Beacon Lighting Group Limited (BLX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Beacon Lighting Group Full Year FY 2023 Results. [Operator Instructions] For opening remarks, I would like to turn the conference over to the Beacon Lighting Group Chairman, Mr. Ian Robinson. Go ahead. Thanks, Ian.

Thank you, [ Alisa ], and good morning, shareholders. I'm Ian Robinson, Executive Chairman of the Beacon Lighting Group, and welcome to the presentation on the financial results for the year 2023. I'm joined with our Chief Executive Officer, Glen Robinson; and our Chief Financial Officer, David Speirs, on this teleconference. Our focus during the financial year 2023 has been on building a strong relationship with our trade customers and exciting our retail customers with the latest in lighting and ceiling fan designs. Despite challenging consumer confidence, our trade initiatives have been well-received and have contributed positively to our sales performance. The year can be divided in 2 distinct halves with robust sales in the first half, along with inflationary pressures and some -- on some expense lines and some sales softening in the second half due to changing consumer trends and cost of living pressures. We responded swiftly in the second half by managing gross profit margins and expenses effectively. Looking ahead to the next financial year, we're excited to announce our plans on an extensive store opening program in 2024. This initiative will see the addition of 8 new Beacon Lighting stores across Australia, further solidifying our position as a key provider of lighting, ceiling fans and electrical solutions for the Australian home. I want to take a moment to express our gratitude to our dedicated team whose expertise and commitment [indiscernible] a positive experience for our customers. We also extend our thanks to our customers for their continued support and appreciation of our evolving product range proudly designed and developed in Australia. The agenda for today's presentation is outlined on Page 2. Our CEO, Glen Robinson, will kick off things with the results overview, followed by our CFO, David Speirs, discussing the financial results. Glen will move past to our growth strategy and outlook, and we'll wrap up with a Q&A session. Without further delay, I hand over to Glen to provide an overview of the results.

Thank you, Ian, and warm welcome to all attendees. Let's begin by focusing on Page 4, where we will present the key financial highlights of the year. The group achieved record sales of $312 million, an increase of 2.5% over the previous year. The group's gross profit margin remained strong at 67.7% and a significant strength of our vertically integrated supply chain from factory to store to customer. This strong gross profit result was pleasing, considering a significant increase in trade and commercial sales for the group. We closed the year with a solid net profit after tax result of $33.6 million. The business has experienced strong growth in financial year 2023 from the pre-COVID year of financial year 2019, with sales up 34.3% and net profit after tax up a substantial 107.3% on financial year 2019. We also effectively managed our inventory, strategically reducing levels from the first half results, whilst introducing new items catered to the evolving needs of our trade customers. The group finished the year with a robust cash position exceeding $20.7 million. Moving to Page 5. Let's explore our financial performance for the year 2023 in a little further detail. Despite a shift in Australian economy marked by rising interest rates, inflation across many expense lines and low unemployment, the group achieved a reasonable 2.5% increase in total sales, reaching $312 million. Notably, this growth occurred even without the usual 4 to 6 new store openings that we would typically expect in any given year. During the year, we experienced good sales growth in the first half. However, with increasing interest rates and cost of living pressures affecting consumer demand, the second half was more challenging to achieve growth. While our gross profit margin of 67.7% were slightly down from last year's record of 69.1%, we remained strong, considering currency fluctuations and increased sales in the trade channel. Operating expenses grew by 6.9%, representing 40.6% of sales compared to 39% last year, a reasonable result given the inflationary environment. EBITDA reached $85.6 million, down $7.6 million from the previous year and net profit after tax was $33.6 million, marking a 17.4% decline from last year's record results in the net profit after tax. These results reflect our ability to navigate a challenging economic landscape, adjusting quickly where required and focusing on our strategic growth channels. On Page 6, we'll review the operational highlights that defined the 2023 year. In December, a significant milestone was achieved as we re-launched the Beacon Trade loyalty platform. This newly revamped platform powered by an industry-leading loyalty system serves as a testament to our commitment to enhancing trade customer benefits within the program. Capitalizing on this initiative, coupled with increased trade marketing and expanded array of trade products, our sales to electricians, builders and interior designers improved by an impressive 21.6% compared to the previous year. Notably, our online trade sales also experienced robust growth with an increase of 36%. These achievements proved instrumental in mitigating the impact of the softening consumer spending environment. Throughout the year, due to construction delays on many sites, the group was not able to grow the total store count. This wasn't from lack of trying. We unfortunately needed to shut 2 stores. We opened 2 new stores and relocated 2 stores to better sites. So despite not being able to grow the store count, there is still plenty of activity during the year. During the year, the group invested more into marketing, overall, up 7.6%, with a major increase occurring across our trade marketing program, promoting the Beacon Trade brand and the many benefits of partnering with Beacon Trade. Thank you. And I'll now pass it over to David to review some further financial results.

