Adcock Ingram Holdings Limited (AIP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Adcock Ingram Interim Results. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Andy Hall, the CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Irene, for that introduction. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our interim results call for the 6 months ended 31 December. We appreciate you taking the time to show interest in our company. I'm going to take you through an overview of what we consider here to be a good financial performance. These results attributed to our diverse and affordable portfolio of products some really well-executed sales and marketing strategies in the period and a continued focus on external and internal customer service deliveries from our employees. The healthy financial and operational performance, as you know, was delivered against a backdrop of tough economic conditions, disruptions to our operations as well as our customers due to utility supply challenges, some currency devaluation and also high fuel prices. When I'm finished with my overview, I'll hand over to Dorette Neethling, our CFO, and Dorette will take you through a detailed overview of the financials, and you'll be able to ask questions at the end of the session. So looking at the income statement overall. For the period under review, we had a turnover increase of 8%, that was made up of a mix benefit of 4% with price realization of 4%. Organic volumes declined marginally in the business. We had good growth of core brands in our OTC and prescription business, but that growth was offset by the normalization of demand for Panado and lower ARV tender sales. As you will recall, we weren't a big participant in the tender that started in July 2022. The gross margin ended relatively stable at 35%, and this was mainly thanks to a favorable sales mix. And then we did manage to put price increases through in our consumer and OTC business units on the non-SEP regulated products. Those 2 factors mitigated the cost impact arising from the weaker exchange rate and the significant cost push that we've seen from suppliers in the period. Operating expenses were well controlled and only increased by 4%. So we got a 15% improvement in trading profit to ZAR 623 million. Just a couple of regulatory issues. As you know, as a pharma company, we operate within a complex and highly regulated environment. The quantum of the Single Exit Price adjustment that is awarded by the National Department of Health determines to a large extent, the pressure on our margins, particularly with the rising cost of raw materials and packaging, transport, utilities and wages. This year we've been awarded a 3.28% adjustment, which is significantly below our current input inflation and also below the consumer pricing index for the last 12 months. This will lead to inevitable margin pressure on our price regulated basket of products. And just to give you a sense, about 56% of our revenue in the last period was SEP related. The Pharmaceutical Task Group has engaged with the pricing committee as well as the Department of Health on the reasons for this increase being significantly below inflation, and we are waiting for them to revert to us on the concerns raised by the PTG. On the coding issue in July 2022, SAHPRA requested supporting clinical data to substantiate the safety and efficacy of codeine in the population younger than 12 years. We completed our submissions to SAHPRA in September of 2022, and we've had no further feedback from SAHPRA on the review of the scheduling status of codeine containing medicines since. Just having a quick look at the business division highlights, starting with our consumer division. That division competes in healthcare, personal care and home care segments of the market with a portfolio that includes products in analgesia, dermatology, energy, sun care, some vitamins, minerals and supplements and also shoe care and home cleaning. The business delivered a solid performance during the 6 months with an increase in turnover of 6%. The standout brand performance was from Bioplus, which has shown growth of 30%, and we also saw a good performance from our sun care brand, Island Tribe as well as continued growth of Epi-max. With the cost push from suppliers, the sales growth yielded an eventual trading profit improvement in that business of 7%. Innovation remains a key strategic driver within the consumer division, particularly within the existing portfolio and innovation there added more than ZAR 10 million of revenue in the period. In this regard, the division has launched some Epi-max line extensions, including body washes, soap, baby wipes and lip balm. They've also broadened the GynaGuard offering. And plus, our home care business had a number of launches, including a bleach, some pan gel in a squeeze bottle format as well as an air fryer cleaner. As previously indicated to you, this division concluded a 5-year agreement with one of our European partners called Karo Pharma for the sales, marketing and distribution of the well-known E45 brand in South Africa, a dermatological product. And we started selling that product into the retail channel in January 2023. Our OTC division, which holds market leadership positions in pain, cough, colds and flu digestive and allergy therapeutic categories through the pharmacy channel in South Africa is the largest Schedule 1 and 2 business in pharmacy in South Africa with a share of 19% by value and 29% by volume. The retail pharmacy sector responded well to the commercialization strategies of our brands in the period, which were focused on occupying increased shelf space in pharmacy. This all resulted in turnover, improving 15% in this business. Allergex has grown very well and is now the #1 brand in this division. And also Alcophyllex, Adco-Mayogel, Scopex and Dilinct all posted double-digit ex-factory growth. So a very healthy trading performance. The gross margin here, unfortunately, is lower than the prior year, mainly due to the weaker local currency, coupled with increased freight charges, raw materials and utilities. Nonetheless, trading profit increased by 9% to ZAR 181 million. In October 2022, the division launched a couple of new products under a brand called Bionase. These are products for nasal congestion and also has launched a product called UTI-X, a herbal support for the relief of symptoms associated with mild urinary tract