Bapcor Limited (BAP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and welcome to the Bapcor 2024 Full Year Results Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mark Bernhard, Interim CEO and Managing Director. Please go ahead, sir.

Thanks, Cynthia. Welcome to everyone who's dialed into today's call. As Cynthia said, my name is Mark Bernhard, and I'm the Interim CEO of Bapcor. I'm joined by our CFO, George Saoud, and together we'll be presenting Bapcor's FY '24 results. I'd like to remind everybody that you'll only be able to participate in the Q&A session if you have joined us via the dial-in and not via the webcast. Now, before getting into the results, I'd like to make a few opening remarks. Firstly, there's no doubt that Bapcor has underperformed recently. The business has grappled with how to optimize value from an organization that was created from multiple acquisitions and which lacked investment and integration. Secondly, the Better than Before program was designed to extract value in the areas of pricing, procurement, supply chain and property. In order to execute these numerous programs, we invested in headcount and inventory and when we anticipate -- and when the anticipated benefits didn't flow as fast as expected, that resulted in an unacceptable profit deleverage. Now, although we have that as a backdrop, today, I want to spend some time talking about the future and the positive actions we've already taken as management. Value delivery remains front of mind. We can see the value, but we need to approach it differently in light of the business complexity, which is why our focus is in restructuring, simplifying and rationalizing the business. These actions have set Bapcor back on the right path. I'd like to start today by acknowledging the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and pay our respects to elders, past and present. We recognize the continuing connection of First Nations people with country across Australia and beyond, and in particular, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, which is the land where we're meeting today. One thing that has always remained clear is that our business is underpinned by strong fundamentals. Our strong brands are in the top 3, where we compete. And on the back of our geographic coverage, we're generating over $2 billion in revenue. Despite some market commentary, we continue to enjoy strong, stable market share in the Trade segment with independent repairs, and we're growing in key trade accounts, equipment and in the auto electrical business. We operate in a resilient industry based on the need for people to continue servicing their cars and proven by the fact we've grown revenues year-on-year since our listing in 2014. Now, while we acknowledge there's work to do in our Retail segment and our wholesale business, our Trade business in Burson, our Specialist Networks and our New Zealand business, all grew earnings in FY '24. We have a competitive fulfillment model and an amazing team of industry experts. What we need to do is get better at leveraging these strengths. Turning to the executive summary on Slide 6. Pro forma NPAT was in line with the guidance we provided in May. Despite the difficult trading conditions, pleasingly 3 of our 4 businesses either delivered a steady or growing top-line result with a 0.8% growth overall to $2 billion. Our gross margin dollars increased in Trade, networks and New Zealand, which was offset by declines in wholesale, where pricing declined due to intense competition and in Retail, where sales declined due to higher discounting and lower volume sales in our discretionary range. As a result, for the total business, our gross margin dollars were slightly lower overall. Cost inflation, especially employee and occupancy, combined with increased technology costs and interest are negatively impacting NPAT. The statutory result is a loss of $158.3 million, which includes $253.1 million post-tax of significant items, which George will talk to in more detail. These charges are predominantly retail impairments and more than 80% of the charges are non-cash. The retail impairments are a result of poor trading in an adverse market. The majority of the cash-significant items, warehouse rationalization and restructuring are about setting up the business for FY '25 and beyond. These changes are aimed at driving simplicity and value delivery. We've maintained a strong balance sheet and good operating cash flows, which support the Board's decision to declare a final dividend of $0.055 per share, bringing the total FY dividend to $0.15 per share, which represents a payout ratio of 54%, which is at the midpoint of our payout range. As