Thank you, Glen. Sales on Page 8. It is exciting to recognize the Beacon Lighting team for achieving a record sales result of $312 million in financial year 2023. Throughout the year, comparative sales increased by 0.4%, with a comparative sales increase of 6.4% in half 1, followed by a 5.4% decrease in half 2. The best performing states were South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia. Trade sales for all the trade businesses and channels continue to underpin the group's sales results. Total trade sales increased by 21.6%. Online trade sales were a highlight with an increase of 36%. Beacon Lighting Commercial and Custom Lighting need to be recognized for achieving record sales in financial year 2023. Gross profit. The Beacon Lighting gross profit increased to $211.3 million or 67.7% of sales. Being a vertically integrated business, Beacon Lighting can manage the product supply chain from factory to customer. This means Beacon Lighting does have intimate insight into the cost base and can manage selling prices accordingly. Despite experiencing product inflation at various stages throughout the year and the sales mix towards trade, Beacon Lighting has retained a good portion of the gross profit margin improvement achieved over recent years. The 636 new products introduced by the Beacon Lighting team consist of the latest fashion, innovative and energy-efficient and fan products and when combined with the outstanding service from our store teams, have continued to excite our retail and trade customers and support our gross profit margins. Expenses. Like many other businesses, Beacon Lighting has experienced inflationary cost pressures with a number of our expenses. Beacon Lighting has managed our expenses carefully and achieved a particularly good outcome in the second half of the year. Beacon Lighting has continued to invest in marketing for our retail, trade, international and new businesses. With the recent success of sales to the trade, a lot of marketing investment has been directed towards retaining and acquiring trade customers. Selling and distribution expenses have increased by 7.5%, with significant increases in freight and maintenance costs. There's also been a modest increase in general and administration expenses. The 6.5% increase in depreciation reflects the increase in property leases and the continued CapEx investment in the future of the group. The 15.3% increase in finance costs reflects the recent increase in interest rates. Overall, operating expenses for the year increased by 6.9% to $126.8 million or 40.6% sales. Balance sheet. The Beacon Lighting trade receivables have increased by $1.5 million, reflecting the growing importance of trade. Other receivables consisting of loans to the Large Format Property Fund or development projects have increased by $2.5 million. Inventory peaked in December 2022 at $107.1 million due to the increased orders for safety stock and the [ Chinese ] factories improving their manufacturing capacity, resulting in orders being shipped only to Beacon Lighting. Since then, the inventories have been carefully managed to finish the year at $96.9 million. Substantially supporting the investment in inventory, total borrowings have increased to $22.4 million. Beacon Lighting still has a significant balance of unused bank facilities to support future growth. Beacon Lighting is faced with a cash balance of $20.7 million. Cash flow. Operating cash flows have declined due to the increased investment in inventory, receivables and the reduction in payables. Beacon Lighting has invested $11.6 million in the future of the group, which included stores, technology, the Beacon Group Support Center and product development. The group is delighted to have paid $18.6 million in dividends to our shareholders plus $2.2 million in dividends, which have been reinvested into BLX shares. Dividend. The Board of Directors have reintroduced the Dividend Reinvestment Plan. All shares issued under the Dividend Reinvestment Plan will be issued at a 5% discount to the market price. The directors have declared a fully franked dividend of $0.04 per share for the second half. The directors have either paid or declared a fully franked dividend of [ $0.083 ] per share for financial year 2023. In the future, the annual dividend payout ratio is expected to be 50% to 60% of the net profit after tax results. Thank you, and I will pass it back to Glen.

