Good afternoon everyone, and welcome to the New Zealand Rural Land Company half-year results for the six months ending the 30th of June, 2026. I'm Richard Milsom, CEO of New Zealand Rural Land Company.

I'm joined by Stephen Reid, our CFO. I also have our Chair, Rob Campbell, on the call, who's available for any questions towards the end.

I'll take everyone through our presentation very briefly, and open for questions at the end. I'll start with our key takeaways or key messages for the first half of the year.

Our AFFO per share was 2.45 cents per share. Our quarterly dividend that we've declared is 1.34 cents per share, bringing the total dividend for the period, first half of the year, to 2.68 cents per share, two quarterly dividends of 1.34 cents per share.

Our full year guidance remains suspended. That will allow the company time to address the dynamic nature of the Kiwi Crunch liquidation, which was our tenant in the Hawke's Bay, who has another two small related leases to us, one for forestry and one for South Island orchards, while we're running a process to take tender bids for other lessees and to entertain sales bids.

While that process is running and being undertaken, we'll leave guidance suspended until we have a better idea of how that looks, and then we'll update the market as soon as we know. Interest rate hedging has increased to 91% at half-year, which is an increase from 81% at the same time, this time last year.

Subsequent to the end of our half-year results, we announced that we'd completed the settlement of the purchase from SI Orchards of the remaining property in Roxburgh in Otago, adding a further 79 hectares to NZL's orchard portfolio. In terms of our half-year '26 financial highlights and metrics, total assets of the limited partnership are $454 million, net asset value is $234 million, net asset value per share is just under $1.60, $1.597 per share, and gearing remains at 30.4%.

If I move on to the key highlight in terms of an operating review for the first half of the year, the major topic is that the land leased to Kiwi Crunch and related entities, the Kiwi Crunch farms, which are the three apple orchards that we own in Twyford, Hawke's Bay, there was voluntary administration and then receivers appointed to this group of companies. We're undertaking a process at the moment, and we'll update both guidance and the outcome to the market once we've received all the bids and expressions of interest and the board's had time to consider.

The ultimate financial impact is unknown at the moment as it will depend on the extent and the timing of recovery. We do have very broad both personal and inter-company guarantees, and there are a number of companies that are not subject to administration and are going concerns, and therefore, at the moment, we think we've got a reasonable chance of recovery.

In terms of NZL's financials and return metrics for the six months ending June 2026, FFO and AFFO were 2.49 cents per share and 2.45 cents per share respectively. Net profit after tax and earnings per share were $4.74 million and 3.24 cents per share respectively.

As mentioned, our balance sheet has total assets of $453.99 million and a total net asset value of $233.99 million. In terms of our debt summary, our gearing remains at 30.4%.

The weighted average interest cost of our debt is 5.4%, and we're 91% hedged with an average weighted term to expire of 2.3 years, which is something we'll be looking to extend in the near future. If I touch on our sustainability program highlights for the first half of the year, in April '26, we released our third annual climate-related disclosure report.

It covered all of financial year, which also correlates to calendar year for FY '25. We released our greenhouse gas emissions profile, which, for the first time reaches right down into our downstream leased assets, providing comprehensive value chain coverage.

We did three different climate scenario change analyses, and we've created a transition plan that's targeting a 45.5% reduction in absolute emissions by 2035. In terms of our outlook, 7.3% of our pastoral leases were subject to review in the first half of 2026, adding an annualized additional $181,130 to our total rent roll.

100% of our forestry assets were subject to rent review in the first half of 2026. There was a 3.1% increase, adding an annualized further $207,266 to the annual rent roll of the company.

In terms of our dividend, just a reminder that in response to KPMG's capital review, NZL adopted a revised dividend policy where we pay a quarterly dividend of approximately 90% to 100% of AFFO. As I mentioned, we paid a quarterly dividend of 1.34 cents per share in May '26, and the board's resolved to pay a second quarterly dividend of the same amount, being 1.34 cents per share, for the second quarter of first half FY '26.

A reminder, alongside the revised dividend policy, the board's resolved to take a more dynamic approach to the dividend reinvestment plan, and there will not be a DRP for this dividend. Included in our appendices are our investment property summaries, a summary of our investment proposition, and our portfolio overview.

It also updates and reminds about our foreign ownership rules and levels, and our New Zealand Rural Land Company and NZRLM team structure alongside index and broker research coverage and inclusion. What I'll do at this juncture is open the floor to any questions that people might have.

If you've got a question, if you could raise your hand and we can open up the floor to questions. Vashil, I see you've put your hand raised.

Hey, guys. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can. Thank you.

Thanks for your time today, and appreciate the presentation. I guess you've given some color on the Kiwi Crunch situation, and you've said you will update the market when you do get to an outcome, which we'll all appreciate in time.

I guess just a quick question there. Can you give a sense of how much of that income is included within AFFO?