many of you expected, we're confirming that the Better than Before program is being scaled back as we focus on simplifying the business and being more disciplined. However, embedded into the segments on a business-as-usual basis are the key value-enhancing activities in procurement, pricing, property and supply chain, which will continue. I'll talk to this more on the next slide. Importantly, we've taken a number of other positive actions in Q4 to improve the long-term business, which we expect to deliver savings in FY '25 of $20 million to $30 million. These actions will right size the business through reducing headcount, rationalize the supply chain network, close some marginal and loss-making operations, merge brands and business lines and continue our IT investment. You will have noted in the recent announcements that the company's leadership has been strengthened with the appointments of Angus McKay, as CEO and Executive Chair; and George Saoud, as CFO. Angus starts tomorrow, and I look forward to returning to my net responsibilities after facilitating a handover, and you'll hear from George shortly. Lastly, we've had a steady start to the year with revenue up over 7.7% in the first 5 weeks, with 2 extra selling days and up 1% on a like-for-like basis. I'll touch more on that in the Outlook section. I mentioned in May that the Better than Before program was not delivering the expected benefits, with execution letting us down and little bottom line NPAT benefit being achieved in FY '24. The potential benefits of the program have not eventuated. Our ability to achieve the benefits was impacted by the complexity of our business, which has resulted from a lack of integration of the many acquisitions made over multiple years. That said, the fundamental objectives of the program to grow and transform Bapcor remain, but it's the scale, timing and the way we will deliver them that is changing. The key initiatives will go into the business segments to improve accountability, putting the programs in the hands of the business leaders who are driving overall performance and are responsible for the speed of delivery at an acceptable cost. As a result, we will no longer report Better than Before separately. Slide 8. On this slide, we've summarized some of the key actions we've taken to simplify the business and improve earnings. These have been aggressively progressed since the trading update in May. We've started to rationalize our supply chain network with the planned closure of approximately 20% of our warehouses, which will reduce costs, better utilize our central DCs, and optimize our inventory. This simplification will enable us to sell a wider range of products across our customer base. As a quick proof point, we made a decision in early June around a warehouse in Truganina in Victoria and consolidation into DCV. The consolidation is now complete with no operational impacts during the transition and with full credit to the team are already delivering tangible bottom-line savings. Using this example, we have a further 4 warehouses being integrated into our central locations in Q1 of FY '25 where planning is already well advanced. Secondly, we reduced our head office headcount by more than 100 people in Q4 from non-customer-facing roles to focus attention on our core trading operations. These savings are already flowing to the bottom line. We're simplifying our specialist networks, including consolidating trucking brands into one business and merging our auto electrical businesses into a single operation to deliver internal alignment, better value for customers and improved efficiencies. These integrations have already commenced and we are seeing the benefits. Finally, we've started to exit non-core businesses to reduce complexity and focus our resources on operations that are central to our future and where we can grow market share. And while we're going after our cost structure is essential, we're also investing to grow. This includes opening new stores, especially in our core Trade segment, and making IT infrastructure more efficient to ultimately improve our employee and customer experience. This includes rationalizing multiple ERP systems and importantly, providing better linkages with our customers. All of these actions will drive efficiency improvements in FY '25 and the proof points we have, give us confidence about the delivery of the $20 million to $30 million expected savings. The delivery of these programs are within our control and strong progress has been made to date. As we go through the year, we'll update you on our progress in executing on these initiatives. We're also in review -- in process of reviewing our operations in