Z Energy, whose shares jumped to a record last week when it got approval to buy Chevron's Caltex and Challenge! petrol station chains, said full-year earnings fell 1 per cent.
The company's preferred earnings measure is replacement cost operating earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation and fair value adjustments, which was $238 million in the 12 months ended March 31, down from $241 million a year earlier. It gave a second adjusted measure to exclude $25 million of costs associated with the Chevron purchase, which was $263 million. Sales fell to $2.5 billion from $3.06 billion.
The Wellington-based company said the year could be summarised as "a strong operational performance across both marketing and refining activities, impacted by one-off expenditure relating to the acquisition and transition of CNZ in which Z has incurred expenses of $25 million relating to preparing for cutover." It said earnings had been further impacted by the settlement of its dispute with Customs of $13 million, including $1 million in penalties that had been expensed and $12 million recognised in its fuels margin.
Chief executive Mike Bennetts said the outlook for the Z business for 2017 was an RC operating ebitdaf of $260 million to $290 million and capital expenditure of $60 million. The company would update its guidance once the Chevron assets had been brought into the Z operations in June and modelling of its plans and performance assumptions has been completed.
"We remain committed to delivering the synergies of $25-$30 million, to preserving dual brands and to building a well-considered strategy to drive value from the combined operation," Bennetts said in a statement.
