Jason Boyes, Infratil CEO, joins us from their $500M upgrade site at Wellington Airport—where the infrastructure investor holds a 66% stake. After reporting mixed results for the last financial year, Jason charts the course of Infratil’s future.
What’s driven the company’s net loss for FY2024, even while underlying earnings showed growth? How does the management team plan to rein in their cash flow imbalance? Jason reaffirms Infratil’s commitment to dividends and explains a new focus on larger, scalable assets—divesting almost a billion dollars to reinvest in major projects. Find out why Jason is so confident that Infratil is positioned to benefit from US energy shortages and growing demand for data centres to support AI expansion.
Plus, hear about Infratil rising star Gurin Energy, supplying solar power to the Singaporean government.
For more or to watch on YouTube—check out http://linktr.ee/sharedlunch
Shared Lunch is brought to you by Sharesies Australia Limited (ABN 94 648 811 830; AFSL 529893) in Australia and Sharesies Limited (NZ) in New Zealand. It is not financial advice. Information provided is general only and current at the time it’s provided, and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation and needs. We do not provide recommendations and you should always read the disclosure documents available from the product issuer before making a financial decision. Our disclosure documents and terms and conditions—including a Target Market Determination and IDPS Guide for Sharesies Australian customers—can be found on our relevant Australian or NZ website.
Jodder and welcome to Shared Lunch, brought to you by Chasea's. I'm Helen Madison and today we're at Wellington Airport, which is one of the oldest assets for infrastructure investment company infratil now Vertill is super popular on Cheza's And in a moment I'll be speak with Jason Boys, the CEO, about the full year results, the challenges and the outlook. Well also look at what's happening to Wellington Airport now the eagles have gone.
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Hi Jason, thank you for having us here at Wellington.
Thanks you for coming Now.
Wellington Airport is an iconic infrastructure piece for Wellington. That said, poor old Wellington hasn't had the easiest time public service cuts and the like, and yeah, it's been an adulgen So what hecet does Wellington Airport play in that recovery?
Yeah, yeah, I agree with both. Live in Wellington, we we feel how the city has changed over the last year or so. From our perspective in Wellington Airports, this is the front door to the city and we take that really seriously. And even though we've got a lot of construction going on, which we'll go and have a look at in a second, you know, we do stuff like this to make it feel like, you know, this is you've arrived in Wellington. I think we're going to keep investing though. One thing that has been quite good. I know domestic has been tough with what's been going on with the government, but actually international has been an incredible success story over the last years. So the team's done incredibly well and there's more good stuff there to come, and so we're continuing to invest to give us the best of options for international growth, which we can talk about in a minute and sort of get ready for when domestic returns.
So quantus they decided they will increase their three you're like thirty one percent for summer.
Yeah, so that will be quite a boon for the airport.
Pretty exciting. So at the moment, if you want to fly to Sydney from here, right, everybody's got up at three thirty in the morning and slipped their way down here and all that sort of stuff. But now they are talking about putting on or they are going to put on one that I think they live around nine or something in the morning, like much more civilized and civilized times. And you can fly back in the afternoon from Sydney as well. I think you leave at one and you'll get back at.
Six or something like that, not the midnight.
Not even the midnight one if you don't want to so or you know, come back on the morning flight. But your whole day's gone, yes as well. So that's pretty exciting I think for the city.
In terms of Lloyd Morrison's vision that he was the founder of Infantil and way back thirty plus years ago he always liked the es sat but although it was always not the Crown and the Jewel, but it was kind of nostalgic. It was one that he couldn't see selling. Things have changed though, the world is different. Where does in patrol position Wellington Airport longer term?
So airports are a great asset to own and it's in the stable cashlow generating part of our portfolio that we talk about and does a great job. So if we could have more airports and good value. You know, I think there would be a great place to be putting all our money frankly. But also we talked to the full year results a couple of weeks ago about the fact that as the portfolio grows, the cash flow generating parts of the portfolio need to grow with it. So that would need to happen in around the airport and we have a few ideas about how that can happen. But eventually you can sort of outgrow some of the assets over time. It's not the case for Wellington Airport today, but it could be in the future. Agree.
One thing a lot of people want to know though, is that Eagles are gone, small is still here?
Is there anything else coming?
There is and it's pretty exciting actually, but Macluk CEO has swam media secrecy, so can't tell you just now.
So, Jason, the airport has a five hundred million dollar five year infrastructure project that's underway. Can you tell us a bit about what that means, particularly for the runway that was always a bit of bone of contention because it wasn't long enough and it did prevent some overseas carriers coming.