retail and wholesale to drive better returns, which will be a priority for Angus in working with the GLT. Now, turning to the segment performance. Our largest businesses in Trade and Specialist Wholesale each contributed 36% of group revenue and together make up more than 2/3 of our EBITDA. Our Trade business grew total revenue and same-store sales by 0.5%. And as I mentioned earlier, pleasingly, we maintained or grew market share. Our Specialist Networks business, which comprises more than 2/3 of our Specialist Wholesale segment, grew revenue by 4.5%. Our key profit engine, Trade, saw EBITDA growth of 1.8% due primarily to favorable pricing and operational efficiencies. On the right-hand side of this chart, while 91% of our revenues are largely non-discretionary, making the business more resilient in cyclical downturns, in half 2 we saw pressure in some of the non-discretionary elements of the market, in particular, a pullback by independent repairs in the level of equipment purchases and vehicle service customers being more cost-conscious with service parts revenue holding up, but repair and maintenance parts being more challenged. I'll now talk through the segments in a little bit more detail. Firstly, Trade. Looking more closely at the revenue split for the Trade segment, general parts was much more resilient and actually grew nicely at 2.1% year-on-year with good momentum through Q4. In positive news, we're making solid gains in sales to the key chains and see further opportunity in FY '25, leveraging the strength of our relationships at a store level with these customers. Now, even though equipment sales were down 9.2% year-on-year, the overall market was a lot softer without the one-off tax benefits provided in the previous year. We expanded our network during the year with new store openings in Victoria and New South Wales and plan to open a further 10 per year over the next 2 years. A call-out in relation to our Thailand operation, which is now profitable, we're also working with our partner on how we can organically grow the business. Following effective cost management, our EBITDA margin was 21 basis points higher and we expect this to further improve through implementing the B2B strategic pricing initiatives and operational efficiencies across our store network. We're also investing for the future with various system upgrades and a better parts catalog, which will improve the range of products available and our customer service. Both Specialist Networks and Wholesale delivered revenue growth with a stronger performance from wholesale in the second half. Wholesale was impacted by intense competition, which has had a material impact on the gross margin and EBITDA. As a result, EBITDA for the segment overall was down 12.5%. Cost rationalization actions in wholesale are underway with an operational review of the business being progressed. Meanwhile, the Specialist Networks division is getting on with programs to deliver improved returns through a consolidation of the trucking business into a single 1 CVG operation, integration of the auto electrical businesses, JAS, Baxters and Federal Batteries, and the separation of the MTQ diesel service business from Baxters. We expect these actions to make the business grow and be more profitable, but importantly, simpler, more efficient and better able to withstand the challenges as they arise. The slight revenue decline in Retail, coupled with higher employee and occupancy costs and lower sales from the higher-margin discretionary categories resulted in a 27.4% EBITDA decline. However, the trend in this segment is improving with second-half revenue better than first half. Our investment in digital and loyalty has improved sales for Autobarn and we started to see the benefits, particularly in the second half. Our loyalty members are growing steadily and are now up to 1.2 million. Our Midas and ABS service brands are exposed to and benefiting from the shift towards larger national service chains and have performed strongly in FY '24. However, the overall segment's performance remains well below where it needs to be and a fulsome review is underway by Meg Foster, our new EGM of Retail, who commenced with the business in April. The New Zealand economy has been especially soft, which impacted second-half trading. Pleasingly, however, the flat revenue turned into a 7.5% EBITDA growth off the back of procurement benefits, pricing disciplines and effective cost management. FY '25 growth is expected to be enhanced by the push to promote our own brands, frontline brand support and increased functionality of the electronic parts catalog. And with that, I'll hand over to George to cover the financials.

Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone. Appreciate you making time to join the call. I look forward to seeing many of you over the coming days. As Mark mentioned, while the financial results have been particularly challenging, we are taking action to improve performance. Our focus is around simplifying our operations, both in terms of prioritization of activities and removal of non-core businesses, consolidating related businesses where it makes sense as senior Specialist Networks business and removing complexity for employees and our customers. Our quarter 4 focus was on headcount and inventory levels, and this will continue into FY '25 as we continue to focus both on cost of doing business as well as growth in our trading segments. Turning to our group income statement on Slide 16 and the segment performance you have just seen. Group revenue was up 0.8% overall to $2.04 billion. This was achieved through growth in Trade and Specialist Wholesale trading segments, but offset by a decline in Retail. New Zealand was flat. Group gross margin was 46.2%, down 45 basis points on the prior year. Our total gross margin dollars of $942 million was 0.2% below the prior year and was driven by growth in Trade and New Zealand, but offset by declines in Retail and the wholesale business within our Specialist Wholesale segment. Our cost of doing business increased by 4.4% to $673.6 million due to higher employee costs, increases in information technology and occupancy costs. We are addressing this cost base through the key initiatives Mark called out earlier, in particular, through headcount reduction within our support office and the DC rationalization program. The lower EBITDA margins combined with higher finance costs resulted in a pro forma NPAT of $94.8 million, down 24.3%. This means our second half pro forma NPAT was $40.6 million, down on half 1, but in line with the guidance provided in May. The statutory NPAT loss of $158.3 million was due to pre-tax $296.8 million of significant items, which are mostly non-cash as detailed on the next slide that I will now discuss. Turning to Slide 17. The vast majority of the $296.8 million was incurred in the second half, and that was $286.4 million, with more than 80% of that being non-cash and largely related to the impairment of assets. But I'll step through each of the component parts in order. The DC rationalization comprises $39 million for DC network rationalization and $7.1 million in DC ramp-up costs to steady state. The DC network rationalization of $39 million mostly relates to the planned closure of circa 20% of our smaller warehouses with operations transferred to our large-scale distribution center being DCV and DCQ and the establishment of a mini DC in New South Wales. In relation to the DCQ consolidation of $7.1 million, no further costs will be taken as significant items going forward. The second half treatment is consistent with the first half. Impairment of assets of $217 million largely comes from the write-off of goodwill, trademarks and other tangible and intangible assets related to the Retail segment. The total amount being impaired in the Retail segment is $208.6 million. The decline in value is due to lower Retail earnings and the expected earnings growth in Retail not being achieved. The remaining impairment of assets relates to the write-off of decommissioned IT projects of $4.8 million and an impairment of our Tye Soon investment of $3.5 million. Restructuring costs of $15.6 million are mostly in the second half, with $14 million relating to the cost reduction and efficiency programs we have mentioned, including more than 100 redundancies from non-customer facing roles in support office and the planned closure of 13 stores. Assets available for sale represent an impairment of $10.3 million against the non-core businesses Mark mentioned, which are either up for sale or will be exited, and other comprising $7.9 million is mostly from the B2B program in the first half. Moving to our cash flow statement on Slide 18. The reduction in operating cash flows from $320.7 million in FY '23 to $206.7 million in FY '24 is related to an increase in inventory, most of which is on the balance sheet as inventory or classified under assets held for sale. The rest relates to our cost of doing business increases. Note that the current operating cash flow for this year of $206.7 million was more in line with the operating cash flows in FY '22 of $185.3 million. The business improved our cash conversion in the second half, which was at 90.8% versus 65% in half 1, with a strong focus on working capital in quarter 4. The 77% cash conversion for the year was below the prior year of 107.4%, but ahead of FY '22 of 63.6%. Interest and finance lease costs were higher, driven by higher debt levels and increased property costs. Our growth CapEx fell in FY '24 due to lower store rollouts, while sustaining CapEx increased due to IT investments made, including areas in software, such as our data lake and the various systems integrations we have completed. Other, relates to cash costs associated with significant items. Turning to Slide 19. We have a strong balance sheet. We've worked hard to improve our working capital management in the last quarter, including reducing our receivable days outstanding from 39 days to 34, negotiating improved creditor terms and better enforcement of our trading terms. Net debt increased versus FY '23, mostly attributable to the lower operating cash flow through inventory buildup driven by a targeted stock injection from our own brand program and range expansion. Note, inventory in FY '22 was $538.7 million. As we rationalize our distribution centers, we expect the inventory to further improve in FY '25. The right-of-use asset reduction is driven by the planned DC network rationalization and our branch closures. Large reduction in intangible assets is largely due to the impairment in Retail. Assets and liabilities held for sale relates to the non-core businesses we are exiting. Moving to Slide 20, net debt. Our net bank debt of $337.1 million has a leverage ratio at 1.7x, which is well within our covenants and we have over $280 million of undrawn facilities. While debt levels are higher, our inventory reduction program and DC rationalization are expected to increase operating cash flows and improve debt levels going forward. In June, we refinanced $200 million of debt facilities and expanded headroom by $100 million to $300 million maturing in 2028 and 2029. And importantly, there are no facilities expiring in 2025. We have a strong interest cover ratio of 8.58x and a fixed cover charge ratio of 2.73 and have the balance sheet support we need to execute on our plans and support future growth. We intend to be very structured, disciplined and deliberate with the use of our capital within our new capital allocation framework. With that, I'll hand back to Mark for the summary and outlook.

