Earnings Labs

James Hardie Industries plc (JHX)

Q4 2013 Earnings Call· Thu, May 23, 2013

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Transcript

Executives

Management

Louis Gries - Chief Executive Officer, Executive General Manager of U.S.A, Executive Director and Member of Financial Statements Disclosure Committee Russell Chenu - Chief Financial Officer and Member of Financial Statements Disclosure Committee Sean O’Sullivan - Vice President of Investor & Media Relations and Member of Financial Statements Disclosure Committee

Analysts

Management

Simon Thackray - Nomura Securities Co. Ltd., Research Division Andrew Peros - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division Andrew Johnston - CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, Research Division Liam Farlow - Macquarie Research Michael John Ward - Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Research Division Emily Behncke - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division Andrew Geoffrey Scott - CIMB Research Jason Harley Steed - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division David A. Leitch - UBS Investment Bank, Research Division Matthew McNee - Goldman Sachs & Partners Australia Pty Ltd, Research Division Ben Chan - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Louis Gries

Operator

Good morning, everybody. It's like we should hope for rain every results, so I could just do mine on the phone. Yes, so -- anyway, we'll run through it the normal way. Yes, this is going to be a repeat of the last result, which I did do on the phone. We thought we were going to do a little bit better in the quarter. Obviously, we went into the year thinking we're going to do a little better for the year. Again, the summary, you guys know the summary. The volume -- volume, we're pretty happy with it. I guess, Sean has got a couple of question and I just got a question on the 8% comp on volume. I think when you look at the volume trends in the business, actually the fourth quarter came in right around where we're forecasting. So we're happy with where the market's at and we're happy with where we're at relative to the market on volume. So the work we need to do is in other areas. So I think we'll probably -- I'll go through the slides pretty quick and you got Russell go through his and then we'll kind of handle that other stuff in more -- in detail when we go through -- when we get to questions. So anyway, you can see the operating profit for the quarter and for the year. Excluding all the other stuff, it's down $4 million. So on much higher -- 12% higher volume, so obviously, that's a disappointment from a bottom line standpoint. So again, we'll talk about that. U.S. in the quarter, yes, sales were up I think 8% -- or volume was up 8%. Sales price, I don't think it was down a full percent, but it was slightly down.…

Russell Chenu

Analyst

Good morning, folks, and thank you, Louis. So Louis ran through most of the factors, so I'll skip some of this. Price in the U.S. was impacted by the focus on multi-family, as well as in the new starter market and the move-up homes, first move-up homes, being a higher proportion of the market, so that hasn't assisted our returns. Also, the amount of money we were investing in organizational capability, as well as incurring some cost in both the quarter end and the full year on capacity planning, quite a bit of that fell through to the expense line, was not capable of being capitalized and therefore, had an adverse effect on earnings. Also, during the period, we reviewed New Zealand weather tightness. At Q4, we elected not to take an increase. Didn't see the need for that, but it finished up with a $13.2 million charge for the year and left us with a $15.2 million provision at the end of the financial year. We took some asset impairment charges, $11.1 million in the quarter, $16.9 million for the full year. And of the $16.9 million that was spread around 5 different plants and all but 1 were tied back to capability and capacity for the future. So you can see that this is really just a consequence under U.S. GAAP of the capacity planning that we're doing. And as a result of some of those assets being disused over the past 4 or 5 years, when we go back into -- have a look at capacity, we cannot use all of the assets and we finished up having to replace them and then impairing the existing assets. During the year, we made a contribution to AICF of USD 184 million, AUD 177 million, and we paid dividends…

Louis Gries

Operator

Okay. Yes?

Simon Thackray - Nomura Securities Co. Ltd., Research Division

Analyst

Simon Thackray from Nomura. Just a couple of questions. Russell, if I can just start, you made the comment that SG&A fourth quarter, I think, USD 58 million for the fourth quarter and that would be roughly the run rate going forward. So it's sort of $230 million to $240 million annually. Is that what we should be thinking about?

Russell Chenu

Analyst

Yes, I don't know how reflected the $58 million was, but what we'd expect it here is see a flattening out at the increases. So if it's $58 million times 4, I'm not sure. It might be $58 million times 4, plus a bit, but it won't be at the same rate that's been [indiscernible].

