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Speaker 1: Now as investors, we're expecting Spark has had a tough

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Speaker 1: year when you were just for one offs. Net profit

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Speaker 1: for the most recent financial year was down more than

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Speaker 1: thirty three percent to two hundred and twenty seven million dollars.

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Speaker 1: The companies also cut about thirteen hundred full time employees. Now,

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Speaker 1: Jolie Hodson is Spark CEO. Hey, Jolie, Hi Heather, So

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Speaker 1: what happened? So we've been facing into a tough economic environment.

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Speaker 1: Like many companies, some of the markets that we have

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Speaker 1: Biggish market sharing have been really impacted both by reductions

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Speaker 1: had seen in their own businesses. Lower spending has ever

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Speaker 1: adapted to the economic environment, and so we needed to

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Speaker 1: adjust and change and that's really been a focus for

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Speaker 1: us over the last six months in terms of the

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Speaker 1: program we put in place. Yeah, so lots of corporates

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Speaker 1: cutting their expenses. And if you think about wheenor and

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Speaker 1: we work in both it as well as telecommunications, so

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Speaker 1: you think about tech product projects happening and being deferred

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Speaker 1: over time. So we had a big impact in relation

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Speaker 1: to that, particular in our enterprise and government business. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: is government has government hit you particularly? We have a

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Speaker 1: strong customer base and government, and so we have seen

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Speaker 1: some of that spend reduction that's happened in the last

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Speaker 1: two years, and that's really has been a big impact

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Speaker 1: for us. Have you had a look at another thing,

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Speaker 1: because in the past you've been criticized for the dividend spend?

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Speaker 1: Have you had another think about that? Where reset a

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Speaker 1: capital management policy? With these results? So really, in a nutshell,

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Speaker 1: there's a few things that we've changed there. So our

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Speaker 1: dividend's now based on the free cash flow of the business,

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Speaker 1: so pretty much it'll be a range of seventy to

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Speaker 1: one hundred percent. So that's to some extent, living within

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Speaker 1: your means within that dividend. And today we announced a

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Speaker 1: dividend of one hundred percent payout of the free cash

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Speaker 1: flow range. How do you feel? I mean, one of

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Speaker 1: the bigger things that have happened to you guys in

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Speaker 1: the last financial year is falling out of the Morgan

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Speaker 1: Stanley Index. How do you feel about that? Look, I

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Speaker 1: can't look back to what's happened. All I can focus

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Speaker 1: is on what we need to do ahead, and that's

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Speaker 1: why the Transformation program has been a big part of

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Speaker 1: making sure that we get our operating business in all,

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Speaker 1: so that did lead to some changes. It's not a

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Speaker 1: decision to overtake lightly, but ultimately we have to adapt

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Speaker 1: and then some shifts around the non core parts of

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Speaker 1: our business, so we've divested elements. The real important part

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Speaker 1: about that is the ability to recycle that cash back

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Speaker 1: into the things that we do to our core connectivity,

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Speaker 1: so mobile and making sure that we're growing that. So

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Speaker 1: that's been the focus for us. Do you reckon you'd

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Speaker 1: ever get to get back into it? Like it is

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Speaker 1: that something the business can realistically achieve. I think from

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Speaker 1: our perspective, we've got an ambition of growing both our

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Speaker 1: earnings and our free cash flow, and with that comes

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Speaker 1: dividend and therefore return for shareholders. So for me, that's

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Speaker 1: very much the focus of the next Fara. I was

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Speaker 1: talking to Andrew reading of Fletcher before and he said

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Speaker 1: that this is the worst economic environment that he can recall.

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Speaker 1: Like I mean, bearing in mind he works in construction

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Speaker 1: and they really had it very hard, but it's the

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Speaker 1: worst that he can recall since probably the late eighties.

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Speaker 1: What about you, Yeah, I'd say it's the worst. I've

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Speaker 1: worked on both in Australia and New Zealand. In the

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Speaker 1: last decade plus that I've been back here, I don't

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Speaker 1: remember a tougher time. Yeah, which is to say that

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Speaker 1: it can only get better, can't it. Yeah, Like, if

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Speaker 1: we look ahead, that would be what we're working on.

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Speaker 1: But the reality is we've had quite a few ocer cuts.

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Speaker 1: We've got to see that flow back in confidence, I

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Speaker 1: think in terms of both to consumers but also businesses

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Speaker 1: to ensure that they're investing, because the only way we

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Speaker 1: will come out of this is buy investing for productivity,

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Speaker 1: making sure we are using new technologies, we are thinking

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Speaker 1: about different ways of doing it, otherwise becomes a really

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Speaker 1: challenging Yeah. Yeah, I mean what he said though, and

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Speaker 1: this I think is kind of confronting. This is Andrew.

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Speaker 1: What Andrew said is it doesn't get better really until

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Speaker 1: late twenty six, maybe early twenty seven. What do you think? Look,

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Speaker 1: I think we were all around when we heard the

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Speaker 1: what was it survived twenty twenty five, So I think

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Speaker 1: it's right to be cautious around what happens. And I

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Speaker 1: think most of us have been adapting our businesses to

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Speaker 1: make sure that we're set up for whatever comes next

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Speaker 1: and not overly optimistic around when they made around the corner.

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Speaker 1: I'm excited about AIAU. Yeah, look, I am. We've been

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Speaker 1: using in our business for a period of time. I

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Speaker 1: mean you can all see there's lots of funny ways

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Speaker 1: in which it can be used. In some ways that

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Speaker 1: are not great for it to be used, but it

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Speaker 1: does help enable Yeah, I mean we are we over

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Speaker 1: hyping it though, I mean there is a huge amount

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Speaker 1: of buzz about it. Is it too much? Now? Look,

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Speaker 1: I think about in certain parts of our business, so

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Speaker 1: helping our teams, for example, our customer service teams, So

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Speaker 1: it is answering twenty thousand queries to our team members

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Speaker 1: a month right now. So that is a huge amount

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Speaker 1: of time that's taken off them of doing things potentially

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Speaker 1: that is not as exciting for them to be doing.

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Speaker 1: Or So I think there are ways in which definitely

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Speaker 1: ways in which you use it. Yes, I do use

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Speaker 1: to use it for partly in terms of when you're

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Speaker 1: summarizing things, getting you know, like Google used to be

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Speaker 1: in the past. Yeah, a lot of ways of bringing

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Speaker 1: different information together sometimes travel, getting recommendations within that yeah. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And so one of the things as a business that

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Speaker 1: we're trying to do is really stand back and make

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Speaker 1: sure that you're using it on an in tien process.

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Speaker 1: If we are going to use it, because you can

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Speaker 1: get thousands of things that you could do with it. Yes,

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Speaker 1: some of them are fun, some of them interesting, but

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Speaker 1: is it really going to drive efficiency or change your

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Speaker 1: customer experience? So really our focus right now is on

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Speaker 1: how do we make sure we use the scale in

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Speaker 1: the right places. Yeah, hey, hey, I really appreciate your time.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, Jolly, and thanks for coming in Jolly Hodson

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Speaker 1: Spark CEO. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen

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Speaker 1: live to news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays,

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