Thanks, George. In closing, we know that FY '24 was a disappointing result and the Better than Before program did not deliver the benefits we all expected. The company is now focusing on simplification and the basics of running our business as well to enhance growth, to reset the cost base and drive a more efficient business that benefits customers and the employees that serve them. We're well progressed on the operational improvements I outlined earlier. So I won't repeat them here. But suffice to say, a lot has been done in recent months and there is more to come as we look to further reduce complexity and drive better employee and customer experiences. We expect our restructuring spend will pay back within the next 2 to 3 years. The savings we expect in FY '25 from these actions is $20 million to $30 million. These benefits are expected to be largely skewed to the second half of FY '25, with the savings from the headcount reductions coming through in the first half of FY '25, but the savings from the DC rationalization weighted towards the second half. Ultimately, we have strong fundamentals, top-tier brands and good market share, growth opportunities in revenue and margin, and a balance sheet with flexibility to undertake the programs to deliver better returns for our shareholders. We've started FY '25 well. We're feeling confident with revenue growth in the first 5 weeks of 7.7% with 2 extra selling days and like-for-like revenue, up 1%. And with that, I'll hand back to Cynthia for any questions.

[Operator Instructions] We will take our first question from Elijah Mayr with Goldman Sachs.

Just a couple for me. Maybe just firstly with the first 5 weeks of sales growth of 7.7%, can you step through that at a segment level and sort of talk about the drivers?

Elijah, I guess we've seen continued momentum come through largely that started in the fourth quarter. It's probably similar growth levels to what we've seen across each of the segments. On the positive side, we are starting to see a little bit of a turnaround on the retail side where like-for-like is up. Trade business has continued as we saw. And then Specialist Networks, we've also had fairly strong growth there, particularly in the auto electrical businesses. The other thing that's probably -- it's certainly welcome to me because I've said a number of times that New Zealand seems to have bottomed out, and I've been wrong every time I've said it. We are starting to see New Zealand turn around. So probably across the board, we're seeing improvements, which is a positive sign for us.

We will take our next question from Andrew Hodge with Canaccord Genuity.

The first question, just around the share -- the market share, Mark, particularly in Trade, even if we just use parts at the 2.1% growth, there's no definitive industry data. But that still feels, from several data points, lower than industry-wide growth. I'm just interested in what data you're using to say that you're not losing share.

Yes. Thanks, Andrew. It's -- you're right, there's no definitive data. We do use Capricorn data, which is the best proxy we have available. And so we're pretty confident with where we are with Capricorn. That represents, depending on how you look at, probably 40% -- 40% to 50% of the market. So that's a strong piece. We're also looking at where we are with our -- with the larger chains. So we're seeing a gradual shift to larger chains. So you think of the Mycars of the world and players like that. And we are growing our share with those larger chains. So Capricorn, flat to slightly up and then large chains growing, we feel pretty confident with where we're at. And of course, we also have a lot of discussions with key suppliers, understanding exactly where we are versus their volume, and we're confident there as well. So you're right, no definitive data, but we're pretty comfortable with where we're at, at the moment.

Great. Just, can I clarify, the $20 million to $30 million savings on the restructuring, is that at EBITDA level or NPAT level?

So there's a combination. There's some that will flow through D&A related to the restructuring and then the rest of it comes through as a cost of doing business.