It was pretty exciting actually of that five hundred, the team has already invested over one hundred of that in just the last year. The big bulk of the capital program is kind of getting Wellington Airport set for that future international growth that you mentioned. So the first stuff that's happened a little bit boring is the car parks been moved across the back, which then creates room for the taxiway where the planes are to move wider, and that means we can move more domestic round that way and international in the future. And then there's a big baggage facility investment that needs to happen in our baggage belt sometimes break down sadly, so finally having the opportunity to get that in the plan and replaced with our airline partners who ultimately end up paying for all of this, which is what we've agreed is a fantastic I think development for the city. And then the last pieces you mentioned is the runway length and that was a big project and what the team are installing is what is called EMASS, which is a way of slowing down planes if they need to be slowed down in the runoff areas of the runway, and that means you actually get more operating link out of the runway than we currently have, but also that you effectively get more operating length for these long range aircraft. So I think when it's done, we'll be able to take aircraft, some of the new aircraft that can fly from Asia or even from the States and land and depart fully loaded from here, which will be finally kind of the vision for the airport really with a lot less investment and a lot less intrusive on the bay of.
Listening in terms of the actual land around the airport that's also in development. I know that the city council have sold you for properties on the Lyle Bay Parade if you like, near the surf beach.
And there's all sorts of things.
I think it's a surfing hub, other recreational aspects, hospitality, you name it.
How does that work in with what fatils vision. It's for the airport.
So within the airport, and this goes back to Lloyd, our founder and his philosophy around the airport's. His idea really was that as the airport owner, we're the best developer of the land around it. And that is both in terms of things that serve the airport, but also building in flexibility so if the airport needs to expand like we're doing now, you can have that land bag later on. So that's not unusue for us to invest in the land around the airport, be the developer, but do it in a way that we know is not going to affect the airport's operations, but enables us that flexibility later on.
That's a nice sad way into thinking about the full year results which came out, you know.
A few days ago.
From one I could see it was quite a challenging time optically and particularly for the understanding of retail investors, which is our audience, and that you know, there was a net loss, there was a big management fee, there was a concern about cash flow, a number of things which even though underlying earnings you know, were quite a robust, that's quite a hard story to tell. So what was your sort of strategy with that.
We always look at it in two ways. One is the underlying operating performance of the businesses, which always needs to be strong, and then there's this strategic kind of initiatives around the portfolio, how it's made up and what you're doing with the bits and pieces. So always on the first part, you're looking to see that underlying earnings grow on the basis that we calculated, on the basis that people use it to value those businesses. And actually over the period, as you say, the performance was pretty good across the business. I think pretty much everyone got on guide and succept Manawa, who was tied up in a transaction. So I think I think most people that I've talked to anyway since then thought that actually, when you look around the economy, a lot of double digit growth in the portfolio on an underlying earning spasis was a pretty good outcome. So that was the first part. Then a lot of strategic indisties that we talked about which was showing good progress in the portfolio.
If we look at the loss, though, that's an accounting loss, so how does that But I mean, are we going to see more of those or is it just one of those things with business.
For us all the way down to the bottom the net profit or loss that's often influenced now by whether or not you're selling something in a given year, and that is what was the case, I think two or three years in a row beforehand, there really wasn't something turning up there. I think as we get the operating cash flow back end balance, which is what we've talked about, you should see that more naturally even out I think over time, and that sort of goes to that strategic initiatives I mentioned just on.
That cash flow, because that has been a concern that has been talked about. At the moment, you're unable to maybe fulfill the dividend promise and other things too, and cash flow is pretty important. Yeah, So it's out of kilter at the moment. You're not being able to live within your means if you like, how long before you can get it back in balance.
So we've said a ticket for that of the next two or three years in a medium term, we have pretty strong set of plans in order to get that in place. Actually, we could have done that in multiple times in my time here. Anyway. I don't think the operating cash flow has covered the dividend. Certainly wasn't covering it when I became the CEOs. Really, since we invested in one end Z, I think that we've been finding our way back to that position. Really, we've kind of drawn a lot in the sand this year saying actually are going to do this. What you effectively do is you trade off reinvesting that cash for future growth versus something like making sure you're covering your dividend on an annual basis out of your operating earning. So we've been able to do it a number of ways over my time, and we've just sort of drawn along the sound saying let's do that. We will forego a little bit of future earnings. But I don't think future growth is really our problem where the portfolio is configured. I think it's more making it more sustainable and more kind of this long term growth engine, which is where we've made our kind of best returns over time.