Thanks, David. Let's move on to Page 14 where we outline our key strategic pillars for growth. Our 4 growth pillars remain steadfast guide, driving our efforts this year and beyond. Our commitment revolves around stores. We continue to evolve our retail customer experience to [ refine ] our market standing by offering exciting products and lighting design in our industry-leading showrooms. Trade, nurturing supportive relationships with electricians, builders and interior designers in reinventing how they purchase and specify their lighting, ceiling fans and electrical accessories for the Australian home. E-commerce needs to continue to evolve to be a seamless experience for our customers across Beacon Lighting and Beacon Trade, in-store or online however and wherever our customers want to engage with us. New businesses and international opportunities. We're exploring growth prospects that align with our strengths and values and leverage the products that are designed and developed here in Australia and sold worldwide. These pillars remain the foundation of our strategy, anchoring us in delivering customer-centric results. Turn on to Page 15, we'll provide an update on the first growth pillar, our core store operations. Beacon Lighting occupies a unique position in the specialty lighting, ceiling fans, globes and electrical accessories category, with 119 stores spanning all states and territories, bolstered by robust logistics and infrastructure and a vertically integrated supply chain encompassing design, development, manufacturing, marketing and sales. We maintain a leading role within our category. Our commitment to delivering value to our store customers is [ epitomized ] by the engaging in-store experience we offer, industry-leading products, the expertise in our service as well as the convenience of Click & Collect and online shopping. During the year, we saw openings were tempered by construction delays across several prospective sites. Nonetheless, we successfully opened new stores in Pimpama, Queensland, and Armadale, WA, and execute store location -- sorry, executed store relocations in Nunawading, Victoria, and Southport, Queensland. We also made a strategic decision to close the Clarkson store in WA and the Crossroads store in New South Wales. We're pleased to continue to grow our comparative store sales across the network by 6.4% in the first half, however, comparative sales were below last year, down 5.4% in the second half and therefore, gave us some minor increase for the full year at 0.4% over last year. Creating bespoke lighting designs for our customers is core to our service offering. We were pleased to grow our Beacon Design Studio sales by 38%. Elevating the customer experience, we partnered with [ Touch ], an initiative that introduced 74 interactive touchscreens across our network. These screens enable customers to explore products beyond what's physically displayed in-store, offering lifestyle images for inspiration. Additionally, [ Touch ] provides our trade customers access to their personalized accounts, showcasing their purchase history, exclusive trade pricing and [ their ] [ Beacon ] cash balance. Innovation remained a hallmark as our dedicated product team based here in Australia conceived and developed an impressive 636 new and exclusive products. These offerings embodied the latest in technology advancements, [ stock ] and essentials for the trade. As of the end of financial year, our VIP member base tallied at 989,000 customers, affording us the opportunity for personalized offerings and services through direct marketing. In March of this year, we refreshed our store network plan, identifying the potential for an expansive 195 stores across Australia, signifying a remarkable 64% store expansion opportunity. On Page 16, we'll provide an update on the Trade growth pillar. Our top priority for growth remains Trade. By supporting our Trade customers, we'll create positive impacts on their businesses and [ MRs ]. In December, we unveiled an innovative trade loyalty program after more than 1 year of development. This program benefits trade customers and their clients, streamlining processes and enhancing rewards for our loyal trade partners. Beacon Lighting uniquely connects trade professionals, electricians, builders, designers and homeowners. This mutual referral approach empowers trade growth, while rewarding both the trade customer, their clients and the overall industry. Despite homebuilding turbulence, Beacon Trade sales increased by 21.6%, showcasing consistent progress in growing market share and with a shortage of housing across Australia, the trade growth opportunities are significant. 36% of Beacon Design Studio projects were completed for the trade or their customers, showing a great time saving resource for our trade customers. At the end of the financial year, we grew our valued Trade member base to 50,700 partners. Beacon Commercial achieved an 18.5% sales increase, primarily catering towards the volume residential builders and commercial projects. We expanded our Trade specific product range by 200 items and introduced new in-store merchandising displays. This year saw an unparalleled investment in trade marketing, effectively combine the many benefits of the Beacon Trade partnership. Our commitment to Trade growth continues into financial year 2024. On Page 17, we'll focus on e-commerce growth pillar. Beacon Lighting now operates 16 websites catering to various brands and sales channels within the group. Our primary websites are beaconlighting.com.au and beacontrade.com.au. Throughout the year, we introduced 2 new websites to promote specific brands, GE Imagine Smart Lighting and Made by Mayfair, a high-end lighting brand. Our Beacon Trade website experienced remarkable growth with a 47% increase in visitation and 36% surge in sales, driven by expanded trade marketing, new product offering and