Qube profit falls 77%, announces chair transition
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The news: Logistics business Qube has reported full-year net profit after tax of $51 million, a 77% decrease on the preceding year’s $221.9 million, after an impairment to its interest in the Moorbank Interstate Terminals joint venture (MITCo).
The numbers: EBITDA for FY25 came in at $586.5 million, which is 8.1% lower than the $606.9 million reported in the previous year and behind the consensus estimate of $592.5 million, according to Visible Alpha.
Underlying EBITDA however came in at a record high, up 15.4% year on year to $616.2 million. This was driven by a 27.3% increase in revenue to $4.46 billion.
Full-year distributions per share came in at 9.8 cents per share, a 7.1% increase on the previous year and ahead of the expected 9.11 cents.
Qube is expecting to deliver growth in underlying NPATA as well as in EBITA for the operating division, with the logistics and infrastructure business and the ports and bulks business contributing.
The context: Qube also announced that its chair Allan Davies would retire from the board at the end of 20 November, with John Bevan set to replace him. Bevan is currently a director of Alcoa and Balmoral Iron, having previously served as chair of BlueScope Steel and Ansell.
Last week, Qube flagged a $127.6 million impairment on its joint venture interest in (MITCo), reducing its carrying value to nil, alongside other material adjustments relating to the project.
Qube managing director Paul Digney said the strong underlying result was driven by "generally favourable" activity levels across Qube's core markets.
He also flagged improvements in margin and return on average capital employed, particularly across "energy, agri and rail activities (the latter of which benefited significantly from our grain trading strategy)".