infections. New products in this space are pretty rare, so we were very happy that there are a couple of new launches in this division. Our prescription division markets, a portfolio of branded and generic medicines. It also has specialized skincare products and then is the largest ophthalmology equipment and ophthalmology surgical provider in South Africa. It also promotes brands on behalf of a large number of multinational partners. The turnover year grew by 9%, and we saw a good performance from each of the segments in this business, except for ARVs, which was impacted by the lower tender volumes, I spoke about earlier. The performance here was supported by the increase in elective surgeries as well as healthcare practitioner visits post COVID-19 as well as new product launches. The new additions to the portfolio include the Novartis Ophthalmic range, which was on-boarded on in March 2022. And there have been 8 other launches in the period, including a product from Teva for breakthrough cancer pain. And by VIMOVO on behalf of one of our partners called Grunenthal, VIMOVO is a combination of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory and a proton pump inhibitor. The division's largest brands are Genpayne and Synaleve. These both performed well. Synaleve showing growth of more than 25% in the period, and that product is now the top prescribed product in its class in South Africa. The division grew trading profit by an exceptional 37% really due mainly to some improved volumes outside of the ARVs and a mix of higher-margin products without all those ARVs in the mix. Our Hospital division is the leading manufacturer and supplier of critical care and hospital products in South Africa. Here, we saw turnover decreased by 2%, with the demand for products relating to COVID-19 treatments going backwards. However, we did see some recovery in large volume parenteral and anesthetics, these being used in the treatment of routine hospital admissions as well as elective surgeries, which have normalized in the period. The blood business also reflected increased demand as donor centers had a lot of activity in the form of various blood donation drives in the period. And fortunately, trading profit here even on the back of a decline in turnover improved by 10%. Just a quick run through our manufacturing facilities. At Clayville, we've had some operational issues there, including power failures and some civil action in the broader Tembisa area. However, the high-volume liquids, effervescence and powders facility still managed to increase throughput in the period. The oral liquids facility here operating at about 70% of capacity and the effervescence facility at almost 80%. The ophthalmic facility has released its first commercial batches of our product called Allergex eye drops in the reporting period. They subsequently manufactured validation batches of Gemini and Sperslurge, 2 of our other products and the documentation for these batches will be submitted to SAHPRA as soon as we've got stability data. That facility now operating at about 30% of capacity. Our factory in Wadeville, which manufactures liquids has shown some good improvement in throughput. We brought some third-party manufacturing in there. That facility operated at about 60% of capacity in the period. The oral solid dosage section of that facility has been reconfigured for shorter runs, that following our low allocation in the last ARV tender, and capacity utilization despite the significantly reduced ARV tender volumes was equivalent to what it was in the previous financial year. Our factory in Aeroton also experienced some utility problems there, including load shedding and the effect that, that has on water supply, but none the less the capacity utilization in that factory in the period was in excess of 90%. Our distribution department operates in partnership with RTT. They're our outbound logistics service provider. We have a contract with them until the end of February 2024. Our focus areas there remains service levels, which ran above 98% in the period. We also focused on regulatory compliance and cost containment, particularly in this environment of higher fuel prices. The 3 major risks here, in fact, are the fuel price, a reliable electricity supply, and the unfortunate occasional civil industrial action that affects the transport industry. Just to update you on our ESG journey. In our efforts to manage the effects of load shedding and move towards the use of renewable energy, we installed solar panels at our Clayville manufacturing site. Those solar panels are providing that factory with approximately 30% of its daytime energy usage. We now have solar installations at 4 of our sites. So in addition to Clayville, we've got solar here at Midrand. We've got solar our Durbin distribution center and in Cape Town. And in fact, our solar energy comprised more than 5% of our electricity supply in the period. If we include the electricity supplied by our generators, the company generated about 12% of its electricity in the last 6 months. Real-time water and electricity meters are being installed at all of our sites. And we have other environmental initiatives focused on water harvesting, waste management and reducing the waste that we send to landfill. We're also expanding a pilot project that we've been running with electric vehicles, which we used to collect our empty pallets from customers. As part of our environmental efforts, we provided funds to the Hennops' survival project. This is an NPO focusing on reviving and restoring the Hennops River in Gauteng. Transformation under the responsible corporate citizen pillar of our strategy, obviously, remains a key focus for our group. We were very happy to again achieve a level 2 BE rating in November, and that's valid until November of this current calendar year. We've expanded our enterprise and supply development program, and we continue to invest in corporate social responsibility projects. During the period, these investments included building a new fully equipped computer laboratory at Feed My Lambs school in Eldorado Park, which is here near Soweto and financially supporting plastic surgery operations for children born with facial abnormalities. So really a big push on the ESG side in the last 6 months, which we will continue to do. That completes my overview. And Dorette will now take you through a detailed commentary on the financials.