So what is the longer term or the dividend approach then for we used to come is it? Will we have a difference next year? I mean, how we'll retail investors sort of be guided in that.
Yeah, I think they should take a lot of comfort from the fact that we're openly saying now that we believe the dividend is important for the business going into the future. We think we tell shareholders for whom that is most valuable, are an important mix in our shareholder base as we continue to grow. So reaffirming that commitment to the dividend. You should see it continue to at least cover inflation, I would say, in terms of its growth in the years ahead, and then we'll get it back in balance and we can kind of give some more messages from there.
I think so this year we had I think you announced fifteen point five cents was the interim, and then the full year's twenty five plus.
Is that mar right?
So it's slightly up, yeah, exactly.
I think it's about two percent. I think it's sort of what we're trying to aim for to at least give an inflation coverage, which investing in infrastructure asset should give you. Yes, but we're not trying to get the percentage yield on the share price, for example, back into a range. That's not something we were aiming to do.
The good old share price every CEOs read when somebody asks them. It's fair to say that it had a bit of a beating when you did release your consolidated earnings. I think it was down nearly six percent on the day. I think it's recovered somewhat since. If we do look at that, though, the shareholder return is minus two point six percent.
I think is what I saw. I think it was in the annual report.
I think was the twelve months to thirty or March.
Yeah, Now that does seem to be a discount, and you do talk about this in the annual report, between the share price and the assets values. What can be done about that.
Discount? And there is an interesting topic I'd talk to at least a third of people I'd talk to. So there's no discount because the market's always rome, which there's some truth to that rome. And there's definitely a difference between the value for one share today versus a majority or the whole business in five years time. Really the listed price is the price today for any given volume of shares, right, So it's not really the long term value of the assets, and it's the different between that long term value and the current value that people talk about the discount. For us, it's really a signal for us to think about, is there something about our business that's not understood well and should we therefore be issuing some communications or bringing people into c our assets so that we can take that stuff off the table and over. I think the start of this year there was a lot of worries about AI and deep seek and the implications for CDC, which we thought was what was going on with a number of share prices in our sector at the time, and so through April we had a number of we had to site visit to our big development in Melbourne for CDC and a few other communications with the team to try and make sure people understood how CDC was placed and actually you saw actually I think the market react quite nicely to that and the share pers kind of move up. So really it is for us it's where we should focus our communications and tensions where we first go to. Obviously, every day, like any normal human, you re examine every decision you made the day before, so you do a bit of that as well, but mostly it's for communications.
Thinking of a CDC, though I did think endless this time with the release of the four year results, we're a little bit worried about the RePhase praising of the contracts and the revenue coming in it not being linear, I think is what some of them had expected, and there was a bit of disappointment there.
What do you say to that.
I think we've been pretty clear even actually since the half year last year so November that customer demand for these particularly AI related workloads was changing very quickly day to day, month to month, and a lot of it was to do with how the customers were kind of equipping themselves and growing to understand the new technology and how the infrastructure needed to be built around it. And so the result that we we released last week really just was a continuation of the same message from November. And I can understand it. As an investor, You'd hope that had changed in the meantime, but I'm here telling everybody now, no, it hasn't changed. We've made some really good progress. We signed like a ton of contracts in January, which no one else in the market has sign on one hundred megawats of contracts in January like we have, and all the messages that we were trying to get out earlier this year and in the last week around CDC's point of difference, it's very strong position in the Australian market and being really well placed to when I would say more than it's fair share of contracts when our customers decide they need them, is actually still very strong. So everybody wants their Christmas presents opened earlier, don't they, But it's always better if you wait a bit, I think. So we're in that mode at the moment.
Right and see kind of thing day Well, CDC is now forty percent of the portfolio.
Is a concentration risk.
It is a big part of the portfolio. We've had assets that have been a bigger proportion in the past. So TrustPower is over fifty percent for a lot of the early history of fort till I would say it's about as big as you'd want it to be. If you stood back over a long term period of time we talked about the results. We try and manage the stuff over you know, the medium term, rather than really reacting really quickly to these things. And what we do see is other opportunities within the business growing, having the potential to grow quite quickly I think over the next two or three years, which should balance CDC's weight in the portfolio, if you like. But if I stand back, you know, having a big proportion of your portfolio and literally the most exciting investment sector in the world at the moment is actually a pretty good place to be. And you know, you just have to ask yourself, is there going to be more or less AI tomorrow? And you kind of know the answer right, And so I think being right there in a business which, as I said before, is incredibly well placed to just pick up these contracts as and when they come, I'd still do it every day of the week.