a growing trade customer base. Our value trade customers can shop online [ 24/7 ] and get their products delivered free to site or their home or office. They will also receive the same great trade prices that they receive in-store and grow their Beacon cash balance when shopping online. We maintain a focus on personalization across our website to enhance the online customer experience. Additionally, we upheld our industry-leading offering of 3-hour customer delivery in major metro markets in 1-hour Click & Collect for both retail and trade customers. As post-COVID shopping patterns normalized, more customers returned to our store network, leading to an overall decline in online sales. Nevertheless, online sales continue to contribute significantly, representing 10% of overall store sales. Crucially, we remain committed to investing in our online channels, ensuring a seamless customer experience, both in-store and online. Moving on to Page 18. We'll now turn our attention to the final strategic growth pillar, new businesses. Our new businesses offer exciting opportunities for diversification beyond our retail trade and e-commerce core. These emerging ventures allow us to invest, learn and develop and foster growth for the future. Beacon Lighting Europe displayed great sales momentum, achieving an impressive 53% sales increase. In the U.S., our lighting showroom [ in general ] experienced a 32.8% growth in customers, while the overall U.S. business couldn't replicate the record results for financial year 2022 due to some of our customers being overstocked and a shift in e-commerce demand. Beacon Lighting U.S.A. still achieved a 22.6% increase from the financial year 2021 results, though slightly behind last year's record. We remain committed to growth of [ ceiling fan ] sales in the U.S. market. Our efforts into China market remained positive with Tmall Global sales channel increasing almost 100% in sales. Among our emerging businesses, Custom Lighting reported a terrific 32.5% sales increase. Connected Light Solutions, our roadway lighting business, grew by 29.3%. Masson for Light, our architectural lighting business, grew by 16.4% and Light Source Solutions, our globe business in New Zealand market grew by 6.7%. Additionally, the group now holds a 50% stake in 7 retail property sites within Australia, aligning with our strategy to enhance ownership of operational sites. Notably, we successfully completed the development of the site in Southport, Queensland and relocated our Southport store to this new location. On Page 19, we'll talk about sustainability. Beacon Lighting Group firmly believes that every business can positively impact the environment. As Australia's leading lighting supplier, we've dedicated the past decade to implementing operational measures aimed at minimizing our environmental footprint. This commitment is evident in our utilization of solar power. We've equipped 62 of our stores and all distribution centers with large solar systems, harnessing renewable energy to directly power our operations. We commenced a trial in New South Wales and South Australia stores to evaluate the possibility to recycle [ going through ] our customers. In an alignment with our environmental goals, we have phased out single-use plastic carry-bags, introduced recycled paper bags as an eco-friendly alternative. Our packaging strategy emphasizes sustainability by substantially eliminating the use of polystyrene and plastics in our packaging, which reduces our impact on landfill waste considerably. Additionally, we have eliminated outer packaging for goods sourced from overseas suppliers, embracing sustainability with integrated returnable wooden pallets into our store network deliveries. Our LED globe range thoughtfully designed and offered to our customers surpasses Australia's draft determinations on LED and integrating globe efficiency standards. At the core of our mission is a commitment to innovation, efficiency, longevity, quality materials and thoughtful design. Our aim is to provide customers with products that not only save electricity, but also offer years of dependable lighting and ceiling fan use. On Page 21, we can review the financial year 2024 outlook for the Beacon Lighting Group. Company store comparative sales have made a slower start to financial year 2024 compared to the elevated post-COVID sales result in Q1 financial year 2023. Our commitment to enhancing the lives and businesses of our Trade customers remains Beacon Lighting's top priority, with a positive Trade sales momentum continuing into the early stages of financial year 2024. Current gross profit margins remained consistent with the results from financial year 2023. Exciting prospects lie ahead as we anticipate the opening of 8 new stores in financial year 2024, with stores in Mount Barker, South Australia; Mildura, Victoria; Auburn, New South Wales; which is a property fund development; Warrawong in New South Wales; Busselton in WA; Devonport in Tasmania; Gregory Hills in New South Wales; and Ballina in New South Wales. Additionally, we plan to relocate the Cranbourne Victorian store to a larger and more prominent site. Our international expansion continues as we introduced more Australian designed fans and lighting products to our overseas markets, including the U.S.A., Asia and Europe. And with greater opportunity [ to travel ], our product development team look forward to introducing the latest technology, fashion and energy-efficient products to our valued customers in Australia, staying at the forefront of lighting, ceiling fans and electrical accessories. Our focus on store expansion, Beacon Trade, e-commerce and the Beacon International product range positions us to deliver the most advanced lighting ceiling fans and electrical accessories underscored by expertise in our category. Thank you for your time. I'll hand you back to Ian to address any questions.