Simon Thackray - Nomura Securities Co. Ltd., Research Division

Analyst

Yes. It's not growing at this time, right. I guess that leads into the next question, Louis, which is just trying to come up with this EBIT bridge to your expectations for 20% plus EBIT margins. You've said before you need to do better than that in the first couple of quarters to hit, so could you maybe just help us or help me step through the bridge?

Louis Gries

Operator

Yes, no problem. So you've probably all done your arithmetic. So we had a 17.1%, which is $162 million in actual EBIT dollars. So if we had a 20% last year, we would -- on the same exact revenue, we would've needed $190 million, so about $28 million short. And of course, some of that would've come at price, so let's call it you were $30 million short because as your revenue goes up, you need a few more dollars. If you take a look at that price slide, which we had up, I can probably get back to it, but the -- we kind of peaked that price in the U.S. business in fiscal year '11 at $652 and then like I said, we slipped $13 since then. So if you had all $13 on last year's volume, it would've been about $19 million, okay. But now some of that's mix, so the $19 million would not have been straight to the bottom line. So if you figure maybe $15 million would've gone to the bottom line, we still need another $15 million on the cost side, okay. So you can get that in unit cost or the other cost in your business. Now like I said, I -- going into the year, I thought we might have been able to stretch to a $20 million. But what I really want to do is get kind of backward to grow the business, both from a capacity standpoint and from a kind of capability on the sales marketing side or demand generation. But we did come up short, and the short part of the cost wasn't that we put more money than we thought we were. We just thought we're going to get some efficiencies in the business that we…

Simon Thackray - Nomura Securities Co. Ltd., Research Division

Analyst

So -- that's very helpful. But just looking at your -- you're pleased with volume and you're sort of indicating your market was 6% from a system and your PDG, therefore, was 6% to get to your 12%, up 6% versus the market in housing that's gone up dramatically more than that, including multi-family at an average pricing outcome that suggests you're doing a hell of a lot more volume at the low end. How the -- I'm just trying to work out how the prices -- I know you take the point about the EBIT bridge, but how your price gets up from here given your previous concerns that you don't want to invite competitive capacity expansion either by taking price at the low end.

Louis Gries

Operator

Yes, that's a good point. Again, sorry about that. So one of the upsides we may have in the plan is the housing market. Certainly, it looks better now than it did 2, 3 months ago when we did most of our planning. So whether that sustains itself through the year or not, but our volume going our plan is something that I can definitely see is achievable if you look at other years we had increasing demand markets, meaning housing was on their way up. You take your March volume, multiply it by 12, add another about 5% and that's kind of an indicator of where you might end up for the year. March is affected by weather. Sometimes you get an early season, sometimes you get a late. So you got to dig in a little bit and kind of apply some judgment. But based on the March times 12, our volumes look okay. Now if the housing market's better than it was forecasted to be in January, we might have some upside. So then we get back to Simon's real question which is, if all of this is happening in the south and the west and if it's happening with big builders and it's happening with multi-family, can you really get your price up? And that's where there's kind of a -- that's where it becomes difficult to communicate externally because we look at price per segment, okay. We don't necessarily look at the overall average price that we give you. We look at as our Cemplank price coming up, what's our contribution margin on Cemplank doing. Is our multi-family bid pricing coming up? What is that contribution margin look like? And then obviously, with HardieBacker or Trim. So even though you may see a price decrease…

Simon Thackray - Nomura Securities Co. Ltd., Research Division

Analyst

And then just quickly, Russell, in terms of CapEx for '14, obviously with Carole Park coming on, CapEx for '14 and just confirmation of the tax rate.