But I is volatile and risky and rapidly changing, as you know, So there are surely there are risks there, but it's what you're prepared to trade off.
Yeah, I think the risk is more timing, and even then the risk is not very high, and that we know where capacity is at with our clients. We know that demand is growing incredibly strongly. Therefore there will be contracts, and so really the question for us is we're doing my weather contracts today, end of the year, early next year. No, if you put that in a thirty year valuation model, that it moves the valuation literally not at all. So as long as you fundamentally believe AI is going to be a thing and that CDC will pick up more thanutes for his share, we're in an incredibly great spot. You know, I would be patient personally.
That brings me to the Morrison fee, which did create a little bit of a flutter four hundred and fifty six million, which actually is larger than the net loss. It seems a little bit unfortunate that it came out when it did, but it is what it is, and it was due to CDC having a greater valuation. What do you say to retail investors trying to get their head around that?
Yeah, so your four hundred and fifty six million, I think is the three hundred and fifty million that was accrued in performance fees, which is paid over three years, and the one hundred of base fees, I'm guessing is how you get that? MAT's. Yeah, So the base fees are payable every quarter and that's for running the show. The performance fees is really only due to good performance, so we have to beat twelve percent returns in order to get paid any incentive fee, and it's paid in three installments, so that you can't earn fees for a blip because if the valuation went up one year and you got paid a fee a third of the fee, it's very unlikely to stay there for three years, And assuming it then came off the year after or the year after that, the second two charges would never become payable effectively. So the mechanism has a bunch of different safeguards. And to make sure that for shareholders that Morrison's only getting paid for performance that actually sticks around and turns up in the portfolio. So we're only getting paid for performance. And there are a number of structural elements to the way the fee is paid to ensure it's only paid for enduring value.
If you like, let's look at future growth beyond the current portfolio, if you like all the exciting stuff. Your guidance was just over a billion, I think, and a little bit more. Yeah, I know, exciting. What are we looking at in terms of potential and what jurisdictions.
So the one we're most excited about in the near term is a business called guron Energy, which we established in Southeast Asia. Singapore is the head office two or three years ago. They have this huge project that they're working on to export solar power effectively from Indonesia and imported to Singapore. And what the Singapore government has done is they've looked at their power system, which is all based on gas that they import and burn, and they're trying to support ways for more renewable power to get into Singapore. They're incredibly land constrained, so they've asked for people to effectively pitch these projects from Indonesia and other countries to input power into Singapore. And we are one of nine projects that were conditionally awarded, and since we were awarded that kind of nod from the Singapore government, where then one of only two projects that have advanced the next stage of the Singapore project. So it's a it's a proper thing. We've got seventy percent of the land now under control in Indonesia where we're going to build this thing, and that's partly why we've been progressed through with this one other project. It's going to take three years to build. We'll reach a final investment decision on that on that in the next twelve months. But because it's such a significant project, you're talking about a three billion dollar US total capital cost and makes our five hundred million New Zealand here look pretty reasonable, right, And for that amount of capital we would expect to be creating, you know, five hundred million dollars plus that's US dollar terms of present value for the capital that we put to work in that. So you know, it's a dollar a share on a good day for us, and significant. It's exciting.
Does that mean there's going to be putting your hand out for more funder and I assume more institutional shareholders from overseas.
Yeah, not for that project in particular, I don't think so. One thing we talked about at the result is selling more of our businesses that aren't able to scale in our portfolio. And you know, there are a number of ones that have been in the portfolio for a long time that we could talk about that are kind of obvious ones to go on that list. We would expect to be reinvesting that money in a project like growing rather than needing to do another equity raise anytime soon.
So those that's a billion dollar question there and those those business exactly, So.
It's a billion dollars of essence. You said you will divest over a period of three years. Yeah, so what are we talking?
So what we're the lens we were running over the portfolio was really what can scale our own and our ownership to be meaningful at a sort of ten billion dollar market cap, things need to be quite big in order to move the dark and the more small things you have, the more complexity it makes for new investors who are trying to figure out what's going on in in for tool. Yeah, so you can sort of run down the portfolio pretty easily and say, well, okay, that's clear. That's been in the portfolio for a while, you've not been allocating capital to it. That's probably something in a cycle. We didn't actually name exactly which ones, because obviously there are teams in those businesses. They have customers and things like that, and all that needs to be work through in a normal professional way like we do. But you could probably figure out where we're thinking just by running that lens over it.