Thank you, Andy. I'll start with the income statement and with revenue. For those of you who have downloaded the booklet, it is on Page 5. Turnover increased by 7.6% to ZAR 4.7 billion, driven by a mix benefit of 4.3%, which includes the onboarding of the range of ophthalmology products from Novartis, which was effective on March 2022. Overall, the price realization was 3.6%. And as Andy mentioned, the organic volumes declined slightly due to the normalization of the Panado demand following the exceptional sales generated in the comparative period from the COVID-19 vaccination campaigns. The lower tender ARV sales and reduced demand for other products used in relation to COVID-19. The effect of these declines was almost entirely offset by good growth in core OTC and prescription brands. Gross profit of ZAR 1.6 billion is 7.8% above the prior comparative period. The margin at 35.1% ended in line with the comparative period and the previous financial year's 12 months. The factors that impacted the margin adversely includes the significant cost pushes from local and foreign suppliers, the weaker exchange rate and about ZAR 22 million of additional operational costs to run generators during periods of large heating at the factories. These negative factors were compensated for by a more favorable product sales mix, particularly with lease IRVs and the price increases realized in the non-SEP regulated portfolio in both consumer and OTC. Approximately 2/3 of our cost of goods are directly or indirectly influenced by the exchange rate. In a close to look at the impact of the exchange rate, we bought the following material foreign currencies during the reporting period. USD 35 million at an average rate of ZAR 16.68 which represents 11.1% weakening relative to the comparative period, which was at ZAR 15.01 and EUR 21.9 million at an average rate of ZAR 17.56, very much in line with the comparative period, which was at ZAR 17.60. With approximately 60% of FECs in U.S. dollars and 38% in euros, the weighted cost of our basket of all currencies righted on actual settlements in the period was 6.7% higher than the comparable period. The increase over the previous 6 months, therefore, half 2 of the previous financial year was 5.5%. At the reporting date on the 31st of December, the group was carrying the following open FECs, which would most likely be the exchange rate applicable in quarter 3 of the financial year. USD 22.2 million at ZAR 17.52, which is a further 5% weakening over the ZAR 16.68 that we achieved in the first half of the year. And EUR 22.5 million at ZAR 18.7, which is a 3% weakening over the ZAR 17.56 achieved in the 6-month period. Operating expenses of just over ZAR 1 billion ended 3.9% above the prior period. And includes ZAR 3 million to operate generators at the distribution facilities during large shedding. The higher proportional increase in the fixed and administrative costs is a result of increased regulatory costs as well as IT security costs, part of those increasing in double digits. Trading profit of ZAR 623 million ended 14.8% above the prior period and non-trading expenses of ZAR 29 million relates entirely to share-based expenses in the current period. This leaves operating income 16.1% ahead of the prior period. Net finance costs of ZAR 24.7 million were incurred during the 6 months, and it includes finance costs relating to leases of ZAR 15 million. If we move to the equity accounted earnings from our joint ventures for the half year, the 2 joint ventures being the one with National Renal Care or with Netcare called National Renal Care, and the other one in India with our partner, Medreich and Meiji in Japan. The earnings amounted to ZAR 65 million, which was 20.5% above the comparative period, mainly driven by the performance of the JV in India. The effective tax rate adjusted for equity-accounted earnings is 29.3% with nondeductible expenditure causing the increase over the statutory rate. We no longer have any minority interest as part of the companies with minorities, Novartis Ophthalmic and Menarini have been dissolved. Headline earnings from operations for the 6-month period amounted to ZAR 468 million compared to the ZAR 392 million in the prior period. This translates into headline earnings per share of just short of ZAR 0.290, which is 19.6% above the comparative period and includes a wide effect of share purchases of 1.5 million shares by the group in the reporting period. Following the reporting period, another approximately 600,000 shares have been acquired. If we turn to the balance sheet, and I'll start with the non-current assets. Within non-current assets, depreciation charges amounted to ZAR 94 million, which is ZAR 5 million ahead of the comparative period and include depreciation charges of ZAR 22 million on a separately disclosed right-of-use assets, which we capitalized in terms of IFRS 16. Intangible assets, including goodwill, have a carrying value of ZAR 1.2 billion and comprised of generic, consumer and OTC trademarks and license agreements. Amortization in the period amounted to ZAR 4.7 million, the same as the comparative