Thank you, Glen and David, for your very comprehensive reports. Now, we'll open for questions -- any questions for us.

[Operator Instructions] We have our first question from Taylor Guyot at Barrenjoey.

My first one is how should we think about trade sales growth into FY '24?

Look, we've been on a push for trade sales since 2020. That's when we really started pushing [ into it ]. I think we're part of the way along the journey. We've had significant growth in those years, and we'd expect to be able to continue to drive growth through our initiatives that are still coming into the business [Technical Difficulty] through new products, new marketing and the awareness of understanding how to better serve our trade from our 1,100 teams in group, that's continuing to build. It is still our number one priority. We've just finished our national conferences going -- starting around all the state teams, all the store managers. And I say that most of the conversation was around trade and was an exciting [ conversation ] that we're pushing very hard towards.

It's a long journey and we're probably only in the early starts with that journey. So just a lot of other programs that -- they have to be initiated and we're pretty excited with the prospects of this journey.

And then just on gross margins into '24. How should we think about them in the context of a weaker AUD but also better freight rates?

Yes. We have certainly had a -- the Aussie dollar [ has certainly devalued ] [indiscernible] over the last probably 12 to sort of 18 months. But obviously, we've had some advantages of freight. And also we're starting to get some slightly better prices out of the China factories as well. So maybe the 2 kind of counter each other and we have done a lot of work -- good work on managing our retail prices. So I think our margins should be similar to where we are historically.

I guess one of the significant benefits that Beacon has is that we are vertically integrated. So we can see where things are moving in China. And you can see where freight rates are moving. And then, of course, we have to adjust with the Aussie dollar. So we have proved over many years that we can adjust to the change in circumstances because we'll control that vertical integration.

And we've got a long tail in the stock. Stock is -- stock we're selling today is stock we bought 8 months ago. So you've got to go back 8 months to [Technical Difficulty].

And then last one for me. Could you please quantify your exposure to minimum wages, rent, and any other cost increases for FY '24? And also, just what portion of your cost base is variable versus fixed, please?