Russell Chenu

Analyst

Thanks, Simon. Those are good questions. So CapEx for this year, the indications are that it'll likely come in at about USD 150 million for FY '14. I think frankly, our guys are going to spend to spend at that rate. I don't want to give a different number that we'll have a pretty good feel for it as we get through the year, but I'll be pretty surprised if we actually achieve that sort of spend level. In terms of the effective tax rate, I think I did flag at Q3 that we've been guiding through FY '13 at 25% plus or minus 2%. But given the way things have evolved through the year, it was more likely to vary more to the downside than 2%, and that's the way it played out. I think we -- the 21% or so that we had for the full year is probably about as low as it will get. It is going to be very driven by what happens with the geographic mix of earnings. As you guys know, the U.S. at 38% is, including state taxes, is the highest tax rate that we see in our mix of businesses or jurisdictions. And if the U.S. market turns up or the business turns up in the way that Louis has just described, then clearly, that has a pretty significant impact on our ETR. But I'd say 21% is about as low as we'll get, and it will be somewhere between 21% and 25% in all likelihood for FY '14. Andrew Peros - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: Andrew Peros, Crédit Suisse. Russell, while you're at the mic, perhaps I'll start off with you firstly. Appreciate the comments you made a little earlier around the buyback, but just wondering if you could help us out. At what point -- or where does your share price have to be for you guys to pull the trigger on that buyback? Sorry -- at what point is it not accretive, I guess, from your perspective?

Russell Chenu

Analyst

You'll learn after we've traded, Andrew. Andrew Peros - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: All right. And then I guess following that, if you do decide to repatriate capital through a special div, would a $0.24 dividend be likely, or is that something we should expect?

Russell Chenu

Analyst

It's not the CFO who makes the decisions on dividends. That's something that the board always preserves its right for. I mean, my expectation would be that, as I indicated to you, that ordinary dividends will flex with earnings given the dividend payout ratio policy that we've adopted of 30% to 50%. And we'd be looking to do special dividends in lieu of buyback. We've announced the 5% buyback. So I think you can draw from that, that roughly the same sort of special dividend that we've contemplated is likely or at least in our minds for FY '14 on that basis. But it does depend very substantially on the extent to which we do or don't do share buyback activity. Andrew Peros - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: Okay. And one for Louis, perhaps just a point of clarification on R&D. Obviously, headcount's up, costs are up and running well above trend. I think you've previously guided to roughly about $25 million to $30 million in R&D spend. Is that something you're still targeting going forward?

Louis Gries

Operator

Yes, I think the increase in R&D last year was around a couple of specific product -- projects, one of which we'll show you if you come on the tour this September at Fontana. So I think the spike in R&D dollars was very project driven, so it's not meant to be necessarily a higher level of spend going forward. I think it might settle down a little bit this year actually. Andrew Peros - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: Okay. And the plant at Chicago that you've just opened, is this -- just wondering how we should think about this. Is this something that you think is a necessary requirement to grow market share? Or is this something that you have other aspirations of -- in terms of growing margins? Or how should we think about that investment?

Louis Gries

Operator

Yes, that's a good question because it is a mix. So the coatings part of it is that protect our position with ColorPlus in fibre cement, so our brand promises around durability and maintenance. So since we have -- we didn't own any of our technologies in coating and ColorPlus was getting bigger and a bigger percentage of our product line, we just felt like we have no issues with feldspar [ph], and that agreement, I think, runs through like 2016. So it's not like it's coming to an end in the near term, but we just felt like we had to build that capability. Now I do think we'll get some benefits by having that capability, but it's almost a certainty of supply investment rather than enhanced margin investment. And then I would say right now probably -- I'm guessing, I didn't even ask the guys to check my guesses here, but my guess would be we'll probably spend 2/3 of our money on coatings and 1/3 on non-fibre cement product development. And that would be searching for a new category to invest in to a greater degree and kind of grow another leg in the U.S. besides fibre cement, so that will be long-term strategic investment.

Andrew Johnston - CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, Research Division

Analyst

Andrew Johnston, CLSA. A couple of questions. Louis, just on the -- you mentioned before about the mix shift and you mentioned targeted penetration into particular markets. Can you expand on that a little? Because that seems to be the issue around the margin.

Louis Gries

Operator

It's part of the issue around the margin. But like I said, we're -- if I give you a longer explanation, I guess the work we did in the early 2000s up until the downturn was kind of right in our sweet spot, a lot of prime plank and we're just getting Color established and we didn't make much money on Color at the time, but it wasn't near as big a part of our mix then, so were getting very high margins on almost everything we sold, okay. Now Cemplank, we get returns on but not anything like the normal margins we get on the middle of the market stuff. And anything in the top of the market has so much market development that goes along with it, you don't get your margin there either. So what we need to do is -- I mean, we need to grow all segments, okay. So we can't be a 35 company. We can't see fiber cement get to the size that we want to be or the market share that we wanted to be, if we're just willing to participate, we're going to make this huge margins. So -- and that's why I said, I don't think -- we don't manage to that. Well, obviously, no company would, but we don't manage to that average numbers. It's how you get into that average, that's a lot more important. And I don't want to mislead you. There is a management gap or management performance in that number. In other words, that number could easily be just sort of $6 on it, could be easily $6.45 with perfect price management, okay. But then the rest of it is about different segments growing at different rates and big builders picking up a little bit more of the business on a recovery than they had going into the downturn and stuff like that.