period. In looking at current assets, inventory of ZAR 2.4 billion is stated at the lower of cost and net realizable value. Days in inventory at the end of December or 137 days compared to 133 days at the end of June last year. The increase from June includes cost increases and the exchange rate impact, which accounted for ZAR 60 million, ZAR 50 million relates to the extended lead times for raw materials, thus for an increase in safety stock. Items previously out of stock accounted for ZAR 35 million. New product launches in the last 6 months added another ZAR 23 million and an increase in minimum order quantities from suppliers contributing ZAR 15 million. Trade accounts receivable of ZAR 1.8 billion as shown net of provisions of ZAR 35 million, despite being ZAR 200 million higher than the June year-end, it's clearly a factor of the higher sales as days in receivables of 57 days, a slight improvement from the 58 days reported at the end of June. Government debt makes up 14% of the trade receivables, of which 66% of this customer's total outstanding amount is due within 60 days or less. Cash and cash equivalents amounted to ZAR 84 million at the end of December. Looking at the bottom of the balance sheet, the group has shareholder funds of ZAR 5.5 billion at the end of December. And the early liabilities of ZAR 329 million relates to leases. So turning to the segmental information, which is disclosed on Pages 9 and 10 of the booklet. And I'll start with the consumer division. Sales of ZAR 847 million and at 6.5% ahead of the comparative period, an average selling price increase of 9.8% was realized as mainly the full portfolio in this segment are non-ECP regulated. In addition to the average selling price increase of 4.5% implemented in March of '22, another price increase of up to 7.5% was implemented in October last year to alleviate some of the cost push. Mix contributed 2.1% to the increase in sales, mainly due to the innovative line extensions, Andy mentioned earlier. Organic volumes decreased 5.4% driven by the normalization of the demand for Panado, and the gross margin ended below the comparative period as the full impact of the significant cost wishes from suppliers and the weaker exchange rate where this division is mainly exposed to the U.S. dollar could not be fully passed on to consumers via price increases. Trading profit of ZAR 185 million is 7.1% higher than the prior comparative period. Moving to the OTC business. Sales of ZAR 1.1 billion ended 15.3% ahead of the comparative period as volumes improved almost 10%. Top brands like Allergex and some of the cost mixtures continue to show significant guidance. An average price increase of 5.8% was realized, whilst mix decreased slightly following the repatriation of the EBIT brands. The gross margin in this division ended slightly below the comparative period, impacted by the weakening of the rand also because this business is mainly impacted by the movement in the U.S. dollar. The increased API cost as well as the under recovery of the sterile facility, which became operational this year. Just a reminder, before it became operational, the costs were capitalized. And then this factory facility also have seen a general increase in the production cost and diesel usage. As a result, trading profit of ZAR 181 million ended 8.6% above the comparative period. In looking at prescription, sales of ZAR 1.7 billion end at 9.4% ahead of the comparative period, aided by a mix benefit of 2.3 -- 10.3% due to the onboarding of the Novartis portfolio. And also from the new products that was launched in the last -- in the past 12 months. Organic volumes declined by almost 1% as the volume growth in the branded MNC and Genop portfolio was entirely offset by the decrease in ARV tender sales. The gross margin ended ahead of the comparative period as a result of an advantageous sales mix with a decrease in lower-margin ARV sales. As a result, trading profit of ZAR 167 million ended an increase of 37.3% ahead of the comparative period. Lastly, if we look at the hospital division, sales of ZAR 962 million ended 2.2% below the comparative period due to the decline in treatments related to COVID-19, including rapid test keeps and acute renal dialysis treatments as well as out of stock issues related to both local and international production challenges. The Aeroton factory and local third-party manufacturers have been impacted by low chatting and water disruptions, whilst international suppliers like Baxter and Indivior were impacted by material shortages. In aggregate, these factors resulted in a volume decline of 5.3%, partly mitigated by a positive mix impact of almost 1% and price realization of 2.3%. Gross margin ended above the comparative period with the adverse impact from the exchange rate and the higher production costs relating to diesel and over time being compensated for by an advantageous sales mix of higher private market sales. Trading profit of ZAR 89 million ended at pleasing 10% above the comparative period. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I will hand back to Irene, and we welcome any questions.