Wow. That's a good question. Well, wages are obviously going up, and you've seen the minimum wage increases going through. The vast majority of our team members are well above the award. So we -- but it does set a view out there about what wage increases should look like for our team members. So that's something we've got to be mindful of. But we've also got to be conscious that we wanted to serve our trade customers and we've had probably more customers coming back into the stores versus online. So there is a mix there about how you resource these stores and team members you need [Technical Difficulty] -- owing to that traffic demand. So that's first part. I think from expenses point of view, we've seen obviously inflation across many expense lines, but it looks like some of them maybe say [ selling ] down a little bit. I definitely think our first half expenses experienced greater inflation versus than what we've seen in our second half and we've been able to much better control in the second half [Technical Difficulty] going forward into this first half financially [Technical Difficulty] --expenses will be tightly watched and closely managed. [indiscernible] your questions there?

Yes. Sorry. Just also the portion of what's variable and fixed, please?

Variable versus fixed, well, yes. You can think -- obviously, rents are relatively fixed out there. We only have the opportunity to negotiate a small handful of rents out there.

They're usually a 7-year term. So kind of fixed cost.

Yes. Most [ electrician ] costs are relatively fixed, and we've been doing reasonably well [Technical Difficulty] solar systems. Freight costs, they tend to move around a lot, but unfortunately, [Technical Difficulty]. You don't have a lot of buying power when it comes to freight costs [Technical Difficulty] increases throughout the 2023 year. So we would expect a [Technical Difficulty] opportunity as much of a challenge into the financial year. That just kind of gives you a bit of a flavor on the variable versus fixed.

Our next question is from Alexander Mees at Morgans.

Just first question to follow up on Tyler's question really. Just around general and admin expenses. I think they were up 9% in the first half, but only 2% for the full year. What exactly changed to ensure that you had a much better outcome in that line over the second half, please?

In the second half -- we did provide for some sort of executive bonuses in the first half given the performance against budget. That was certainly not needed in the second half. So there was a little bit of a reversal there.

And then just with regard to sales, I'm just trying to disaggregate some of the building blocks here. Could you give me a sense for what international sales did in aggregate? And also, I'm assuming that we saw about maybe a negative mid-single digit movement in retail sales over the course of the year. Is that roughly right?

I think our international sales were just slightly down in total, and that's because we had some areas that were increasing and some areas that were decreasing. I think when we have a look at just the retail sales going to retail stores, they were actually just slightly ahead, but certainly not showing the same growth as what we've seen from our trade customers. So yes, I think that's probably about a summary of it. David?

Yes, Alex, the online sales did decline in our stores. So that was sort of the big sort of decline we had in stores this financial year, obviously, compared to [ lockdowns ] in 2022.

And then just sticking with sales, I understand you don't want to give a number, but you referred to a slower start to FY '24. I guess how does that compare to what you might have expected?

Well, I think what we've got to consider is Q1 last year was, I would say, almost extremely elevated sales that we had experienced. And if you put your mind back to then, we were -- it was obviously -- it was post-COVID, but the year prior to that, we had New South Wales and Victoria in lockdown. So the sales growth that we were getting over from the Q1 results were strong double-digit comps and that's what we're cycling now. So are we disappointed with our current results? It's probably what we would have expected being how strong that first Q1 was in financial year 2023. We see, as we come into Q2, things start to get a bit easier from a comparative sales point of view. So that's just where we are. And the market tries to look for that 6 to 7 weeks of sales and we're always reasonably hesitant to provide any detailed information about it, because in retail, that is a very short period of time and we are cycling those big results, but we expect coming into Q2, it should be a fair bit easier.

Yes, this time that -- the key thing is it's not far from your expectations. And then just finally, Trade. Obviously, another really great year for Trade. What proportion of overall revenue came from Trade in '23, please?

I think we got to -- was it 29%, David? Is that right?

It was.