Andrew Johnston - CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, Research Division

Analyst

Okay. But we're seeing the emergence of the custom builders back again, so that should help you.

Louis Gries

Operator

Yes, I don't think there's -- there's been maybe some movements in the market. I've seen some of the papers on multi-family and some of the papers on -- by the way, the other thing we didn't do well last is we didn't grow our Northern business well. So forget that the northern market didn't grow as quickly as, say, Southern and Western markets from a demand standpoint. We didn't do as well ourselves within that Northern market, so it was kind of a double drag on that. And as you know, Color is highly biased towards the North. But yes, you're right. I mean, I think all the segments will come back and it will be a little bit different than they were, but -- and I've seen papers on mix. All that stuff's right. That's not at the core of what's happening, okay. We're just -- we're a little bit higher on market share, as we calculate it than we were last year, but we just got to keep climbing that market share curve and not be confused by a more multi-family, less this, more of that because we have to participate in all segments. We're capable of participating and making returns in all of the segments so that's what we need to do.

Andrew Johnston - CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, Research Division

Analyst

And so what was the issue in the North, [indiscernible] northeast?

Louis Gries

Operator

It's just -- not everything runs well in a business so the North didn't as well as they should have last year.

Andrew Johnston - CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, Research Division

Analyst

Is that marketing or a market side...

Louis Gries

Operator

Yes, market side, market side. Not enough consistency in the market, not enough emphasis on new construction and all these coming back. Not as good with the channels as we should have been.

Liam Farlow - Macquarie Research

Analyst

I'm Liam Farlow from Macquarie. Just a quick question on New Zealand weather tightness. Obviously, you've seen an increasing expenses and a higher provision, even excluding the Ministry of Education claim. Where do you see those claims where in the future, what's recoverable from insurance from here moving on? And what are some of the scenarios you've look at with regards to potentially the Ministry of Education claim or are there potential claims that could emerge over there?

Louis Gries

Operator

As far as scenarios if you point to is this a New Zealand liability or would it go beyond New Zealand business. We don't see we're in that magnitude of claim at this point to start even going through that early thinking. As far as insurance, Russell, you got the update on the insurance? It was largely covered to a certain period of time and now there's dispute going on. So right now, the coverage isn't there for what's happening right now.

Liam Farlow - Macquarie Research

Analyst

And is that not expected to return from an insurance coverage perspective?

Louis Gries

Operator

No, no.

Michael John Ward - Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Research Division

Analyst

It's Michael Ward from CBA. Just in response in Simon's question, you sort of elaborated the $50 million, you talked about the 12% volume, you talked about 1% price. It sounds like a lot of it is coming from the efficiency side rather than the price side. Can you maybe just give us a little bit more detail. Is it as simple as 12% volume comes through and the efficiency benefits fall out or is it there more that needs to be done in the business on the efficiency side.

Louis Gries

Operator

No, there definitely more than needs to be done in the business. So the -- you definitely -- you get your volume contribution dollars straight forward. But we actually have to increase our contribution dollars per unit as well across all the units we ship. So there are some things we did in the business during the downturn, especially on machine performance. They were very good, so we get much higher throughput on a lot of -- most of our machines in the business right now. And we just haven't turned that into the dollars as we should have so it's kind of an internal -- I mean, I wouldn't never predicted this. I think our organization is finding it hard to move to high demand again. And so the machines are running. They're running well but like I said, we're just inefficient in other things we're doing, whether it will be sourcing, scheduling or shipping to where a lot of your benefit of running well kind of doesn't find its way into the bottom line. So the business needs to run better next year than it run this last year. There's just no 2 ways about it. It needs to run better. It's not to say we're poorly run business. I mean this is a Hardie standard. This is still 20% to 25% margin range we're looking for and it's kind of like -- it's not judging you by what peers can do, it's judging you by what we're able to do. What are potential of the business and we didn't -- we didn't operate near our potential last year. We came up short.