[Operator Instructions] Since we have no questions from the conference call, may I hand over for webcast questions now?

Okay. Thank you, Irene. I will read the questions between Andy and myself, we would answer that. We have a question from Grant. Well done on the results. Would it be possible to provide an estimate of the current input inflation across the business?

Grant, thanks for the question. Look, it's a mixed bag. So if you look at our operating cost line, the majority of our costs there relate to people. And we've given salary increases in December, which were between 5% and 6%. If you look at wages in the factory, those increases were 7.5% in the last year. We then are taking double-digit increases on utilities. And then obviously, we're incurring these diesel price -- these diesel cost charges at the moment. There are a couple of areas where costs have been much higher than they were before. If we look at our regulatory costs, the regulatory environment just gets more and more complex every year. So we've had a 10% increase in our regulatory costs. And in our IT costs, particularly around security, we've had a 15% increase. The only area where we've had a reduction in costs, and this has been purposeful just to manage the financial performance in the business is we've held back on some marketing spend in the period about 4% backwards in marketing. So it really is a mixture of costs at the moment.

Grant also asked about the expected utilization for the sole facility over the next 12 months. That's currently at around 30%.

Yes. Grant, I mean this is going to be a slow burn. So what happens is every time you make a new product in the factory, you obviously want that product has passed quality control, you get some stability data for the product, and then you submit your documentation to SAHPRA for release, and that can take anywhere up to 2.5 months for them to approve your product for release. So it's an incremental process of just bringing more and more products into the factory. I'd be comfortable if we move from 30% to 40% in this next 6-month period. And if we got to 50% operating capacity by the end of the calendar year, I would have thought that our team has done well there.

We have a question from Charles from Titanium Capital. I think something that is a worrying factor for us as well. So the question is there's a long history of SEP increases being below inflation or currency declines. This is reflected in the gross margin percentage over the last 10 years. So the question is, is this sustainable having SEP increases below cost increases? And apart from moving the portfolio to an increased percentage of non-ECP business, are there any other potential solutions?