Because you've called out saying there's about $1.2 million of rental due in from those three leases, and the accounts sort of don't provide a bad debt disclosure or anything.

The reason that we don't have a bad debt provision is that when we assessed the strength of the guarantees in the company as at 30th of June, neither the company nor the auditors or the board saw the need to impair it based on what we were looking at. That's obviously a dynamic situation, and I don't say that to be clever, it just simply is a moving feast.

At the moment, we remain confident that those rental arrears will be recoverable, but we would obviously update if any of that changed. We have received a substantial amount of interest for both leasing and purchasing of our properties, and so we're just waiting to collect the final expressions of interest, summarize that, put it to the board for a robust discussion about the best allocation of capital.

At the moment, the answer to your question is there's $1.2 million exposed in the first half of the year. We believe that in the near future we're going to have a resolution one way or the other.

As it looks, based on the initial information we have and looking at the guarantees and cross-guarantees we have, we think that that rental arrears are likely recoverable and so haven't impaired that.

No, perfect. Appreciate the color there.

Just on tax, it's just a bit surprising to see such a sizable current tax expense for the half. Could you give any color there?

The only color really is that, yeah, we have moved into a tax-paying position, I guess, in terms of looking at a full-year position, it's difficult with the Kiwi Crunch outcome. I think, putting that to one side, we were sort of looking at sort of a 40/60 split on current tax in the full financial year.

We've had some tax losses in the first half that we've used up. In terms of where it actually ends up, that sort of falls into the guidance position with Kiwi Crunch, it's not something we can sort of really give an indication on other than we are now paying tax is really the long and short of it all.

No, perfect. No, that makes perfect sense.

Then just lastly from me, I guess just the ROC/AFFO share was a bit higher than expected. I think for the half it was about 34%, whereas for '25 it was 28%.

What was the driver there? Was it just materially higher NZL-only costs during first half?

Yeah. I guess probably the obvious one is the cost of the capital review which came through in the first half, which was NZL costs.

Bang on in terms of NZL sort of specific corporate costs being higher.

We haven't spread that, have we?

No.

We've just landed, yeah. The cost of the capital review which in theory benefits the company over a period of time, it's just come straight through AFFO as an expense in the first half, you wouldn't see that in [skip out?]

.

No, perfect. Thanks, guys.

I'll give someone else a chance. Thank you.

Cheers.

Shane. Yeah.

I asked to unmute. Shane, I think you're on mute.

I think...

Okay. Sorry, guys.

Can you hear me now?

We

can hear you well.

Apologies. A couple of questions if I may.

Firstly, thanks very much for the briefing. First question, just picking up on management expense, what would a normalized year look like, assuming that this has got some unusual stuff to it?

Sorry, there's a bit of background noise, Shane, it's slightly hard to hear.

Normalized management expense. Can you talk about what a normal year is looking like for

Shane, when you say management expense, do you mean sort of total operating costs, or do you mean genuine management expense?

Let's go total operating.

You could probably take total operating costs as they are for the first half of the year and back out $300,000 of extraordinary costs. There were some valuations that fell in there as well, weren't there, Stephen?

Then double it for a full year.

Thank you. Second, just in terms of interest costs going forward, what are you sort of assuming there?

It's obviously going to go up a little bit, but we're well hedged in the short term. It's more of an unwind over the medium term than anything.

In the short term, we don't see a lot of I guess upwards, downwards movement.

We are quite hedged.

I guess the challenge we have at the moment is looking to fill the whole two years, two and a half years out. It's just where those rates are at the moment.

In terms of our sort of one to two year sort of forecast, we're probably not...

No change.

Not a material change.

Not a material change,

yeah.

Thanks. Thank you.

Just a final one. Given the Kiwi Crunch situation, How is that influenced the board's view on debt levels, or dividend payouts, or is this really a one-off anomaly?

I won't speak for the board, and I can ask Rob on the call who can answer, but I think that what we're seeing is we re-forecast all of our numbers extremely conservatively for the bank. We don't breach any covenants.

We've got plenty of headroom in terms of ICR and LVR cover. It's the conservative gearing has served well in this situation.

It does look like it's a real anomaly. It's not systemic in the apple industry, which are quite buoyant at the moment.

Our dividend we can comfortably meet with free cash flow, and so yeah, from our point of view, I would say conservative gearing is helping us here, and it looks like a one-off.

Thank you.

Shane, is that you done?

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks, Shane. Cheers.

I'll just go mute.

Yeah.

Vashil has got his hand up.

My hand just didn't get lowered from when you unmuted me, sorry.

Okay. All good.

Thanks. There's no other hands up at this stage, I will call the meeting to a close unless anyone else would like to put their hand up and ask any questions.

In the back of the presentation, our emails are listed, they're on the website. We're happy to field any calls or email or any questions that occur to anyone subsequent to the meeting.

Thank you everyone for coming along, and thank you for those that asked questions, and yeah, really happy to take anything after the meeting. Thank you, all.

Thanks, all.