BurgerFuel FY23 NPAT up 56% on 24.8% revenue rebound to pre-Covid levels

Revenue rose 24.8% to $24.0M, EBITDA reached $3.3M, profit before tax was $1.3M and net profit after tax was $0.9M — a 56.3% lift on FY22's $0.6M as cited in the release. Total system sales across all three brands and regions grew 12.77% to $106.2M, with management noting sales are now back at pre-Covid levels.

Cash performance improved sharply. Operating cash flow rose to $3.1M from $0.3M, lifting OCF/EBITDA to 93.8% from 12.9%. Cash on hand finished at $8.2M, up from $6.8M, and the group remains debt-free. A final dividend of 18.0 cents per share was declared.

• Revenue growth of 24.8% paired with system-sales growth of 12.77% suggests the recovery is being driven by underlying trading rather than royalty accounting effects. The New Zealand segment dominates at 99.5% of revenue and delivered a $1.6M segment result; the International segment remains small ($0.1M revenue) and loss-making (-$0.4M result), so the group read is effectively the New Zealand read.

• Cash conversion materially better. OCF of $3.1M against EBITDA of $3.3M (93.8%) is a step-change from FY22's 12.9% conversion. After capex of $0.8M (3.4% of revenue, up from 2.0%), pre-lease free cash flow was $2.3M versus marginally negative in FY22. That means the headline NPAT lift is supported by real cash, not just accruals.

• Returns improving off a low base. ROE rose to 7.6% from 5.3% on equity of $11.8M, and the balance sheet carries no debt with $8.2M cash. The 18.0 cps dividend signals confidence, but payout coverage versus NPAT cannot be assessed without share count disclosure in the supplied data.

Management's framing is that FY23 sales are "back at pre-Covid levels", which positions FY23 as a normalised base rather than a peak. The HY23 first-half share of full-year metrics (44.7% of revenue, 49.9% of EBITDA, 61.3% of NPAT) suggests the second half was softer at the bottom line despite reasonable top-line phasing — worth watching into FY24, but no shape target is disclosed to test against.

The key supporting evidence: OCF/EBITDA at 93.8%, FCF/NPAT at 251.4%, debtor days broadly stable at 32.4 (versus 33.4), and no flagged non-recurring items. The effective tax rate moved to 28.5% from 23.0%, which slightly dampens NPAT relative to PBT, but PBT growth and NPAT growth are aligned at -99.8% on a reported-units basis (the FY22 figures in extraction are stated in thousands while FY23 is in dollars, which inflates the percent-change arithmetic — the substantive comparison is the 56.3% NPAT uplift cited directly in the release).

The capex step-up to $0.8M (from $0.4M) is modest in absolute terms but more than doubled year-on-year, lifting capex intensity to 3.4% of revenue. That bears monitoring as a leading indicator of either store refurbishment or international investment, but at current scale it is comfortably funded from operating cash flow.

This briefing cannot assess per-share economics, dividend cover, or like-for-like store performance because share count, payout policy, and same-store sales disclosures are not provided in the supplied data.