Yes. 29% was total Trade sales, which -- if we went back 5 years ago, we probably would have been around about 14%, 15%. So there's certainly been a big shift in the business. And as we indicated through the presentation, I'm glad that we had the strong Trade sales growth to help the overall sales because certainly, the consumer was a bit softer than what we've seen in the past couple of years. So that did help us support the overall sales with that strong trade growth.

I hope it certainly cracks 30% in '24, I'm sure.

Our next question is from Sam Teeger from Citi.

In the current weaker sales environment, how long are you finding it takes for a new store to, one, breakeven and then to mature? Just trying to get a sense as to the margin impact from the larger number of store openings you'll have in FY '24?

Sam, I think it's a bit tough to say because we've only opened 2 new stores in the year. Historically, we have obviously seen an improvement in that number over the last few years compared to where we were a number of years ago. But what we're seeing over -- for the stores that we have opened is a more rapid increase in sales. And with the increasing gross profit margins through those stores as well, obviously, the payback is fairly quicker. So we would anticipate -- 8 stores is a lot of stores to open for us in a year. We usually do 4 to 6. We really anticipate that the majority of those will be very successful stores. We've certainly been waiting for these stores for probably 18 months longer than what we would have anticipated. So we're very keen to get into them.

But this time next year, do you think there will likely be a temporary margin headwind from -- has that been ramping up or [ do you ] expect that?

I think we've been able to open the stores more effectively over the last 12 months. And that won't change because the stores have got larger and more exciting. And overall, the customers are showing their support by ramping up the sales more quickly. So just 6 years to maturity, it's probably come back a fair bit. Some of the stores have been very, very successful.

I think it's the trade -- the trades [indiscernible] getting into the trading -- the new stores a lot quicker than we did previously. And I think that's what sort of stretched out the maturity cycle. So we're actually having a lot stronger sales results in the [ year 1 ] than we had previously, Sam.

So you said 6 years to maturity…?

And they're used to…

[indiscernible]?

[indiscernible] compared to [ 1 year ]. That's probably improved in the last 2 or 3 years.

And then what's the average period to breakeven?

I think if we were opening 8 stores, the significant majority will be profitable this year immediately.

And just…?

It won't be as nice a margin -- your profit margin, but it will still be a good breakeven.

And the 8 new stores, how many of the 8 at the moment would you expect will fall in the first half?

It's so hard to call. There is a bit of a push into the first half. They might be in the second quarter.

It's a heavy run up to Christmas, it seems at the moment, trying to get them opened.

So we're pretty confident we'll get them all opened, and the majority of -- well, more than 50% will be in the first half. Yes.

And then just last question. If we could just talk about inventory a bit more. Just wondering your thoughts in terms of how you're filling it and your inventory position more broadly? I've noted in FY '23 inventory days are up, inventory write-downs are up. The provision for stock optimization also up. Just do you feel you're carrying too much stock and what's the plans to address this [indiscernible]?

I think we got to integrate the new product -- the new Trade product move into the system. So that's one component. So we are also getting discounts on discounts from China. A lot of factories under extreme pressure currently there. So that's going to be helpful in regard to be able to probably reduce the cost of goods. So I don't think we -- we manage stock on our perception that you're buying 30 to 60 light fittings for a house. And if you're out of stock, you [ call ] and talk to your trade suppliers. And one of the key components that the trade guys want is the availability of stock and having a reasonably diverse range that forces us to keep a fair amount of stock. And you've got to be careful, too, Sam, to compare the stock numbers previously through COVID period, you couldn't get any stock and you [ were ] to sell things that were almost -- things that were [indiscernible], without having to [ delight ] them. So it is a different environment there.

Yes. But I think from -- talking about the currency of the stock or the cleanliness of the stock, we feel confident with the product. I mean, we've got a lot of margin in a lot of these products that if we have to take a haircut on it to sell it to clear it through, it's not going to overly impact the overall gross profit margin, but we can clear it pretty quickly if we have to. Now, there's not a lot of products. We have -- Ian and I both are very close to the product range. It's not a lot of products that we're overly concerned about.

Our next question, Kseniya Chadayeva from Jarden.