Michael John Ward - Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Research Division

Analyst

So of the volume -- of that non-price contribution to the expected earnings improvement, is it the volume side that's big or is it the internal efficiency side that's probably big?

Louis Gries

Operator

Let's see. It would be the volume -- you get the 3 pieces. If we did get 1%, we've got 12%. The cost side, I think, is more like $15 million, $18 million. So you can't get there on cost. You can't get there on price and you can't get there on volume. You got to do all 3 better.

Michael John Ward - Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Research Division

Analyst

Okay. And maybe just a question for Russell on the cash flow. Just looking at the trading or the cash generated by trading activities, can you sort of talk us through the big change in other noncash items, what that is from 73, positive 73 to only positive 11. And then make some comments around working capital where you've had an outflow of sort of $34 million this year?

Russell Chenu

Analyst

Sorry, did you say on the other noncash items?

Michael John Ward - Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Research Division

Analyst

Yes. So the 73 to the 12, and then just some comments around working capital, whether or not you're happy with the performance there.

Russell Chenu

Analyst

I have to get back to you on the 73, Michael. I just can't recall what that is or what that was in FY '12. It's certainly, a big number. I'll get back to you on that one. On the net working capital movements, I think we're probably in a much better shape than we were across all of our businesses in working capital. We did run quite a program in the middle of 2012. That's calendar '12, and I think we've made some pretty good progress there, relative to the prior period. But the business in the U.S. is growing and that clearly does soak up a fair bit of working capital. But if I look at all of the areas, particularly our inventory and our accounts receivables across the group, we probably got some way to go, but generally I think we're in pretty good shape.

Emily Behncke - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division

Analyst

It's Emily Behncke from Deutsche Bank. Just wondering, Louis, if you might be able to -- you mentioned at the beginning of the presentation that while the U.S. market was good that you guys could have done better. I presume that's on the cost side. And I'm wondering if that is the $15 million to $18 million or so that you're thinking that you need to sort of find in FY '14?

Louis Gries

Operator

Yes, I think last year was probably $10 million to $12 million we missed. That turns in the bigger number because I think we're further along in a few areas. And again, I think if you really want to be critical about our performance last year, the 12% volume is fine, but we should have done better in the North. So we should had a bit more volume by doing better in the North. And if we did better in the North, we'd have a bit more price. So I've been working at Hardie a long time, 22 years, and 8 years in this job and I'd say, as reflecting when I was coming down in the plane. I mean 8 years I've been in this job. This is one of the -- this is either the worse or second worst year I've had. And that's not to say we had any big mistakes. It was kind of missed opportunities rather than performance gaps. It's just missed opportunities where, here, the markets starting to cooperate with us and we're spinning our wheels in too many areas, so we got to quit spinning and get more traction.

Emily Behncke - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division

Analyst

Okay. And just with the price increases that have been announced in Backer and I think you said HLD, wasn't it? I'm just wondering...

Louis Gries

Operator

HLD, Trim and we did make a product enhancement on Trim, so some of that's going to be offset by cost increase due to the edge enhancement we made. And then HardieBacker, which isn't implemented yet will come in the next couple of months.

Emily Behncke - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division

Analyst

Okay, so on the basis of those market increases, would that get you to the 1% or do you need the mix to work in your favor?

Louis Gries

Operator

We need a little bit of help on the bottom of the Cemplank market and we need a little bit help on bid price in multi-family.

Emily Behncke - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division

Analyst

Okay. And you mentioned 6% PDG growth this year. Where is that mainly coming from? You are now in which parts of the country?

Louis Gries

Operator

Yes, well, I can tell you where it came last year. It was South and West dominant because like I said in north didn't do as well as we should have. And I think we're steady on our R&R program, so we haven't had any resources pulled out of R&R. So I feel like the gains we've had there will continue which is also are mainly in the vinyl markets. And then -- so the other bias will be towards new constructions. So we're going through a little lag, capability gap in new construction, because so many of our good people want in R&R. And we don't want to just pull them out of R&R, put them back in new construction, so some of our newer people are going into new construction. So it's a bit of a training emphasis now to get the new resources up by new construction, kind of market development and vinyl markets.

