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Aurizon boosts profit, announces $300m share buyback

Freight and logistics company Aurizon has reported an underlying profit before tax of $909 million, a 10 per cent increase on last year but added a note of caution for the year ahead.

Aug 10, 2020, updated Aug 10, 2020
Aurizon has found a buyer for the east coast rail business

Aurizon has found a buyer for the east coast rail business

While there was no impact on its coal haulage volumes in 2020, Aurizon said the current year result to be in the range of $830 million to $880 million, well down on last year’s result because of “recessionary impacts”.

Managing director Andrew Harding said the company expected a softer first half on the back of lower demand in while there was likely to be a pick up in the second half.

He said India’s steel sector was already showing signs of recovery.

The Brisbane based company also announced a $300 million buyback after completing a $400 million buyback last financial year.

Aurizon said the higher earnings before interest and tax resulted from an increase in revenue because of the UT5 rail access undertaking and a strong performance from its bulk goods business.

Aurizon will pay out a dividend of 13.7 cents a share, 70 per cent franked. This gave shareholders a full year dividend of 27.4 cents.

Harding said despite the emergence of COVID-19 in the second half of FY2020, Aurizon delivered a solid operational
and financial performance with no material impact as a result of the pandemic.

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He said the company had made strong progress its priority areas of the access undertaking which sets parameters on how much it can earn as a monopoly provider of its rail services.

Harding said it had substantially de-risked the rail haulage contract book by winning new contracts and extending the length of
a number of existing contracts in the coal and bulk businesses.

The bulk business had also shown a turnaround of the operational and financial performance.

Aurizon had also refinanced its debt and now has more than $1.1 billion of available liquidity.

The coal business delivered 214 million tonnes of coal for customers during 2020, which is broadly in line with 2019. It achieved EBIT of $411 million, a decrease of 1 per cent against 2019.

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