Sorry, maybe I didn't ask it clearly. So the $20 million to $30 million, does that -- is that impact -- is that $20 million to $30 million benefit for the line of EBITDA or for the line of NPAT?

I guess, it's a bit more complicated than that because it depends on how we go in the rest of the operations, how inflation goes, how we go in trading. What we're saying is that we can see that $20 million to $30 million of savings coming through our costs.

It's not at the NPAT level. It's at the...

Yes.

Okay. And just the last question for me. Just when we last saw your scorecard, staff morale or the staff engagement had sort of slipped into the top of the fourth quartile. I can't imagine that cutting heads really helps that in the very near term, even though it's the right decision. Just what's the risk around the next 6 months with the business, just in terms of staff disengagement in an environment where you're actively and aggressively cutting costs?

Yes. Andrew, I'd probably look at it a little bit differently. We've certainly protected all of the frontline staff and so they're busy looking after customers and enthusiastically doing that. I think momentum internally within the support staffs is also positive because we've started to turn around the business. So I think everyone is looking at the business as we move forward rather than where we've been.

We will take our next question from John Campbell with Jefferies.

Just a couple for me. Just I think you alluded to it in the presentation, but what are you seeing in terms of sort of promotional and discounting activity in retail? And are you seeing any sort of evidence within Trade of more competitive pricing of supply?

Thanks, John. Yes, I think it's a broad question and it doesn't matter if it's Retail, Trade or networks or wholesale. The market is certainly very, very competitive and we're seeing that. We're getting after that at the same time because we obviously don't want to give up any share in any of the businesses. But we've got our own promotional activities. You're seeing promotional activities from the majority of our competition as well. But we're pretty confident with where we headed on margins. Margins are holding up fairly well as we look to sell across different ranges, work with suppliers as well.

And do you sort of see New Zealand as sort of a leading indicator of Australia that it sort of went into a deeper hole earlier starting to come out? Is that the sense you get that maybe Australia is 6 months behind New Zealand?

Yes, I guess this is a personal opinion, but I would concur with that. I think I've said that before that I've sort of seen it as a lead indicator. Hopefully, we're right. And New Zealand starting to turn the corner is something that augurs well for Australia as we move forward.

Okay. Great. Last one for me. I presume there's been no engagement at all with Bain.

Not at all.

Okay.

We'll take our next question from Mark Wade with CLSA.

Look, upon Angus' arrival tomorrow, what areas of that strategy are open to change? What's going to be set in stone, do you think, Mark?

Thanks, Mark. I guess, the first piece is the actions that we went through earlier. Angus has been through those and fully supportive. So they're all underway and the leadership team is busy in execution of those. So Angus will continue to work on those and see those through. The areas that he's going to look at, it's probably too early to talk about. He'll go through those and he'll get back to the market at an appropriate time. We're obviously not going to go through massive changes. We know the business that we're in, we know what we're good at. But Angus will certainly have his take on it and he'll work through and report back once he has an opportunity.

Okay. Fair enough. And look, I understand that Better than Before is dead and the desire of simplification, which I think is the right move. How are you setting yourself up with a bit of a rod in your back with this mighty de facto $20 million to $30 million savings target that lacks a lot of granularity?

Yes. Thanks, Mark. So firstly -- look, I'll answer it a couple of ways. Better than Before, we've spoken and there were probably too many initiatives, but what we've done is we've really narrowed down the focus, and they'll go back into the segments with people responsible for execution. So the initiatives themselves haven't been lost. I appreciate the skepticism around our ability to get $20 million to $30 million. It's a little bit different in terms of the way we go about it from the Better than Before programs. The $20 million to $30 million is really around the cost and it's all within our control. I mentioned earlier that -- we've got people costs. We know that we've delivered that before. So that one is relatively easy to validate. The DC rationalization is on the back of us closing Truganina in Victoria and moving that into DCV. We've got some really solid proof points. And the team is working really well together across the business to be able to rationalize those warehouses, so again, in that area where we're really confident with where we are. So I think the difference is some of the Better than Before were sort of revenue and margin-based. These are really cost of doing business and some of the other benefits will flow through depreciation as well. So they're cost-based within our control.

