Ann: Appendix 4E and Annual Accounts June 2023, page-3

Again, a clean and uncluttered set of accounts from SNL, which take a mere few minutes to reconcile into my financial model for the company.

But unlike just about all SNL's financial results which contain only bouquets, in this one there is a rather significant brickbat:

While the Australian business continues its superlative performance...





... for some reason, the New Zealand business recorded a loss in the second-half (despite the impressive Revenue performance):




As can be seen from the operating history of the NZ business, what happened in JH2023 was most unusual.  It is clearly not due to a product demand issue (given the robust Revenue in the half), so is clearly an outworking of incurring of a higher level of operating expenses.

The question is to what extent this elevated level of operating expense is permanent, or merely temporary related to some kind of one-off exercise, in which case the situation will normalise in due course.

I strongly suspect it being a case of the latter, but it is something which warrants some scrutiny, and monitoring, in subsequent periods.

It is on my list of things to raise when I chat to the CFO, which I will do in coming days.  Will revert with the response I receive.

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