Australia's Aurizon hits 16-mth low on gloomy FY forecast, profit miss
By Rajasik Mukherjee
Aug 12 (Reuters) -Aurizon AZJ.AX, Australia's biggest rail freight operator, fell to its lowest level in more than 16 months on Monday after it forecast 2025 earnings that underwhelmed investors and missed profit expectations.
The stock shed as much as 8%, heading for its worst session since Feb. 13, 2023.
The firm expects fiscal 2025 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) to be between A$1.66 billion and A$1.74 billion ($1.09 billion-$1.14 billion), 3% below the midpoint of market expectations, withCiti calling the projection "underwhelming".
Meanwhile, Aurizon reported FY24 underlying EBITDA of A$1.62 billion, missing Visible Alpha estimates by 1%.
"Overall a soft FY24 result, with a ~4% miss at the group EBIT line. Additionally Bulk/Containerised Freight investments will continue to be topical given lower than expected returns," Citi said in a note.
Aurizon additionally said that it was buying back A$150 million worth of shares and declared a final dividend of 7.3 Australian cents.
The company's stock has fallen 4.7% so far this year.
($1 = 1.5198 Australian dollars)
Reporting by Rajasik Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonia Cheema
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