Hope it goes well. And just last one on the longer-term plans to appoint an independent non-exec chair.

I guess, you probably want to stand back from it. I think an understanding the combination of Chair and CEO in an Australian context is probably unusual, but it's common in the U.S. and other markets. We felt at the time it was appropriate for Bapcor given we were looking for both a Chair and a CEO. You wouldn't typically do it. But we've got someone really, really strong, very experienced CEO in Angus. So with the caliber of person, we think it's the right time to do this. It gives us advantages around accountability and speed of decision-making, increased transparency with the Board and things like that. So I think it's a good decision for us at the stage we're at. How long does it stay? Maybe it's 2, 3 years, maybe it's longer depending on how it goes. But we're pretty confident that it's the right thing to do. We've also put in place Mark Powell as a Lead Independent Director just to make sure that we have that governance that we need and clear separation and communication in respect of that as well.

We will take our next question from Craig Woolford with MST Marquee.

Mark and George, just wanted to ask a question perhaps on the half year and how that tends to work in this business, noting that the first half EBITDA was about $143 million in FY '24, in the second half, about $125 million. Is this a business that would normally have a fairly even earnings contribution at EBITDA by half year? Should we use the second half as a guideline to think about the starting point for FY '25?

Craig, great to hear from you. I think from an EBIT perspective, the first half was about $90 million, and we're delivering $175 million. So it's sort of consistent slightly above first half to second half historically. With going forward though, we see a large part of the $20 million to $30 million in savings to be skewed to the second half as these programs of works get undertaken.

So just to clarify with those cost savings, is it actually $20 million to $30 million delivered in the P&L? Or is it a run rate figure that you're...

No, actually -- yes, good question. It's actually delivered. The exit run rate will be higher.

Yes. Okay. So just to be clear at EBIT, that half-year split issue, it was -- did you say $90 million…

Yes. EBITDA $175 million. Yes.

Yes.

EBIT $175 million. Yes, so -- yes, I'd say, second half, about $79 million or so. So you -- anyway, I'll take that offline. Second question, just with where inventory levels are at and your commentary on the automated DCs, like, are those DCs running to business case?

Yes. The expectation is that inventory turnover days will continue to improve through our DC rationalization program. We do have business cases across each of the warehouses and that have been converted into the DCs. I think we've historically talked about a 26% target of inventory to sales. We're at 26.4%. But we are running 2 business cases historically on our DC rationalization and consolidation programs.

Okay. Great. And then just to clarify on the sales improvement, there was a little footnote about weekend, et cetera. Is there anything else in terms of noise or not lapping things from a year ago, whether it be timing of promotional campaigns or anything else that we could take into consideration?

No, it's more the lower 2 days, we thought it was appropriate to call that out.

Yes. Just with the differences in the business, obviously, Retail running 7 days and then some of the more Trade related businesses running 5 days, it makes the absolute comparison a little bit difficult to understand why we have 7.7% up in sales, but only 1% like-for-like.

Understood.

[Operator Instructions] We will return to Elijah Mayr with Goldman Sachs.

Apologies, I got kicked off the call. Apologies if this has already been asked as well. But just on the cost out, can you actually give a little bit more granularity or specificity on where that $20 million to $30 million is coming from, perhaps breaking down sort of what the headcount reduction will contribute, what the DC rationalization will contribute? And, yes, just a bit more color would be good.

Yes, no problem. So the key component, headcount reduction would probably be 50% to 60% of those total savings. As Mark called out, that's in our control. Those -- that strong progress has been made on that. Our consolidation of our branches and networks would represent 20% to 30% and the rest is through the DC rationalization program.

