.
Current wholesale electricity prices present a potential near-term opportunity and risk. However, our outlook to FY28 continues to see credible pathways to EBITDAF in the upper $500 million range.
That outlook is based on P50 generation assumptions, no major changes to regulatory or market settings, and no significant unplanned outages or fuel disruptions. Importantly, it reflects the continued benefits to our customers and investors from executing our strategy to deliver improved margin quality, cost discipline, and strong capital management.
If we now look beyond FY28 and out to FY32, this is horizon two of Gen35, the period from now out to FY32. We first shared this framework during our successful capital raise earlier in the year.
The FY32 growth plan has five commercial pillars to it. Customer, where we are focused on growing demand through electrification of transport and heat along with new and emerging demand sources.
This will also lower the total cost of energy for our customers as I mentioned earlier. Renewables, where our focus is structurally lowering our long-term average generation cost through investing in new renewable generation.
Huntly, where we are leveraging the existing and emerging growth opportunities the Huntly site offers us to firm our portfolio and increase asset-backed trading. OPEX, returning to core operating cost levels from FY28 and delivering ongoing productivity gains.
Our headwinds, the cost of maintaining a future development pipeline of around 2,500 megawatts and the known and planned decline of Kupe out to around FY34. To recap, we are building a culture focused on margin quality, cost discipline, and strong capital management to deliver demand growth, a lower average generation cost, leveraging the opportunities from the Huntly site, deliver a competitive operating cost base, and lean into our known headwinds.
Thank you for your time today. We will now move to your questions.
Operator
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 your handset to ask your question.
Please limit to two questions. Our first question is from Grant Swanepoel with Jarden.
Please proceed.
Grant Swanepoel
Good morning, team.
Malcolm Johns
Morning, Grant.
Emma Oettli
Morning, Grant.
Grant Swanepoel
You've started the year really well from a hydro perspective. Your guidance is is is sitting mid-range at $500.
Does that mean that's because it's a P50, actually, at the moment, we're tracking above mid-guidance? On that front, the gas that you're on-selling, is there a bit of a loss in that through winter?
How do you how do you mitigate that going forward? With that in mind, is the Tariki gas storage potential still looking good, even though you are saying you haven't committed to that yet?
Malcolm Johns
Thanks, Grant. Obviously, we've guided based on P50 hydro, wind, and solar, and and hydro conditions will play a role in terms of where our final results lands as they did in FY26.
We also, of course, have the remainder of the tech project OPEX in there and the remainder of the single brand OPEX in there as well. That's that's where we've come to the $480-$520 is based on P50 hydro, wind, solar, and with those known known big project costs in there.
In terms of gas, I'm not sure I understood your question correctly. Could you just repeat it?
Grant Swanepoel
You would normally have to use a lot more gas and you've sold that gas on through winter because you've had so much water. Is that gas being sold on at a material loss to what you paid for it?
Malcolm Johns
No.
Grant Swanepoel
Okay.
Malcolm Johns
In terms of a net in terms of a net position, no.
Grant Swanepoel
Tariki? How's that developing?
Uh and and
Malcolm Johns
Tariki, we're we're uh continue to have engagement with the joint venture partners that own Tariki. Uh they're in subsurface um uh work at this point in time.
Um quite clearly, as we've said, um gas storage is is is helpful, um not essential to Genesis' FY32 position, uh but potentially material to the uh long-term viability of Unit 5.
Grant Swanepoel
My second question is um around IT delivery. You you're saying that most of that will be done by the end of FY27.
Is there quite a bit of slippage in that, or is the slippage under your control?
Malcolm Johns
The slippage is under our control at the moment. As we said, I think at results last year, the three big systems we're replacing is like a heart and lung transplant for the for the business.
Uh the financial management system is now in. Uh the electricity trading and risk management system is is well-advanced.
Uh we're through the first phase of the billing and CRM system. Um the big migration will occur in the second half of this financial year.
Um and um and and once that's complete, uh then all three systems will be in place. We would consider it at this point in time to be under our control, Grant.
Operator
Our next question is from Joshua Dale with Craigs Investment Partners. Please proceed.
Joshua Dale
Good morning, Malcolm, Emma, and Michael. Good slide pack, thanks for the detail.
Just on your FY28 EBITDAF target of proper $500 million, staying on track with commissioning of Leeston and Edgecumbe solar is pretty critical to reaching that target in that specific timeframe. What gives you confidence those are going to come in on time, and what is the risk of slippage?
Malcolm Johns
Uh we're working with reputable uh EPCs, uh and um and so on that basis uh and based on our experience to date, uh we've seen no reason for slippage in COD in those projects. Um as with all of these projects, that's based on our knowledge today.
Uh if we encounter problems, um there's always a risk of that. Um but we don't see it as a high risk at this point in time, Josh.
Joshua Dale
That's great. Um, second question, just around gas.
If we look at slide 31, it shows your equity ownership in Kupe dropping to zero in the middle of 2029. If you are off baseload gas by then, I guess gas is less important to have.
What is your thinking around keeping Kupe? I suppose also, if you are exploring an offshore sale of Unit 5, have you done any preliminary work around what price per megawatt might be achievable?
I appreciate it's conditional on LNG.
Malcolm Johns
Yep. Uh those dips that you can see, in particular in November '25, are the planned outages for Kupe gas field.