Yes, Charles, it's interesting. We had a couple of media interviews this morning, and you always get that question of what keeps you up at night. And I must say the margin compression is the one of the things outside of the general state of the economy and the utility supply challenges that concerns us the most. There's a large degree of engagement going on between the pharmaceutical task group, which effectively represents each of associations in the industry with the Department of Health and the pricing committee. So we're in a process at the moment of trying to get information from them and try and establish how this 3.28% was arrived at, because in our view, it's not reflective of definitely of CPI and not reflective of a formula that has previously been used in the regulations. The honest answer is that the more we get into our portfolio of non-price regulated products, the better opportunity we have of protecting this margin. And if you look at the consumer business, which is the business that really carries our, let's call it, our brands that customers take straight off shelf, being able to put a 10% price increase into that business over the last 6 months is evidence of what these non-price regulated products can be. As well as the OTC business where we saw a 6% increase and not all of their products are SEP regulated. So that still has to remain our primary strategy in terms of protecting these margins. The consultation with government has to continue because if we just carry on on this road, we will eventually have an unsustainable local manufacturing pharmaceutical industry in South Africa and potentially end up reliant on other jurisdictions for our medicine, which is not a healthy position for the country to be in. So that's the other area that we need to continue driving. And then from an internal perspective, our operational excellence has to receive greater focus. We've got to negotiate as best we can with suppliers to keep our cost base as low as possible. And to be honest, in the current environment, that's difficult. There are some packaging materials. If we look at foil for instance, where we actually have to prepay to get foil because of the shortages around the planet. We've just got to continue trying to get better at that. So it's a difficult environment to be in. But having held this margin to 35%, even with these cost increases in the rand having depreciated by 7% in our basket of currencies, we believe our people have done a decent job.

Thank you, Andy. It's a question from Charles from Titanium Capital. With regards to the inventory write-offs of ZAR 33 million, can you give some background to this, please? And I will take the question. So Charles, unfortunately, stock prices, I think is part impartial of the business. It's something that we do focus on quite a lot, but there are a few factors that's influencing that number. One is minimum order quantities, especially where we buy finished products out of Europe that sometimes more than what we saw in the period or before they expire. We also find sometimes we do our planning based on certain expectations of sales and it doesn't realize and stocks expire. So it's a combination of expired stock. We do have some damage stock as well during the distribution process. And sometimes we have product gets withdrawn from the market. We also have stock that we then have to write off. So I think that answers that question. Jarred from All Weather ask for some color on the working capital. I think the color is a red, Jarred. So I'll go through it again a little bit. So the working capital -- sorry, the increase in private receivables of ZAR 200 million is purely a factor of the sale. So the last 2 months, November, December, with ZAR 200 million higher than May, June last year. As you can see, is reflected in in the days that actually come down with 1 day. The inventory -- the increase in inventory is that I explain some of like purely cost pushes, that's been quite drastic, not only in the currency, but also in the foreign denomination, we've seen some increases on stock coming through, especially raw materials. There's also some extended lead times for certain materials items that were previously out of stock, the new launches that we added as well as an increase in minimum order quantities from some suppliers. I think the question might be why didn't our accountable increase in the time, why as the inventory increase? And what we found is that with the increase in minimum order quantities, we sometimes have to order for 6 months, but you still have the same payment terms. So you pay your creditor after 45 to 60 days, but your stock sits in your warehouse a bit longer. We also have seen that for certain raw materials, we need to make prepayments since the global supply chain stress something we're really not used to. And I think that is the impact across how it will turn out for the rest of the year, it's really difficult for me to say. Obviously, receivables will be in line with sales. We don't expect anything difficult there. We currently do have some problems in getting payments subsequent to the reporting period from government, which is normal in the, call it, year in towards April. But we don't expect any issues in that regard for year-end. And it's a factor of managing our stock and payables tools here and we on-boarded, as Andy alluded to, the E45 in January. But we have an arrangement that we will pay for those as we sell it as we had to take all the stuff from Reckitt Benckiser. So it's really something we manage and it's part of the short-term incentives of the management to look at working capital. And then there's a question from Richard from Avior. With regards to products associated with elective surgery activities, are you seeing a return in volumes to pre-COVID level or are volumes still below these levels?