Emily Behncke - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division

Analyst

So in FY '13, what would be the new versus R&R mix in your volume, roughly?

Russell Chenu

Analyst

I didn't even try and calculate to be honest with you. It's just more of an intuitive sense of where we're at.

Emily Behncke - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division

Analyst

So R&R would have gone up by more than new in terms of share?

Louis Gries

Operator

Yes, I think that's probably right because we definitely have more of our resources pointed there.

Andrew Geoffrey Scott - CIMB Research

Analyst

Louis, Andrew Scott, CIMB. Just maybe following up on that, I'm just -- and you alluded to the start, struggling to get back to that U.S. 8% volume. If we sort of take a 1 quarter lag, I think U.S. total startups were up high-30s, single family up 29%. If you're assuming about 35% of that single family comes through to you, you're already at probably 10% or very close to in terms of the volume growth and that's before you get the other 65 growing at a smaller rate. What am I missing there? Otherwise, I'd be saying I would have thought your PDG slipped in the quarter?

Louis Gries

Operator

Okay. I think one thing you missed is did you say you thought we'd get 35% on new construction or?

Andrew Geoffrey Scott - CIMB Research

Analyst

Thereabouts, but bringing back to 30s is not going to change the equation too much but...

Louis Gries

Operator

Okay, so our current share on new construction is very similar to R&R. So -- we don't do it so much in our share. So the guys that calculated that in our business, they just calculated total opportunity. And they calculate the opportunity increase and then we'll look at our change relatively to the increase. So it's market share before market share after the delta and that's how they get the PDG. So I'm not sure. Sean will have to help you with that specific arithmetic, I think. But the really tough thing and the reason we don't publish PDG anymore is no one’s out there with a good R&R market, kind of market number. There used to be some people out there. I think the NHP [ph] have one at sometime and someone told me they're coming back with it, but we found it to be very inaccurate. So we're just a little bit worried about publishing numbers which end up being in decimal point results and indicated is where we're at because we think it's directionally right where we're at. We used a couple of proxies for the R&R market. We get a lot of insight in what Home Depot and Lowe's does in building materials, so that's one of the biggest things we used for the R&R market. But the other thing we get is we get the vinyl. We get the vinyl numbers and then the thing that's emerge recently and you guys would be aware is that LP [ph] is starting to grow chipboard siding and again. So the numbers, you can figure out their volume from their results and that's kind of a one industry player now. There's smaller players in hardboard siding, but they don't add up too much. So we see the vinyl in decline, so it's kind of if vinyl wasn't in decline, then you'd say, well, you might be guessing wrong in your R&R index but we're pretty confident with vinyl in decline and at the rate LP [ph] is growing and the 3 areas are growing, it kind of all kind of calculates to be in line with our PDG result. And I guess you guys follow the bricks. We don't follow the bricks so much because we don't feel there -- we're not swapping out for bricks and they're not swapping for us. But anyway, Sean, you have to show him how we calculate that. I didn't quite follow it.

Andrew Geoffrey Scott - CIMB Research

Analyst

Okay, and just one more, just Carole Park addresses, I guess, the new capacity in Australia but leaves you with a very old Rosehill plant. Have we come a bit of a CapEx hump there to bring that back to expected standards for Hardies?

Louis Gries

Operator

No. The answer is no. I'm trying to reflect down the old part of Rosehill. The sheet machines are fine. I can't remember when the sheet machines were put in. One of them was put in just before we built Fontana. We since expanded that, and I think the second one we invested in probably in the 90s. As far as making sheets, Australian plants are more than capable of making sheets in a high throughput manner so that's not a problem. With a -- they're business is quite different as after the autoclave, and I think so many investments in finishing lines in Australia has been kind of not as good as it could have been. It depends too much at manual labor and labor is very expensive in Australia. So I think we'll start to work through the post autoclave investment in both the sites down here. Not just the new finishing capability that goes with the new sheet machine, but other finishing lines we have in Australia. But Rosehill sit on an expensive land that's why I thought we might move off from that site. But quite honestly, the difference in their cost relative to a greenfield or even the new Carole Park, it doesn't justify moving. Sean O’Sullivan: Okay, we might take if there's any questions on the phone, please?