Uh and they normally occur in November each year and they coincide with the planned outages of Unit 5. That's why um uh that's why you see that.
Um but in essence, um I'm not actually 100% sure why our equity gas drops to zero then. Um let let us find out the answer to that and come back to you, Josh.
Um in terms of uh your second question, which was about offshore sales, um we have done some preliminary work around what the international market for um units like Unit 5 is. Um and uh and you can do the same thing yourself if you want to.
Just basically Google them and there's an there's a, a number of different uh purveyors of these machines. Um and I wouldn't want to put a price on it at the moment, um but um the four-year timeline that's uh the waitlist, sorry, that's uh in the market at the moment means that there is a demand for these machines, and people are paying, attractive prices for them.
Joshua Dale
Great, thanks very much.
Malcolm Johns
Thanks, Josh.
Operator
Our next question is from Andrew Harvey-Green with Forsyth Barr. Please proceed.
Hi. Um good
Andrew Harvey-Green
morning, uh Malcolm, Emma, and Michael. Uh thanks for that.
Uh first question, I just had, like, it's following on from uh Joshua there, uh just on Unit 5. Look, I'm assuming the LNG decision is is very um uh tightly tied to what happens with Unit 5.
Is Is that presumably a precondition to Unit 5 staying around?
Malcolm Johns
As as we've said, um since 2024, we we won't maintain assets that don't have a compelling commercial case to maintain. In the case of Unit 5, you essentially need three things.
Um one is you need committed demand for it. The second is uh you need uh cost-competitive fuel for it.
The third is you need to be able to match the flexibility that will come into the market, in other words, gas storage. Uh to build a commercial case uh for Unit 5 domestically, you need to tick those three boxes.
Uh and we're at a point now where, um whilst there's work going on around those three boxes, uh it's it's incumbent on us to start investigating other options beyond 2029.
Andrew Harvey-Green
Yep. Uh next question I just had was around your CAPEX uh guidance in particular.
Are you able to just give a bit more color in terms of the Huntly uh work that's ongoing, how much is included in the SIB CAPEX number for this year, and and what we can expect, so that's probably in the next two to three years if it's a multi-year program?
Emma Oettli
We've provided stay-in-business CAPEX guidance this year between $145 and $155 million. This uh is elevated, and if you look across the FY32 growth plan, what we've also included in the integrated report is up to $800 million will be spent on stay-in-business across this time period.
That's now out there as an outlook to to point to. Huntly life extension continues for the next, maybe, two to three years, but at the same time, we've also got mid-life CAPEX programs across generators and turbines out in our hydros, and that's underpinning that elevated forward view.
Malcolm Johns
In essence, if you take that $800 million and remove uh the Huntly life extension and the uh replacement of turbines and uh generators, uh you get to our long-run average of about $80 million a year of stay-in-business CAPEX.
Andrew Harvey-Green
Great. Thanks.
Thanks for that color.
Operator
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, it is star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question is from Stephen Hudson with Macquarie Group.
Please proceed. Uh,
Stephen Hudson
morning, everyone. Can you hear me okay?
Malcolm Johns
Yeah. Morning, Stephen.
Stephen Hudson
Hi there. Um just uh just on Kupe, uh can you discuss uh the EBITDA improvement in a little bit more detail over FY26 and and what you're sort of baking in for FY27?
Emma Oettli
Is that from the segment note, Stephen? When you look at EBITDA improvement?
Yeah. Uh that is predominantly the gas price that's transferring between the two business units, there had been an increase in that price year-on-year, and that's what's increased that's what's driving it.
Production is down, price is up.
Stephen Hudson
What you're expecting sort of best into FY27? I think it's what is it, 36 to 69 and and then sort of a more normalized number in '27 or?
Emma Oettli
We don't provide guidance, I guess, at an individual segment level, but what we can say is that in the FY28 number and the FY32 growth plan, we have in we have included that headwind that comes from our Kupe asset long term.
Stephen Hudson
Would you still expect '27 to be sort of an elevated EBITDA number, or I guess is, or should we expect a large normalization back to the '25 kind of level? Just direct-, broadly speaking, given it was such a large movement in '26.
Malcolm Johns
Can we come back to you on that, Stephen? Um um sitting here, we don't have that information to hand, sorry.
Stephen Hudson
Yeah. No.
No problem.
Malcolm Johns
Um
Stephen Hudson
and then just on HFO, um can you there's obviously been a bit of talk about the LNG um terminal and and what it may mean for all sorts of dry-year energy swings. Um I understand there's a 5-year break on the HFO.
Is that correct? If so, how how does the break clause work?
Uh we we
Malcolm Johns
we're bound by confidentiality on that. Um there is a review um midway through the contract um that has a number of aspects to it, um but we we can't go into detail on that, Stephen.
Stephen Hudson
No worries. I I'm going to sneak in a third, um if you don't mind.
Um just just in terms of normalization, it was obviously a fairly um quiet year in terms of normalization this year. Um can you call out any kind of expected normalization that you're expecting over FY27?
Emma Oettli
No, looking forward, we see normalizations becoming quite a small number uh quite a small part of those numbers, again, we'll probably revisit across the year to understand if that's helpful or not.
Stephen Hudson
Cool. Thank you.
Malcolm Johns
Thank you.
Operator
There are no further questions at this time. This will conclude today's conference.
Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
Already premium?