One thing I wanted to ask you about is healthcare. We've talked a lot about energy. We've talked a lot about data centers and the like, and some of the old resets like Wellington you put here. We are the imaging businesses both here and in Australia. Where do you see the potential there?
It's pretty high asually, I think those are a couple of businesses that perform really well from an operating perspective. As I said before, so you have fourteen percent growth out of q scan and Australia. I've done forty or fifty meetings since the result, and half of them would have said that is an incredible outcome. How did you do that because the other listed comps have not been able to perform as well in that market. So it's getting a lot of attension, which is really good. And in New Zealand they went that far behind and then nearly did ten percent and that was in a year as we know living in New Zealand where Health and Z was going through a lot of change. So it's a very interesting part of the portfolio, and that it's not correlated with anything else you're talking about concentration before. It's actually quite provides quite a nice balance in the portfolio. But how can it scale, as I said before, is a bit of a question. One of our little plays is this tally radiology idea, which is really where the scan is read remotely from where it's taken. And that's really good. If you go to a hospital at two in the morning, you need a scan that will likely be read off site. So it's things like that, and because we have a big footprint, we have radiologists in the UK for example, can read that stuff during their day and they can do the reverse here. So and that segment of radiology is growing really really fast. I suspect to you get it really discover you're probably going to have to merge it with something else and create a bit of a more diversified healthcare portfolio. And we've got a few ideas there as well. So yeah, I think there is a few parts there that could make it even more interesting and create a kind of nice non digital, non power leg to the portfolio.
Any airports that you could buy into around the world, Yeah, there.
Are, actually, yeah, there are, and there's been quite a few trading at the moment, So we have a few airport investment ideas.
So this may not be one of the ones on the block, who.
Knows, but the instruction and the direction should be clear. Things need to scale, So our teams that are on those assets, the teams that work here, it's clear what the job is in order to continue to grow with Infertile and that was really are objective on the day. Lots of people listening on the for those things, those messages.
Yeah, on Outlier, does seem to be retire Australia, I mean it is.
You looked at selling it a while back. We've talked about that.
It seems to be doing okay, but yeah, it does seem a bit of an outline.
I agree, and we did announce a strategic review on that a couple of years ago and the timing didn't work out very well. So I think that would be in my it's pretty clear that area is that we don't see ourselves in long term. That would definitely still be one of the mere But the performance is good. They provide a great service to their customers their residents, So yeah, there's this is never or hardly ever about bad performance in the businesses. It's really fit in the portfolio and best long term owner.
Yeah.
Right, let's talk about shareholders. This year in Frattilla's now included in the Global standard and x c I and also in Australia the AX three hundred, so that gives a broader scope or reach. If you're like four shareholders, what are you hoping to have in terms of the mix with retail and institutional.
Yeah, we've spent a lot of time working on this because we are an investment company. Actually the capital market side of the business gets a lot of focus. Yeah. So, as I said before, having done all of that work with a lot of advisors, we still see retail as being a really big part of the shareholder base. For the foreseeable future. So I think I'm not sure of the exact numbers now, but we would never see them really getting below twenty percent, and more realistically, somewhere between twenty and thirty is always really going to be in New Zealand retail, So that you know, recommitting to the dividend and finding a way to sustain it is all comes out of that work. In fact, at the moment half my team is in farm array at the Retail Investor Show show YEP, and they'll be flying down to christ Church for Wednesday and we're here in Wellington on Thursday night. So a big part of the business right is still making sure we're understandable to a retail investor base. Having said that, we do know as the business grows and if we just continue our historic performance, I think our five year performance is over twenty percent per anum. You just continue even fifteen percent, our target return for five years will be a twenty billion dollar business and in order to support that scale of register we will need more international investors. So these in the ex editions are really important for us and for retail shareholders so that there is a buyer for their shares. Whenever they choose to move in and out of them, right, So we actively work on that. These index editions are meaningful. And I said, I've had fifty meetings since the result. Over half of them would have been in Australia. Now talk to Australian investors and we'll be on the road internationally later on in the year in Asia and the UK and the US, just to build up that base. But still we'll have a massive waiting here to New Zealand forever.
I think one thing we haven't talked about, Jason is challenges and obviously the US and the sort of changes there with the political situation and geopolitics around the world as well, because you're in Europe as well as the US. You know, you're many many jurisdictions. Yeah, what do you see there? I mean, Long Road Energy seems to have got it south together in terms of avoiding some of the fallout from I don't know, it's a big beautiful bill. It's now called instead of the Inflation Reduction Act. Yeah, can you tell us what you're seeing there in terms of the headwinds.