Operator

Operator

We do have some questions over the phone. The first one comes from Jason Steed with JPMorgan. Jason Harley Steed - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Louis, Russell. A couple of questions -- sorry I got to go back to 20% but I just want to pick up on 2 points around that. We picked up from Heritage homes the last couple of days that their rebates from building materials companies are rising. I appreciate that's across the broad spectrum of building products and materials. But I just wanted to get a sense of your -- where you are in terms of rebates and just to remind on how you calculate that. Does that sits within OpEx or is it -- does it affect your average sales price? And then the second question, just on input cost in terms of, Louis, the structure that you went through in terms of getting back to 20%. Pulp going up, freight going up, too. You obviously need to offset those as well. So maybe you could just comment how you see overcoming that. Does that imply even more price action and a shift away from Cemplank, for instance?

Louis Gries

Operator

Yes. So on the builder rebates, so you see net numbers. And our builder rebates have changed recently because we've taken some of the builder discounts off invoice and put them on rebate. So we'll see a higher rebate in the business but you won't see a lower net price because of it -- because it will be just trading rebates offer, discount on invoice. Jason Harley Steed - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: So your -- sorry, I'm jumping on this. So your sort of average imply discount as it were hasn't really change. It still where it was versus the year ago and you don't expect it to increase despite the structural change?

Louis Gries

Operator

That is correct. And the structure, I think you just pick the builder that's on a bit of a run, so I don't think it's -- overall that builders -- I'm not close enough to the other products. Maybe the other products as they get their pricing up are going back to the big builders with more rebates, I'm not sure, but not's our intention. We think our pricing with our big builders is where it needs to be. As far as -- yes, you're right on pulp and freight. Now freight, of course, freight always goes up seasonally so we're seeing that now, but we do see the risk that both freight on an annualized basis and pulp, our annual number, could be higher. And right now, we have some increase in there but we don't have either of them going -- rising very, very quickly or strongly. So that would be one of the things, obviously, not very much in our control that could get in the way of us hitting 20 even if we did all the internal things well. But right now, we're not quite 2 months through a year. There kind of where we think they should be if our overall forecast is right. So like I said, that can change, their commodities, both of them. So they can go on a run but right now, we're comfortable with the pattern of increases that both pulp has taken and the freight haulers have taken. Jason Harley Steed - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Okay, great. And just one quick last one. Just on the Blandon closure, I think it's about 200 capacity plant. Can you just remind us -- I can't recall whether that was on the cards or maybe you could just remind us of what -- why that decision was taken with that plant specifically? The decision not to reopen it, I should be more specific.

Louis Gries

Operator

Well, Blandon. I guess we've talked in general terms about Blandon in the past and almost always, and we saw it again with the decision in Australia. It almost never make sense to move a plant. You always kind of -- if you start somewhere, you're going to have a better returns if you stay where you are and kind of optimize your unit cost in that plant rather than just giving up and moving on. I think Blandon has been our -- the real exception. Now you guys would remember, we bought Blandon from E-techs [ph]. It was Cemplank plant 1 of the 2. And it was their initial plant in the U.S. Now we didn't like the plant the day we bought it. We thought it was in the wrong place and we didn't like the machine. But we felt with incremental investments, just as I described there, we'd get better returns rather than just kind of closing it down and starting new somewhere else in the Northeast. We felt the same way about Somerville when we bought that and I think in one case, we are right, Somerville and in Blandon's case we were wrong. We should have -- when we bought the Temple plant in Texas. We saw that just -- what was in the plant wasn't going to deliver what we wanted. We gutted the plant. Kept all the infrastructure around raw material and [indiscernible] and all that and just put new machines in the plant. That's what we should have done with Blandon, okay. And if we stayed in Blandon, that's exactly what we would do now. So it's been a couple of mistakes made along the way. But now, we're just of the mind and the numbers kind of point to -- you can put in incremental capacity in Peru and Pulaski and get a better return than by fixing up Blandon. So that's why we're going to fully exit the Blandon site. And I think the latest impairment reflects the land and building value as it's anticipated as we sell it.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from David Leitch with UBS.

David A. Leitch - UBS Investment Bank, Research Division

Analyst

Long conference call. I was just looking for a bit of guidance on CapEx in FY -- total CapEx in FY '14 and maybe even the following year, given the Australian expenditure and you've indicated some spending in the U.S.A. as well?

