Bluescope Steel Ltd (BLSFF) Q4 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning and welcome to the Bluescope FY24 financial results presentation. I'm Mark Vassella and I'm joined this morning by David Fallew, our Chief Financial Officer. Together, David and I will take you through the results materials, after which we'll have time for Q&A. We're joining you today from Bluescope's head office in Melbourne, part of the Eastern Kulin Nation. and I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land, the Wiradjuri peoples. We pay our respects to Elders, past, present and emerging, and to all First Nations people joining us today. Despite the volatile macro conditions in FY24, Bluescope delivered a resilient performance. Underlying EBIT of $1.34 billion and a return on invested capital of 11.9%. as strong contributions from Northstar and the downstream and value-add components of the business offset the impact of soft spreads in Asia on our steelmaking operations, particularly in the second half, as regional spreads dropped below the long-term bottom of the cycle level. Thanks to that resilience, we've delivered just under $550 million in shareholder returns in FY24 and finished the year with a $364 million net cash balance sheet. And today the board has approved a 30 cents per share dividend and an extension of the tenor of the existing buyback program to allow the remaining $270 million to be purchased over the next 12 months. This comes following the dividend review flagged in February, which I'll go into in a little more detail in a few moments. FY24 saw the ongoing execution of key projects across the footprint under our strategy of transform, grow and deliver that secure long-term sustainable earnings and growth. These include the approval and commencement of the North Star de-bottlenecking project, which will increase th...