No problem. And then just following on from some of the questions around labor and employees, you historically used to call out some numbers around turnover. I was just wondering if you could give some color on employee turnover during the second half, specifically on those customer-facing roles and whether that has continued to deteriorate or has that stabilized and started to improve.

Definitely. And I think we're -- I'd like to say, it was all us, but there's probably a bit of market sentiment here that certainly our turnover levels have improved during the second half. So we are seeing a lot more stickiness of employees. But hopefully, part of it is optimism around our businesses and where we're headed. Certainly, the customer-facing people, working really with -- well with our customers and starting to drive improvement. So I think that helps us as well.

We'll take our next question from James Bales with Morgan Stanley.

I just wanted to get your thoughts on total CapEx for FY '25 and maybe just the composition of growth versus sustaining CapEx.

Yes. Thank you, James. I think as we've called out, we've got a lot more stores rolling out in 2025. We've called out 10-plus stores in Burson. There'll be other growth of stores. So we're seeing that to get back to the levels of '23 around store growth. Sustaining CapEx, we're continuing to invest and we've called out IT investments. So we see that remaining at the same level in '25.

Okay. So just to clarify on growth CapEx, the $23 million that was there in '24, what's coming out of that? Or should we think about the 10 additional stores as incremental to the $23 million spent in the last 12 months?

Yes, it's going to be incremental to the spend that we've got in '24.

[Operator Instructions] And we will take our next question from James Casey with Ord Minnett.

My line has been dropping in and out, but I'll go ahead with my questions. Just the exiting of the non-core businesses that you've highlighted, what's the total revenue that's represented by those so-called divestments?

Thanks, James. The amount is not significant and certainly not something we'd want to call out, but will have very little impact on our overall revenue.

Okay, no problems. My second question is with regard to the support function rationalization, the 100 roles. There was 100 roles also reported in the first half that were reduced as well. So is that a total of 200 staff for the FY '24 year?

That's correct, James. But different types of roles.

Yes. And therefore the reduction of those 200 roles will make up that 50% of the total cost saves that you're going for in FY '25.

Yes, I think that's consistent with what we've got. Yes.

Yes. Okay. And then just finally, just within the Specialist Wholesale business, you're obviously consolidating the commercial vehicle segment. Does that include the elimination of brands and/or store closures?

There's certainly store closures/consolidation of stores. So as you consolidate, we obviously don't need 2 sites, we can get by with 1. So there is a little bit of that. In terms of brands, we haven't fully worked through where we are with all the brands. It's more the way we're going around about the entire business and how we're managing it to make sure we've got the simplest approach to the business.

Okay. And then just finally, just that practice of the closure of the distribution centers during your stock take, which took place in the FY '24 year, but I think it also took place in the FY '23 year, Mark, I just wondered, is that going to continue that practice? And is that a normal part of the industry to undertake that closure?

James, I probably need to refer back to my experience in the automotive industry, where we would close our operations for manufacturing to give the facilities an opportunity for all the house cleaning and product changeovers and things like that. So it was one that I sort of push the supply chain to look at for this June. Not necessarily for June, but what -- if we had to do it, when would we do it? The best timing for us coincidentally just happens to be the last 2 weeks of June, because we've just been through the highest selling period for the trade group. So it's the best time for them to do warehouse rearrangements. We use the opportunity to bring in all of the -- to bring in Truganina as well. So it certainly helped from that standpoint. Do we continue it? We probably need better at -- need to get better at how we go about it, minimize the time. But I think it would be safe to say we lost very little, if any, revenue as we went through it.

At this time, there are no further questions. Mr. Bernhard, I will turn the conference back over to you for any additional or closing remarks.

Thanks, Cynthia. I just want to thank everyone who's joined the call today. I think most people are aware, I'll be returning to the Board in September. I'll certainly relish the opportunity to get involved, work with the team, and get a much deeper understanding of our business. I'm excited to get back, but I'm also excited by the opportunity that Bapcor has got ahead of us, confident with the direction and confident with Angus leading the team. With that, thank you, everyone.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.