Phenomenal volatility all year right for all investors. And that was just the latest one four days before our result, I think, to be honest, the share price reaction on the day that came out surprised me. It barely barely moved the dill at all. I think it caught up after the result, to be honest, I think it was people waiting for the result to move the shap to where. To be honest, I thought it would be on the Friday, not for any valuation reason, but I think it just deserves it. Right, There's clearly a lot of volatility and uncertainty. We're a long way away from there. How would you know, as an investor sitting here in New Zealand what's really going to happen. Of course, I'm there all the time, and so I should know, and I do have a really good, strong feel for it. The technical stuff we talked about on the day is kind of getting done in the weeds. But I think, really from my perspective for shareholders, the most important thing to understand is that the US is short of energy. When we took, for example, in data centers, all the data center investments, so much of it in fact is happening in the US now, a lot of chips being absorbed there that all requires power and it cannot be fulfilled with gas. All that work has been done, everyone knows is not enough gas and it can't be got to enough. Places in California won't take another electron generator from gas. In normal Arizona. There are plenty of states that absolutely want renewable energy power and solar, which is mostly what we do, is the cheapest and fastest. So we are well set through this to be an incredibly good position to meet that demand. And so you know, you've just got to get through this. As we said our and your report, the theme this year is navigating beyond the noise, and this is a really prime example of an area where we're very high convictions the states will need the power and that businesses like these will be more valuable through this vit polatility than less. Be careful on the way through. We've got a great team. A lot of our money is protected through the safe harboring and things like that that we've talked about. So again, it's another area where I think we just need to be patient and open our Christmas presents.
Later on on that note, then, Jason, what excites you about the year ahead?
Not a late Christmas?
Well, yeah, it comes when it comes, and there's only so much you can control on a given day. I do think that how AI rolls out is still incredibly fascinating to me. Where it's going to go next. The geopolitical angles now I feel a lot like energy always used to feel. Energy has always been political and geopolitical, and now it's now it's in chips as well, so it doesn't feel unfamiliar. But I think that's really fascinating. I do believe the trend is only one way, though, and the genius out of the bottle. Countries have to have this, Companies have to have it, and I do believe that being in the infrastructure that delivers it is one of the most attractive areas to be in. Doesn't matter who's serving it, who's got the customer, they will all have to have the type of infrastructure that we build, and it's not easy to build it. So I still think that is super fascinating. And then actually some of the stuff that we talked about at the half year around kind of getting our house in order, if you like, or it's some tidy out of the portfolio. Actually that's really exciting to finally have a clear plan We've done a lot of thinking about that scale that we're at now, what is the most meaningful next step from here? Where is retail holds in our future? Right? And all that work's been done now, so I think we've got a clear set of principles. So getting through some of that is actually quite exciting because when we get going on some of that portfolio stuff, we're really good at it and we tend to create a lot of value.
Just one last question I've got for you, and we talked about data centers. A lot of yours are in Australia that there is movement in Auckland. Do you see more data centers being built here?
Yeah, we're building a very big one at the moment. Actually, one of the biggest infrastructure projects in New Zealand is being built by CDC. And actually, you know, the demand outlook for in New Zealand in particular has been one of the more stable areas of demand from our customers over this whole since the half of you when I started talking about this volatility, So that feels quite good actually for the country. It's a really important issue. You've seen over the last week or so big announcements out of the Middle East UAE, and then there's an the one coming. We understand big sovereign AI centers. You know, billions of dollars of investment, and there are only so many chips available in the world, and they're going to go to countries that do make those investments thoughtfully and get into the supply chain. So I think we're lucky in New Zealand so far, but we should never take any of that for granted, right, I think as a country. So the more we can do to attract this really important technology here and have it on our shore, on our terms, rather than relying on somewhere else, I would definitely encourage. In Australia, I think we'll be having the same kind of discussions. I've seen stuff in the Afar. I'm around this already. Yeah, it's really important.
Well we should leave it there, Jason. We could talk forever. In a way, I need to let you get your flight so that you're not late.
Thank you.
That's so thanks for joining us today.
Thanks so much for having it here as well at wellty to.
Newport and thanks everyone for joining in. You can watch Shared Lunch on YouTube or listen to us on your favorite podcast app. Leave us a rating and tell us what you'd like to hear next. Until next time, Marto wa