Louis Gries

Operator

What's our official guidance there? Yes, so officially, we're saying $150 million per year. I think that's right. It may not actually be leveled with 2 years, but the $300 million, $100 million of which is on Australian, a couple of $100 million in the U.S. kind of looks good to us.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Matthew McNee with Goldman Sachs. Matthew McNee - Goldman Sachs & Partners Australia Pty Ltd, Research Division: I'll just make this quick as well. Russell, just the legal -- sorry, the insurance recoveries you got in the asbestos this year, was there -- there was a significant element of one-off in that. So where would you expect that to go next year?

Russell Chenu

Analyst

One-off is probably a little strong math in terms of the explanation or characterization of it. The actuaries are always very harsh in their assessment of recoverability of insurance proceeds. And AICF had a very substantial exposure to the insolvency of HIH. And given HIH's financial condition, there was a very high probability that there will be significant challenges in recovering from HIH liquidators. As things have played out, AICF has seen very successfully in the courts, including the courts in the U.K. in asserting its rights. And yet, that's not allowed for an actuarial estimate. It's not complete, but it's unlikely that future years will contain the same sort of dollars in terms of cutting through to recovery on the HIH proceeds because most of that gains have been had. The other side of insurance recovery is typically some one-offs that come through in commutations of policies. Those things, they have been periodically -- they haven't been big dollars in FY '13 and they're unlikely to be big dollars going forward. Matthew McNee - Goldman Sachs & Partners Australia Pty Ltd, Research Division: And Russell, just one other. Just from memory, Rosehill and I'm not sure about Carole Park, but I think they're originally owned by the fund, the original fund. Is that the case now or not?

Russell Chenu

Analyst

It's not the case now. Just a little bit of background to that. Those properties were part of the $300 million or so seeding of the funds of medical research and compensation foundation in 2001. The funds -- that fund didn't hold on to the land and buildings for any of the sites in Australia or in New Zealand for a long period of time. I'm a bit rusty on exactly when they were sold but I think it was 2003, 2004 period. There are different owners of the sites now, as Louis indicated, we've been successfully negotiating the purchase in relation to the Carole Park site. Which was, in fact, being marketed by the owner. Matthew McNee - Goldman Sachs & Partners Australia Pty Ltd, Research Division: And what's the term of the lease at Rosehill?

Russell Chenu

Analyst

It's got -- I'm not going to be precisely in that because the numbers didn't -- or the years didn't match up on all the sites. But we've got the right to extend the lease through to sometime in the 2030. So I think it's about 203, something like that. So we're not at risk of being evicted from the site.

Operator

Operator

The final question on the phone comes from Ben Chan with Merrill Lynch.

Ben Chan - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Analyst

Russell, just -- is my understanding those some restrictions regarding the payout ratio or may be a rolling 2- or 3-year basis under asbestos gain. I'm just wondering, I understand your 30% to 50% guidance in x asbestos, what about other R&R on specifically thinking about if you do take a provision for the New Zealand in a school's liability. Is your payout ratio will be calculated post that potentially or is that just completely irrelevant?

Russell Chenu

Analyst

No, it's not irrelevant, Ben. The amount that we're permitted to pay up by way of ordinary dividend is 75% of the past 2 years earnings -- always, in an average of 2 years, I should say. So it's reasonably complicated, although they simplified it in describing in the way I have. But it is -- if anything effectively goes to those earnings. So in other words, New Zealand weathertightness would be one of the many factors that impact the base on which the 75% is calculated.

Louis Gries

Operator

We have one more question... Sean O’Sullivan: We just have one question from media.

Carly Williams

Analyst

Carly Williams from AAP. Louis, I was just wondering if could provide a little bit of color of where you think the Australian housing market is heading over the next 12 months?

Louis Gries

Operator

I'm not an expert on the Australian housing market. As far as our people in the business, they're planning for it to be flat to just slightly up. So I think the declines are, hopefully, behind us and will be a little better market.

Carly Williams

Analyst

Do you think interest rates are going to start kicking in and bank a difference?

Louis Gries

Operator

I think that’s the reason for the optimism. Okay, I appreciate everyone coming this morning. Thanks.