Richard, thanks. Probably the best indicator of this for us is in our Genop business, which is the business in our prescription division that sells ophthalmic equipment as well as the consumables used in surgery, including lenses and the like. That business is up 16% from the prior period. So that's an indication of the extent of return to elective surgeries. If you look at our intravenous fluids in the hospital business, which, again, are a general indication of hospital occupancies, those intravenous fluids are up 14% on the comparative period. And then if you look at our big prescription painkiller called Synaleve, which is very commonly prescribed post-surgery. In fact, it's the #1 prescribed product in its class at the moment. That product is up more than 20%. So that would tend to suggest to us that we're pretty much back at normalized levels for elective surgeries and routine hospital admissions.

Thanks, Andy, Richard -- sorry, Richard had a follow-up questions about labor relations in the group. And what our experiences in terms of wage inflation?

Yes. Richard, hard to give you any guidance here because we haven't started our negotiations yet. And these are industry-wide negotiations. So our current agreement with the unions expires at the end of June. So our wage employees are due for an increase on the 1st of July. And we will be starting those negotiations within the next couple of months. But we would expect that the unions are going to be looking for something that is in excess of inflation. And we gave 7.5% in the last year. So I think it's going to be an interesting negotiation.

[indiscernible] from Nedbank. Is it sustainable to push through double digit above inflation price increases in non-regulated segments without impacting volume demand, given that the consumer is already under pressure?

It depends on the brand. So what we look at with every single price increase is what is happening in the competitive environment, what is the competitive position of the particular brand in the market, et cetera. And where do we think price points would start impacting volume. It can't be sustainable in any business that you just continually increase price increases without affecting demand. And that's why we're very careful about which products we tend to take higher increases on and which products we tend to take lower increases on. But certainly, with current cost push, it would be very difficult to avoid a price increase in this -- in the first half of this calendar year, again, on these non-SEP price increases. We are getting some increases on packaging, running in excess of 30%. And similarly on -- from some contract manufacturers requests for 20%, 25% and 30% increases. And we can't sustain those brands without a margin.

And we have questions with regards to share buybacks from Grant from ClucasGray as well as Jarred, I'm going to combine it. So one is we want an update on where we are with the share buybacks relative to the current approval? And how do we weigh up acquisitions versus stepping up the pace of the buyback?

So we've still got good headroom from the approval that was granted in -- at the AGM in November. I don't have the exact number in front of me, but we've got good headroom in terms of what we can purchase back there. And then what was the other question?

How do we stand in terms of acquisitions versus share buyback?

So this is just something that we consider on an ongoing basis. So if we have material opportunities for acquisition on the table, they look like they can be consummated and look like they will be decent deals. Then we would consider holding back on share buybacks because we do believe that growing the portfolio remains an important strategic intention for the business. But in the absence of any acquisitions being available material acquisitions, share buybacks currently are taking a high priority.

We have another question from Charles from Titanium Capital. It's a left field question. We previously disclosed that consumer is having 39 factory stores. This suggests that most of the consumer products are imported as finished product. Is this understanding correct? Is consumer largely and import marketing and distribution business?

Charles, yes, it's a bit left field. So the factory staff in the consumer business came to Adcock when we bought the Plush home care business. So those -- that factory staff effectively are manufacturing shoe care products. The home care products tend to come from contract manufacturers. We can still say, though, that the vast majority of products in the consumer business are come from contract manufacturers or are manufactured by our business in India, unless they are syrups and they are then manufactured at Wadeville or Claywille. And off the top of my head, the home care products, the Plus business is around about 10% of the -- about 15% of the consumer turnover.

Thank you, Irene. That is all at the moment. We will be taking, but we're happy to engage with anyone and I'll leave to Andy for closing remarks.

Yes. Thanks, everybody, for joining the call. If we didn't get to your questions, it's just because we have a meeting coming up at 12:00. You're welcome to send through any questions on e-mail, and we will get to those as soon as we can. And I appreciate you joining the call.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's event. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.