Ann: Half Year Results Presentation, page-36

Neo - my take on the reduced Net Profit After Tax revolves around the refinancing of their borrowings in November 2020. They had around $800m in borrowings (Notes iii, Notes iv and Notes 1v - 2) on an average interest rate of 5.6% that still had 1.6 years to run (data from 2019-20 Ann Rpt). There must have been a clause in the loan agreement that allowed these to be terminated early, but subject to some sort of penalty, which is only fair as the lenders were giving up a loan @ 5.6% and could not replace it with a similar loan anywhere near this rate. It looks like that penalty was around $14.2m. This amount has been taken to the bottom line (NPAT) in this half yearly result and so blew out the NPAT to a loss of $17.5m, as compared to loss of $4.9m in the previous Hf Yrly result.

The trade off is that the $800m was refinanced from the new borrowings at 3.2%, so the benefit to NXT will be reduced interest in the future on the $800m of 2.4% for 1.6 years. According to my calculations, that works out at $30.7m

So for a cost of $14.2m we have saved $30.7m, a net benefit of $16.2m - a result I think all shareholders will be grateful for. I thus don't think we should lose any sleep over the increase in Net Loss After Tax for this half year.