Just a quick heads up that our meeting with Smart Parking starts in half an hour. If you can't attend live, please add any questions here and i'll be sure to put them to Paul.
@Strawman Great chat on SPZ in the latest Motley Fool podcast this morning. Made for good listening after finishing my 10km run this morning!
I think you made a great point about selling to customers and even with a great product the sale can be difficult if the customer has other priorities, no room in the budget etc. I think SPZ does a fantastic job getting around that problem with their go to market of not charging their clients directly. SPZ bear the up front cost of camera and signage installation and in return collect the on-going parking fines.
In this environment I think the ability to go to a retail/hospitality customer and say we can improve your foot traffic by X% and the best bit is there is no upfront cost or capex required. Hard for customers to say no really.
@Byrnesty, great pick up mate, I hadn't come across this. SPZ is of my largest and highest conviction holdings, so this one hurts.
This article provides more clarity, and even mentions SPZ.
'Transport and Main Roads Minister Mark Bailey said that from next Monday the companies, including ASX-listed Smart Parking, will no longer be able to access the Transport and Main Roads Department database to obtain details including home addresses of vehicle owners and other personal information.'
A separate article by Brisbane Times indicates the halt will commence next Monday (20/02) and will effectively end the sector’s ability to enforce minor fees for their ungated car parks until to-be-decided changes arrive later in the year.
First and foremost, this is a significant risk for SPZ. It will be interesting how management handle this, with Queensland being SPZ's largest (and only?) market in Australia. In the APAC region in FY22, SPZ issued 35,000 parking breach notices -- around 15,000 of these were in Australia (Queensland). So it is a big part of its APAC division. As a reminder, SPZ earns an overwhelming majority of its revenue (over 75%) through parking breach notices, so this has a massive impact on its Queensland-based business until changes occur later in the year. That said, there is nothing to suggest the changes will be positive for SPZ so this remains one to watch until further information comes to light. It also brings into question how their Brisbane office (and staff) handle this and what the company's action will be. Will they get rid of their staff temporarily?
While this one hurts, it is not catastrophic, in fact far from. While there were around 15,000 breach notices issued in Queensland in FY22, in the UK alone -- SPZ's largest market -- they issued more than 500,000. SPZ also has presence in NZ and Germany, although the latter is much less developed than Australia/Qld. I would estimate total breach notices in Australia account for around 2-3% of SPZ's total breach notices. What it does do is demonstrate legislative risk for SPZ -- without the ability to access registration details (only possible with favourable legislation) SPZ and their business model can't function.
Interested in the thoughts of others here.
Interesting post from SPZ on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/smart-parking-limited_parkingmanagement-parkingsolutions-parking-activity-7009203935538249729-ZxcO?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
Good to see the German team winning sites, but perhaps more important is the logo for customer in the background...