Just on the growth in U.S. With [ infrastructure ] and with [indiscernible] at the top, how should we think about this going forward? And any updates on how your new B2C website is performing, any [indiscernible]?

Sorry [indiscernible]. It's quite hard to hear you. Do you want to just repeat the first part of the question? I think it was about the U.S.

You're very mute. Very difficult to hear. So if you'd like to get closer to your microphone and probably speak a little bit slower, please?

So yes, just on the U.S. growth, it was impacted this time. How should we think about this going forward? And any update on how your new B2C website is performing? Any extra color on U.S. would be good.

No worries at all. Look, we're still 100% behind the U.S. business. It was definitely a slower year than what we would have liked, but we were coming off a record sales result in financial year 2022. And what we saw within financial '22 was similar to what Beacon Lighting went through. There's a lot of businesses that overstocked because it was hard to get the inventory during FY 2022, and they're our customers now. So in Australia, it's easy for us because we're vertically integrated. We buy the product and we sell it for our stores. In the U.S., we're selling to these customers -- these wholesale customers. They over-ordered, and of course, what happens, they stop ordering for a short period of time. And what we can see from the half-to-half sales in the international business was that the first half was slow. But the second half, we did actually have some growth there. So we just -- we see it's rebalancing and these customers will get back up and re-ordering again. But this is happening all throughout China at the moment. So there's a lot of factors that are quite concerned that the U.S. demand has pulled back so dramatically. And I actually don't see that as dramatic as that. I see that a lot of the U.S. businesses were definitely overstocked, and that's well discussed and documented. And now they're just going to get their inventory back under control and starting to place regular orders like they had been used to. And we definitely saw that in the second half. So we're 100% supportive of the business and looking forward to the future growth in that business. And it's a huge market and exciting opportunity. The B2C website has been interesting one. We've certainly been focused more so on other existing channels. So e-commerce channels and our showroom -- we're growing our showroom channels. And you can see in the presentation pack that we grew our showroom channel by -- customer base by over 30%. The B2C is a difficult one because you have to have quite a number of resources to service that B2C customer base, and it does somewhat fight against your current wholesale customers in the U.S. market. So we're not putting as much emphasis behind the B2C business. In fact, we're not spending any marketing on AdWords, pushing customers to that B2C business. Rather, we're trying to support our on-sales, our e-commerce platforms and our showroom channel so that they can grow the sales force. So that's our main focus at the moment.

Yes. The international business is a good, solid business, and it's been profitable for many, many years. So in that regard, it's got a good solid basis to work from. I suppose, what we're pretty excited about is we'll finally be able to get back and talk to our customers post-COVID because -- we'll be exhibiting in Dallas, Hong Kong and Frankfurt this year, and that's the first time we've actually been able to get out and talk to our existing customers and find new customers for [ over ] 3 years since 2019.

And also on your -- sorry, you had record sales in your Commercial and Custom Lighting. It seems like construction activity started to ramp up across the industry after significant backlog. How do you see your order book in the next 6 to 12 months?

Strong. We're seeing the Commercial order book strong for the last 2 years. And they're predominantly selling to the volume residential builders. And there's obviously been a fair bit of pain out there for volume residential builders, but I think we've been servicing our customers well. There's still a lot of houses that need to be finished off and a bit of a backlog there. And it looks like the governments are buying and they're a bit more supportive of putting in a bit of stimulus into the volume residential building to get more housing going. So it's been surprisingly consistent.

I think we were very surprised by the success of our Trade business. We work out with -- all the talk on the construction side for volume residential building and the slowing down of permits for us. We'd see a fall off, but it keeps on continuing to have a very -- well, there's an order book going forward which hasn't changed very much over the last 12 months, and it's not expected to change very much either. We got to the orders [ holding ], it's not decreasing.

And we don't have any further questions.

Very good. Okay. Thanks very much, [ Alisa ]. That's the situation, we can enjoy the rest of the day and let everyone get back to work. Thank you.

Thank you.

Bye.